The citron-cheeked, dry one, however, cares darkly nothing for cakes. He comes once more to twit us about wine. So much so that the Cagliari girl orders a glass of Marsala: and I must second her. So there we are, three little glasses of brown liquid. The Cagliari girl sips hers and suddenly flees. The q-b sips hers with infinite caution, and quietly retires. I finish the q-b’s little glass, and my own, and the voracious blow-flies buzz derisively and excited. The yellow-cheeked one has disappeared with the bottle.
From the professorial cabin faint wails, sometimes almost fierce, as one or another is going to be ill. Only a thin door is between this state-room and them. The most down-trodden, frayed ancient rag of a man goes discreetly with basins, trying not to let out glimpses of the awful within. I climb up to look at the vivid, drenching stars, to breathe the cold wind, to see the dark sea sliding. Then I too go to the cabin, and watch the sea run past the porthole for a minute, and insert myself like the meat in a sandwich into the tight lower bunk. Oh, infinitesimal cabin, where we sway like two matches in a match box! Oh, strange, but even yet excellent gallop of a ship at sea.
I slept not so badly through the stifled, rolling night — in fact later on slept soundly. And the day was growing bright when I peered through the porthole, the sea was much smoother. It was a brilliant clear morning. I made haste and washed myself cursorily in the saucer that dribbled into a pail in a corner: there was not space even for one chair, this saucer was by my bunk-head. And I went on deck.
Ah, the lovely morning! Away behind us the sun was just coming above the sea’s horizon, and the sky all golden, all a joyous, fire-heated gold, and the sea was glassy bright, the wind gone still, the waves sunk into long, low undulations, the foam of the wake was pale ice-blue in the yellow air. Sweet, sweet wide morning on the sea, with the sun coming, swimming up, and a tall sailing bark, with her flat fore-ladder of sails delicately across the light, and a far-far steamer on the electric vivid morning horizon.
The lovely dawn: the lovely pure, wide morning in the mid-sea, so golden-aired and delighted, with the sea-like sequins shaking, and the sky far, far, far above, unfathomably clear. How glad to be on a ship! What a golden hour for the heart of man! Ah, if one could sail for ever, on a small quiet, lonely ship, from land to land and isle to isle, and saunter through the spaces of this lovely world, always through the spaces of this lovely world. Sweet it would be sometimes to come to the opaque earth, to block oneself against the stiff land, to annul the vibration of one’s flight against the inertia of our terra firma! but life itself would be in the flight, the tremble of space. Ah, the trembling of never-ended space, as one moves in flight!
Space, and the frail vibration of space, the glad lonely wringing of the heart. Not to be clogged to the land any more. Not to be any more like a donkey with a log on its leg, fastened to weary earth that has no answer now. But to be off.
To find three masculine, world-lost souls, and world-lost saunter, and saunter on along with them, across the dithering space, as long as life lasts! Why come to anchor? There is nothing to anchor for. Land has no answer to the soul any more. It has gone inert. Give me a little ship, kind gods, and three world-lost comrades. Hear me! And let me wander aimless across this vivid oyster world, the world empty of man, where space flies happily.
The lovely, celandine-yellow morning of the open sea, paling towards a rare sweet blue! The sun stood above the horizon, like the great burning stigma of the sacred flower of day. Mediterranean sailing-ships, so mediaeval, hovered on the faint morning wind, as if uncertain which way to go, curious odd-winged insects of the flower. The steamer, hull-down, was sinking towards Spain. Space rang clear about us: the level sea!
Appeared the Cagliari young woman and her two friends. She was looking handsome and restored now the sea was easy. Her two male friends stood touching her, one at either shoulder.
“Bonjour, Monsieur!” she barked across at me. “Vous avez pris le café?”
“Pas encore. Et vous?”
“Non! Madame votre femme...”
She roared like a mastiff dog: and then translated with unction to her two uninitiated friends. How it was they did not understand her French I do not know, it was so like travestied Italian.
I went below to find the q-b.
