“And what are you going to do in Florence?” asked Argyle.
Aaron explained.
“Well,” said Argyle. “Make what you can out of them, and then go. Go before they have time to do the dirty on you. If they think you want anything from them, they’ll treat you like a dog, like a dog. Oh, they’re very frightened of anybody who wants anything of them: frightened to death. I see nothing of them. — Live by myself — see nobody. Can’t stand it, you know: their silly little teaparties — simply can’t stand it. No, I live alone — and shall die alone. — At least, I sincerely hope so. I should be sorry to have any of them hanging round.”
The restaurant was empty, the pale, malarial waiter — he had of course contracted malaria during the war — was looking purple round the eyes. But Argyle callously sat on. Aaron therefore rose to his feet.
“Oh, I’m coming, I’m coming,” said Argyle.
He got unsteadily to his feet. The waiter helped him on with his coat: and he put a disreputable-looking little curly hat on his head. Then he took his stick.
“Don’t look at my appearance, my dear fellow,” said Argyle. “I am frayed at the wrists — look here!” He showed the cuffs of his overcoat, just frayed through. “I’ve got a trunkful of clothes in London, if only somebody would bring it out to me. — Ready then! Avanti!”
And so they passed out into the still rainy street. Argyle lived in the very centre of the town: in the Cathedral Square. Aaron left him at his hotel door.
“But come and see me,” said Argyle. “Call for me at twelve o’clock — or just before twelve — and let us have luncheon together. What! Is that all right? — Yes, come just before twelve. — When? — Tomorrow? Tomorrow morning? Will you come tomorrow?”
Aaron said he would on Monday.
“Monday, eh! You say Monday! Very well then. Don’t you forget now. Don’t you forget. For I’ve a memory like a vice. I shan’t forget. — Just before twelve then. And come right up. I’m right under the roof. In Paradise, as the porter always says. Siamo nel paradiso. But he’s a cretin. As near Paradise as I care for, for it’s devilish hot in summer, and damned cold in winter. Don’t you forget now — Monday, twelve o’clock.”
And Argyle pinched Aaron’s arm fast, then went unsteadily up the steps to his hotel door.
The next day at Algy’s there was a crowd Algy had a very pleasant flat indeed, kept more scrupulously neat and finicking than ever any woman’s flat was kept. So today, with its bowls of flowers and its pictures and books and old furniture, and Algy, very nicely dressed, fluttering and blinking and making really a charming host, it was all very delightful to the little mob of visitors. They were a curious lot, it is true: everybody rather exceptional. Which though it may be startling, is so very much better fun than everybody all alike. Aaron talked to an old, old Italian elegant in side-curls, who peeled off his grey gloves and studied his formalities with a delightful Mid-Victorian dash, and told stories about a plaint which Lady Surry had against Lord Marsh, and was quite incomprehensible. Out rolled the English words, like plums out of a burst bag, and all completely unintelligible. But the old beau was supremely satisfied. He loved talking English, and holding his listeners spell-bound.
Next to Aaron on the sofa sat the Marchesa del Torre, an American woman from the Southern States, who had lived most of her life in Europe. She was about forty years of age, handsome, well-dressed, and quiet in the buzz of the tea-party. It was evident she was one of Algy’s lionesses. Now she sat by Aaron, eating nothing, but taking a cup of tea and keeping still. She seemed sad — or not well perhaps. Her eyes were heavy. But she was very carefully made up, and very well dressed, though simply: and sitting there, full-bosomed, rather sad, remote-seeming, she suggested to Aaron a modern Cleopatra brooding, Anthony-less.
Her husband, the Marchese, was a little intense Italian in a colonel’s grey uniform, cavalry, leather gaiters. He had blue eyes, his hair was cut very short, his head looked hard and rather military: he would have been taken for an Austrian officer, or even a German, had it not been for the peculiar Italian sprightliness and touch of grimace in his mobile countenance. He was rather like a gnome — not ugly, but odd.
Now he came and stood opposite to Signor di Lanti, and quizzed him in Italian. But it was evident, in quizzing the old buck, the little Marchese was hovering near his wife, in ear-shot. Algy came up with cigarettes, and she at once began to smoke, with that peculiar heavy intensity of a nervous woman.
Aaron did not say anything — did not know what to say. He was peculiarly conscious of the woman sitting next to him, her arm near his. She smoked heavily, in silence, as if abstracted, a sort of cloud on her level, dark brows. Her hair was dark, but a softish brown, not black, and her skin was fair. Her bosom would be white. — Why Aaron should have had this thought, he could not for the life of him say.
Manfredi, her husband, rolled his blue eyes and grimaced as he laughed at old Lanti. But it was obvious that his attention was diverted sideways, towards his wife. Aaron, who was tired of nursing a tea-cup, placed in on a table and resumed his seat in silence. But suddenly the little Marchese whipped out his cigarette-case, and making a little bow, presented it to Aaron, saying:
“Won’t you smoke?”
“Thank you,” said Aaron.
“Turkish that side — Virginia there — you see.”
“Thank you, Turkish,” said Aaron.