When we came up, the faint shape of land appeared ahead, more transparent than thin pearl. Already Sardinia. Magic are high lands seen from the sea, when they are far, far off, and ghostly translucent like ice-bergs. This was Sardinia, looming like fascinating shadows in mid-sea. And the sailing-ships, as if cut out of frailest pearl translucency, were wafting away towards Naples. I wanted to count their sails — five square ones which I call the ladder, one above the other — but how many wing-blades? That remained yet to be seen.
Our friend the carpenter spied us out: at least, he was not my friend. He didn’t find me simpatico, I am sure. But up he came, and proceeded to entertain us with weary banality. Again the young woman called, had we had coffee? We said we were just going down. And then she said that whatever we had to-day we had to pay for: our food ended with the one day. At which the q-b was angry, feeling swindled. But I had known before.
We went down and had our coffee nothwithstanding. The young woman came down, and made eyes at one of the alpaca blue-bottles. After which we saw a cup of coffee and milk and two biscuits being taken to her into her cabin, discreetly. When Italians are being discreet and on the sly, the very air about them becomes tell-tale, and seems to shout with a thousand tongues. So with a thousand invisible tongues clamouring the fact, the young woman had her coffee secretly and gratis, in her cabin.
But the morning was lovely. The q-b and I crept round the bench at the very stern of the ship and sat out of the wind and out of sight, just above the foaming of the wake. Before us was the open morning — and the glisten of our ship’s track, like a snail’s path, trailing across the sea: straight for a little while, then giving a bend to the left, always a bend towards the left: and coming at us from the pure horizon, like a bright snail-path. Happy it was to sit there in the stillness, with nothing but the humanless sea to shine about us.
But no, we were found out. Arrived the carpenter. “Ah, you have found a fine place!”
“Molto bello!” This from the q-b. I could not bear the irruption.
He proceeded to talk — and as is inevitable, the war. Ah, the war — it was a terrible thing. He had become ill — very ill. Because, you see, not only do you go without proper food, without proper rest and warmth, but, you see, you are in an agony of fear for your life all the time. An agony of fear for your life. And that’s what does it. Six months in hospital! The q-b, of course, was sympathetic.
The Sicilians are quite simple about it. They just tell you they were frightened to death, and it made them ill. The q-b, woman-like, loves them for being so simple about it. I feel angry somewhere. For they expect a full-blown sympathy. And however the great god Mars may have shrunk and gone wizened in the world, it annoys me to hear him so blasphemed.
Near us the automatic log was spinning, the thin rope trailing behind us in the sea. Erratically it jerked and spun, with spasmodic torsion. He explained that the little screw at the end of the line spun to the speed of travelling. We were going from ten to twelve Italian miles to the hour. Ah, yes, we could go twenty. But we went no faster than ten or twelve, to save the coal.
The coal — il carbone! I knew we were in for it. Englandl’Inghilterra she has the coal. And what does she do? She sells it very dear. Particularly to Italy. Italy won the war and now can’t even have coal. Because why! The price. The exchange! il cambio. Now I am doubly in for it. Two countries had been able to keep their money high — England and America. The English sovereign — la sterlina — and the American dollar — sa, these were money. The English and the Americans flocked to Italy, with their sterline and their dollari, and they bought what they wanted for nothing, for nothing. Ecco! Whereas we poor Italians — we are in a state of ruination — proper rui
nation. The allies, etc., etc.
I am so used to it — I am so wearily used to it. I can’t walk a stride without having this wretched cambio, the exchange, thrown at my head. And this with an injured petulant spitefulness which turns my blood. For I assure them, whatever I have in Italy I pay for: and I am not England. I am not the British Isles on two legs.
Germany — La Germania — she did wrong to make the war. But — there you are, that was war. Italy and Germany — l’Italia e la Germania — they had always been friends. In Palermo...
My God, I felt I could not stand it another second. To sit above the foam and have this miserable creature stuffing wads of chewed newspaper into my ear — no, I could not bear it. In Italy, there is no escape. Say two words, and the individual starts chewing old newspaper and stuffing it into you. No escape. You become — if you are English — _l’Inghilterra, il carbone and il cambio_; and as England, coal, and exchange you are treated. It is more than useless to try to be human about it. You are a State usury system, a coal fiend and an exchange thief. Every Englishman has disappeared into this triple abstraction, in the eyes of the Italian, of the proletariat particularly. Try and get them to be human, try and get them to see that you are simply an individual, if you can. After all, I am no more than a single human man wandering my lonely way across these years. But no — to an Italian I am a perfected abstraction, England — coal — exchange. The Germans were once devils for inhuman theoretic abstracting of living beings. But now the Italians beat them. I am a walking column of statistics, which adds up badly for Italy. Only this and nothing more. Which being so I shut my mouth and walk away.