The little officer in his dove-grey and yellow uniform snapped his box shut again, and presented a light.
“You are new in Florence?” he said, as he presented the match.
“Four days,” said Aaron.
“And I hear you are musical.”
“I play the flute — no more.”
“Ah, yes — but then you play it as an artist, not as an accomplishment.”
“But how do you know?” laughed Aaron.
“I was told so — and I believe it.”
“That’s nice of you, anyhow — But you are a musician too.”
“Yes — we are both musicians — my wife and I.”
Manfredi looked at his wife. She flicked the ash off her cigarette.
“What sort?” said Aaron.
“Why, how do you mean, what sort? We are dilettanti, I suppose.”
“No — what is your instrument? The piano?”
“Yes — the pianoforte. And my wife sings. But we are very much out of practice. I have been at the war four years, and we have had our home in Paris. My wife was in Paris, she did not wish to stay in Italy alone. And so — you see — everything goes — ”
“But you will begin again?”
“Yes. We have begun already. We have music on Saturday mornings. Next Saturday a string quartette, and violin solos by a young Florentine woman — a friend — very good indeed, daughter of our Professor Tortoli, who composes — as you may know — ”
“Yes,” said Aaron.
“Would you care to come and hear — ?”
“Awfully nice if you would — ” suddenly said the wife, quite simply, as if she had merely been tired, and not talking before.
“I should like to very much — ”
“Do come then.”
While they were making the arrangements, Algy came up in his blandest manner.
“Now Marchesa — might we hope for a song?”
“No — I don’t sing any more,” came the slow, contralto reply.
“Oh, but you can’t mean you say that deliberately — ”
“Yes, quite deliberately — ” She threw away her cigarette and opened her little gold case to take another.
“But what can have brought you to such a disastrous decision?”
“I can’t say,” she replied, with a little laugh. “The war, probably.”
“Oh, but don’t let the war deprive us of this, as of everything else.”
“Can’t be helped,” she said. “I have no choice in the matter. The bird has flown — ” She spoke with a certain heavy languor.
> “You mean the bird of your voice? Oh, but that is quite impossible. One can hear it calling out of the leaves every time you speak.”
“I’m afraid you can’t get him to do any more than call out of the leaves.”
“But — but — pardon me — is it because you don’t intend there should be any more song? Is that your intention?”
“That I couldn’t say,” said the Marchesa, smoking, smoking.
“Yes,” said Manfredi. “At the present time it is because she WILL not — not because she cannot. It is her will, as you say.”
“Dear me! Dear me!” said Algy. “But this is really another disaster added to the war list. — But — but — will none of us ever be able to persuade you?” He smiled half cajoling, half pathetic, with a prodigious flapping of his eyes.
“I don’t know,” said she. “That will be as it must be.”
“Then can’t we say it must be SONG once more?”
To this sally she merely laughed, and pressed out her half-smoked cigarette.
“How very disappointing! How very cruel of — of fate — and the war — and — and all the sum total of evils,” said Algy.
“Perhaps — ” here the little and piquant host turned to Aaron.
“Perhaps Mr. Sisson, your flute might call out the bird of song. As thrushes call each other into challenge, you know. Don’t you think that is very probable?”
“I have no idea,” said Aaron.
“But you, Marchesa. Won’t you give us hope that it might be so?”
“I’ve no idea, either,” said she. “But I should very much like to hear Mr. Sisson’s flute. It’s an instrument I like extremely.”
“There now. You see you may work the miracle, Mr. Sisson. Won’t you play to us?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t bring my flute along,” said Aaron “I didn’t want to arrive with a little bag.”
“Quite!” said Algy. “What a pity it wouldn’t go in your pocket.”
“Not music and all,” said Aaron.
“Dear me! What a comble of disappointment. I never felt so strongly, Marchesa, that the old life and the old world had collapsed. — Really — I shall soon have to try to give up being cheerful at all.”
“Don’t do that,” said the Marchesa. “It isn’t worth the effort.”
“Ah! I’m glad you find it so. Then I have hope.”
She merely smiled, indifferent.
The teaparty began to break up — Aaron found himself going down the stairs with the Marchesa and her husband. They descended all three in silence, husband and wife in front. Once outside the door, the husband asked:
“How shall we go home, dear? Tram or carriage — ?” It was evident he was economical.
“Walk,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Aaron. “We are all going the same way, I believe.”
Aaron said where he lived. They were just across the river. And so all three proceeded to walk through the town.
“You are sure it won’t be too much for you — too far?” said the little officer, taking his wife’s arm solicitously. She was taller than he. But he was a spirited fellow.
“No, I feel like walking.”
“So long as you don’t have to pay for it afterwards.”
Aaron gathered that she was not well. Yet she did not look ill — unless it were nerves. She had that peculiar heavy remote quality of pre-occupation and neurosis.
The streets of Florence were very full this Sunday evening, almost impassable, crowded particularly with gangs of grey-green soldiers. The three made their way brokenly, and with difficulty. The Italian was in a constant state of returning salutes. The grey-green, sturdy, unsoldierly soldiers looked at the woman as she passed.
“I am sure you had better take a carriage,” said Manfredi.
“No — I don’t mind it.”
“Do you feel at home in Florence?” Aaron asked her.
“Yes — as much as anywhere. Oh, yes — quite at home.”
“Do you like it as well as anywhere?” he asked.
“Yes — for a time. Paris for the most part.”
“Never America?”
“No, never America. I came when I was quite a little girl to Europe — Madrid — Constantinople — Paris. I hardly knew America at all.”
Aaron remembered that Francis had told him, the Marchesa’s father had been ambassador to Paris.
“So you feel you have no country of your own?”
“I have Italy. I am Italian now, you know.”
Aaron wondered why she spoke so muted, so numbed. Manfredi seemed really attached to her — and she to him. They were so simple with one another.
They came towards the bridge where they should part.
“Won’t you come and have a cocktail?” she said.
“Now?” said Aaron.
“Yes. This is the right time for a cocktail. What time is it, Manfredi?”
“Half past six. Do come and have one with us,” said the Italian. “We always take one about this time.”
Aaron continued with them over the bridge. They had the first floor of an old palazzo opposite, a little way up the hill. A man-servant opened the door.
“If only it will be warm,” she said. “The apartment is almost impossible to keep warm. We will sit in the little room.”
Aaron found himself in a quite warm room with shaded lights and a mixture of old Italian stiffness and deep soft modern comfort. The Marchesa went away to take off her wraps, and the Marchese chatted with Aaron. The little officer was amiable and kind, and it was evident he liked his guest.
“Would you like to see the room where we have music?” he said. “It is a fine room for the purpose — we used before the war to have music every Saturday morning, from ten to twelve: and all friends might come. Usually we had fifteen or twenty people. Now we are starting again. I myself enjoy it so much. I am afraid my wife isn’t so enthusiastic as she used to be. I wish something would rouse her up, you know. The war seemed to take her life away. Here in Florence are so many amateurs. Very good indeed. We can have very good chamber-music indeed. I hope it will cheer her up and make her quite herself again. I was away for such long periods, at the front. — And it was not good for her to be alone. — I am hoping now all will be better.”
So saying, the little, odd officer switched on the lights of the long salon. It was a handsome room in the Italian mode of the Empire period — beautiful old faded tapestry panels — reddish — and some ormolu furniture — and other things mixed in — rather conglomerate, but pleasing, all the more pleasing. It was big, not too empty, and seemed to belong to human life, not to show and shut-upedness. The host was happy showing it.
“Of course the flat in Paris is more luxurious than this,” he said. “But I prefer this. I prefer it here.” There was a certain wistfulness as he looked round, then began to switch off the lights.
They returned to the little salotta. The Marchesa was seated in a low chair. She wore a very thin white blouse, that showed her arms and her throat. She was a full-breasted, soft-skinned woman, though not stout.
“Make the cocktails then, Manfredi,” she said. “Do you find this room very cold?” she asked of Aaron.
“Not a bit cold,” he said.
“The stove goes all the time,” she said, “but without much effect.”
“You wear such thin clothes,” he said.
“Ah, no, the stove should give heat enough. Do sit down. Will you smoke? There are cigarettes — and cigars, if you prefer them.”
“No, I’ve got my own, thanks.”
She took her own cigarette from her gold case.
“It is a fine room, for music, the big room,” said he.
“Yes, quite. Would you like to play for us some time, do you think?”
“Do you want me to? I mean does it interest you?”
“What — the flute?”
“No — music altogether — ”
“Music altogether — ! Well! I used to love it. Now — I�
�m not sure. Manfredi lives for it, almost.”
“For that and nothing else?” asked Aaron.
“No, no! No, no! Other things as well.”
“But you don’t like it much any more?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I don’t. I’m not sure.”
“You don’t look forward to the Saturday mornings?” he asked.
“Perhaps I don’t — but for Manfredi’s sake, of course, I do. But for his sake more than my own, I admit. And I think he knows it.”
“A crowd of people in one’s house — ” said Aaron.
“Yes, the people. But it’s not only that. It’s the music itself — I think I can’t stand it any more. I don’t know.”
“Too emotional? Too much feeling for you?”
“Yes, perhaps. But no. What I can’t stand is chords, you know: harmonies. A number of sounds all sounding together. It just makes me ill. It makes me feel so sick.”
“What — do you want discords? — dissonances?”
“No — they are nearly as bad. No, it’s just when any number of musical notes, different notes, come together, harmonies or discords. Even a single chord struck on the piano. It makes me feel sick. I just feel as if I should retch. Isn’t it strange? Of course, I don’t tell Manfredi. It would be too cruel to him. It would cut his life in two.”
“But then why do you have the music — the Saturdays — then?”
“Oh, I just keep out of the way as much as possible. I’m sure you feel there is something wrong with me, that I take it as I do,” she added, as if anxious: but half ironical.
“No — I was just wondering — I believe I feel something the same myself. I know orchestra makes me blind with hate or I don’t know what. But I want to throw bombs.”
“There now. It does that to me, too. Only now it has fairly got me down, and I feel nothing but helpless nausea. You know, like when you are seasick.”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 329