For the moment the carpenter is shaken off. But I am in a rage, fool that I am. It is like being pestered by their mosquitoes. The sailing-ships are near — and I count fifteen sails. Beautiful they look! Yet if I were on board somebody would be chewing newspaper at me, and addressing me as England — coal — exchange.
The mosquito hovers — and hovers. But the stony blank of the side of my cheek keeps him away. Yet he hovers. And the q-b feels sympathetic towards him: quite sympathetic. Because of course he treats her — a bel pezzo — as if he would lick her boots.
Meanwhile we eat the apples from yesterday’s dessert, and the remains of the q-b’s Infant-Jesus-and-dove cake. The land is drawing nearer — we can see the shape of the end promontory and peninsula — and a white speck like a church. The bulk of the land is forlorn and rather shapeless, coming towards us: but attractive.
Looking ahead towards the land gives us away. The mosquito swoops on us. Yes — he is not sure — he thinks the white speck is a church — or a lighthouse. When you pass the cape on the right, and enter the wide bay between Cape Spartivento and Cape Carbonara, then you have two hours’ sail to Cagliari. We shall arrive between two and three o’clock. It is now eleven.
Yes, the sailing-ships are probably going to Naples. There is not much wind for them now. When there is wind they go fast, faster than our steamer. Ah, Naples — bella, bella, eh? A little dirty, say I. But what do you want? says he. A great city! Palermo of course is better.
Ah — the Neapolitan women — he says, à propos or not. They do their hair so fine, so neat and beautiful — but underneathsotto — sotto — they are dirty. This being received in cold silence, he continues: _Noi giriamo il mondo! Noi, chi giriamo, conosciamo il mondo_. We travel about, and we know the world. Who we are, I do not know: his highness the Palermitan carpenter lout, no doubt. But we, who travel, know the world. He is preparing his shot. The Neapolitan women, and the English women, in this are equal: that they are dirty underneath. Underneath, they are dirty. The women of London —
But it is getting too much for me.
“You who look for dirty women,” say I, “find dirty women everywhere.”
He stops short and watches me.
“No! No! You have not understood me. No! I don’t mean that. I mean that the Neapolitan women and the English women have dirty underclothing — ”
To which he gets no answer but a cold look and a cold cheek. Whereupon he turns to the q-b, and proceeds to be simpatico. And after a few moments he turns again to me:
“Il signore is offended! He is offended with me.”
But I turn the other way. And at last he clears out: in triumph, I must admit: like a mosquito that has bitten one in the neck. As a matter of fact one should never let these fellows get into conversation nowadays. They are no longer human beings. They hate one’s Englishness, and leave out the individual.
We walk forward, towards the fore-deck, where the captain’s look-out cabin is. The captain is an elderly man, silent and crushed: with the look of a gentleman. But he looks beaten down. Another, still another member of the tray-carrying department is just creeping up his ladder with a cup of black coffee. Returning, we peep down the skylight into the kitchen. And there we see roast chicken and sausages — roast chicken and sausages! Ah, this is where the sides of kid and the chickens and the good things go: all down the throats of the crew. There is no more food for us, until we land.
We have passed the cape — and the white thing is a lighthouse. And the fattish, handsome professor has come up carrying the little girl-child, while the femaleish elder brother leads the rabbit-fluffy small boy by the hand. So en famille: so terribly en famille. They deposit themselves near us, and it threatens another conversation. But not for anything, my dears!
The sailors — not sailors, some of the street-corner loafers, are hoisting the flag, the red-white-and-green Italian tricolour. It floats at the mast-head, and the femaleish brother, in a fine burst of feeling, takes off his funny hat with a flourish and cries:
“Ecco la bandiera italiana!”
Ach, the hateful sentimentalism of these days.
The land passes slowly, very slowly. It is hilly, but barren looking, with a few trees. And it is not spikey and rather splendid, like Sicily. Sicily has style. We keep along the east side of the bay — away in the west is Cape Spartivento. And still no sight of Cagliari.
“Two hours yet!” cries the Cagliari girl. “Two hours before we eat. Ah, when I get on land, what a good meal I shall eat.”
The men haul in the automatic log. The sky is clouding over with that icy curd which comes after midday when the bitter north wind is blowing. It is no longer warm.
Slowly, slowly we creep along the formless shore. An hour passes. We see a little fort ahead, done in enormous blackand-white checks, like a fragment of a gigantic chess-board. It stands at the end of a long spit of land — a long, barish peninsula that has no houses and looks as if it might be golf-links. But it is not golf-links.
And suddenly there is Cagliari: a naked town rising steep, steep, golden-looking, piled naked to the sky from the plain at the head of the formless hollow bay. It is strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy. The city piles up lofty and almost miniature, and makes me think of Jerusalem: without trees, without cover, rising rather bare and proud, remote as if back in history, like a town in a monkish, illuminated missal. One wonders how it ever got there. And it seems like Spain — or Malta: not Italy. It is a steep and lonely city, treeless, as in some old illumination. Yet withal rather jewel-like: like a sudden rose-cut amber jewel naked at the depth of the vast indenture. The air is cold, blowing bleak and bitter, the sky is all curd. And that is Cagliari. It has that curious look, as if it could be seen, but not entered. It is like some vision, some memory, something that has passed away. Impossible that one can actually walk in that city: set foot there and eat and laugh there. Ah, no! Yet the ship drifts nearer, nearer, and we are looking for the actual harbour.
The usual sea-front with dark trees for a promenade and palatial buildings behind, but here not so pink and gay, more reticent, more sombre of yellow stone. The harbour itself a little basin of water, into which we are slipping carefully, while three salt-barges laden with salt as white as snow creep round from the left, drawn by an infinitesimal tug. There are only two other forlorn ships in the basi
n. It is cold on deck. The ship turns slowly round, and is being hauled to the quay side. I go down for the knapsack, and a fat blue-bottle pounces at me.
“You pay nine francs fifty.”
I pay them, and we get off that ship.
III. CAGLIARI
There is a very little crowd waiting on the quay: mostly men with their hands in their pockets. But, thank heaven, they have a certain aloofness and reserve. They are not like the tourist-parasites of these post-war days, who move to the attack with a terrifying cold vindictiveness the moment one emerges from any vehicle. And some of these men look really poor. There are no poor Italians any more: at least, loafers.
Strange the feeling round the harbour: as if everybody had gone away. Yet there are people about. It is “festa” however, Epiphany. But it is so different from Sicily: none of the suave Greek-Italian charms, none of the airs and graces, none of the glamour. Rather bare, rather stark, rather cold and yellow — somehow like Malta, without Malta’s foreign liveliness. Thank goodness no one wants to carry my knapsack. Thank goodness no one has a fit at the sight of it. Thank heaven no one takes any notice. They stand cold and aloof, and don’t move.
We make our way through the Customs: then through the Dazio, the City Customs-house. Then we are free. We set off up a steep, new, broad road, with little trees on either side. But stone, arid, new, wide stone, yellowish under the cold sky — and abandoned-seeming. Though, of course, there are people about. The north wind blows bitingly.
We climb a broad flight of steps, always upwards, up the wide, precipitous, dreary boulevard with sprouts of trees. Looking for the hotel, and dying with hunger.
At last we find it, the Scala di Ferre: through a courtyard with green plants. And at last a little man with lank, black hair, like an Esquimo, comes smiling. He is one brand of Sardinian — Esquimo looking. There is no room with two beds: only single rooms. And thus we are led off, if you please, to the “bagnio”: the bathing-establishment wing, on the dank ground floor. Cubicles on either side a stone passage, and in every cubicle a dark stone bath, and a little bed. We can have each a little bath cubicle. If there’s nothing else for it, there isn’t: but it seems dank and cold and horrid, underground. And one thinks of all the unsavoury “assignations” at these old bagnio places. True, at the end of the passage are seated two carabinieri. But whether to ensure respectability or not, heaven knows. We are in the baths, that’s all.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 778