In the bar a wretched candle was weeping light — uneasy, gloomy men were drinking their Saturday-evening-homecoming dram. Cattle lay down in the road, in the cold air as if hopeless.
Had the milk come?
No.
When would it come?
He didn’t know.
Well, what were we to do? Was there no room? Was there nowhere we could sit?
Yes, there was the stanza now.
_Now!_ Taking the only weed of a candle, and leaving the drinkers in the dark, he led us down a dark and stumbly earthen passage, over loose stones and an odd plank, as it would seem underground, to the stanza: the room.
The stanza! It was pitch dark — but suddenly I saw a big fire of oak-root, a brilliant flamy, rich fire, and my rage in that second disappeared.
The host, and the candle, forsook us at the door. The stanza would have been in complete darkness, save for that rushing bouquet of new flames in the chimney, like fresh flowers. By this firelight we saw the room. It was like a dungeon, absolutely empty, with an uneven, earthen floor, quite dry, and high bare walls, gloomy, with a handbreadth of window high up.
There was no furniture at all, save a little wooden bench, a foot high before the fire, and several home-made-looking rush mats rolled up and leaning against the walls. Furthermore a chair before the fire on which hung wet table-napkins. Apart from this, it was a high, dark, naked prison-dungeon.
But it was quite dry, it had an open chimney, and a gorgeous new fire rushing like a waterfall upwards among the craggy stubs of a pile of dry oak roots. I hastily put the chair and the wet corpse-cloths to one side. We sat on the low bench side by side in the dark, in front of this rippling rich fire, in front of the cavern of the open chimney, and we did not care any more about the dungeon and the darkness. Man can live without food, but he can’t live without fire. It is an Italian proverb. We had found the fire, like new gold. And we sat in front of it, a little way back, side by side on the low form, our feet on the uneven earthen floor, and felt the flame-light rippling upwards over our faces, as if we were bathing in some gorgeous stream of fieriness. I forgave the dirty-breasted host everything and was as glad as if I had come into a kingdom.
So we sat alone for half an hour smiling into the flames, bathing our faces in the glow. From time to time I was aware of steps in the tunnel-like passage outside, and of presences peering. But no one came. I was aware too of the faint steaming of the beastly table-napkins, the only other occupants of the room.
In dithers a candle, and an elderly, bearded man in gold-coloured corduroys, and an amazing object on a long, long spear. He put the candle on the mantel-ledge, and crouched at the side of the fire, arranging the oak-roots. He peered strangely and fixedly in the fire. And he held up the speared object before our faces.
It was a kid that he had come to roast. But it was a kid opened out, made quite flat, and speared like a flat fan on a long iron stalk. It was a really curious sight. And it must have taken some doing. The whole of the skinned kid was there, the head curled in against a shoulder, the stubby cut ears, the eyes, the teeth, the few hairs of the nostrils: and the feet curled curiously round, like an animal that puts its forepaw over its ducked head: and the hind-legs twisted indescribably up: and all skewered flat-wise upon the long iron rod, so that it was a complete flat pattern. It reminded me intensely of those distorted, slim-limbed, dog-like animals which figure on the old Lombard ornaments, distorted and curiously in-folded upon themselves. Celtic illuminations also have these distorted, involuted creatures.
The old man flourished the flat kid like a bannerette, whilst he arranged the fire. Then, in one side of the fire-place wall he poked the point of the rod. He himself crouched on the hearth-end, in the half-shadow at the other end of the fire-place, holding the further end of the long iron rod. The kid was thus extended before the fire, like a hand-screen. And he could spin it round at will.
But the hole in the masonry of the chimney-piece was not satisfactory. The point of the rod kept slipping, and the kid came down against the fire. He muttered and muttered to himself, and tried again. Then at length he reared up the kid-banner whilst he got large stones from a dark corner. He arranged these stones so that the iron point rested on them. He himself sat away on the opposite side of the fire-place, on the shadowy hearth-end, and with queer, spell-bound black eyes and completely immovable face, he watched the flames and the kid, and held the handle end of the rod.
We asked him if the kid was for the evening meal — and he said it was. It would be good! And he said yes, and looked with chagrin at the bit of ash on the meat, where it had slipped. It is a point of honour that it should never touch the ash. Did they do all their meat this way? He said they did. And wasn’t it difficult to put the kid thus on the iron rod? He said it was riot easy, and he eyed the joint closely, and felt one of the forelegs, and muttered that it was not fixed properly.
He spoke with a very soft mutter, hard to catch, and sideways, never to us direct. But his manner was gentle, soft, muttering, reticent, sensitive. He asked us where we came from, and where we were going: always in his soft mutter. And what nation were we, were we French? Then he went on to say there was a war — but he thought it was finished. There was a war because the Austrians wanted to come into Italy again. But the French and the English came to help Italy. A lot of Sardinians had gone to it. But let us hope it is all finished. He thought it was — young men of Sorgono had been killed. He hoped it was finished.
Then he reached for the candle and peered at the kid. It was evident he was the horn roaster. He held the candle and looked for a long time at the sizzling side of the meat, as if he would read portents. Then he held his spit to the fire again. And it was as if time immemorial were toasting itself another meal. I sat holding the candle.
A young woman appeared, hearing voices. Her head was swathed in a shawl, one side of which was brought across, right over the mouth, so that only her two eyes and her nose showed. The q-b thought she must have toothache — but she laughed and said no. As a matter of fact that is the way a head-dress is worn in Sardinia, even by both sexes. It is something like the folding of the Arab’s burnoose. The point seems to be that the mouth and chin are thickly covered, also the ears and brow, leaving only the nose and eyes exposed. They say it keeps off the malaria. The men swathe shawls round their heads in the same way. It seems to me they want to keep their heads warm, dark and hidden: they feel secure inside.
She wore the workaday costume: a full, dark-brown skirt, the full white bodice, and a little waistcoat or corset. This little waistcoat in her case had become no more than a shaped belt, sending up graceful, stiffened points under the breasts, like long leaves standing up. It was pretty — but all dirty. She too was pretty, but with an impudent, not quite pleasant manner. She fiddled with the wet napkins, asked us various questions, and addressed herself rather jerkily to the old man, who answered hardly at all — then she departed again. The women are self-conscious in a rather smirky way, bouncy.
When she was gone I asked the old man if she was his daughter. He said very brusquely, in his soft mutter, No. She came from a village some miles away. He did not belong to the inn. He was, as far as I understood, the postman. But I may have been mistaken about the word.
But he seemed laconic, unwilling to speak about the inn and its keepers. There seemed to be something queer. And again he asked where we were going. He told me there were now two motor-buses: a new one which ran over the mountains to Nuoro. Much better go to Nuoro than to Abbasanta. Nuoro was evidently the town towards which these villages looked, as a sort of capital.
The kid-roasting proceeded very slowly, the meat never being very near the fire. From time to time the roaster arranged the cavern of red-hot roots. Then he threw on more roots. It was very hot. And he turned the long spit, and still I held the candle.
Other people came strolling in, to look at us. But they hovered behind us in the dark, so I could not make out at all clearly, they strol
led in the gloom of the dungeon-like room, and watched us. One came forward — a fat, fat young soldier in uniform. I made place for him on the bench — but he put out his hand and disclaimed the attention. Then he went away again.
The old man propped up the roast, and then he too disappeared for a time. The thin candle guttered, the fire was no longer flamy but red. The roaster reappeared with a new, shorter spear, thinner, and a great lump of raw hog-fat spitted on it. This he thrust into the red fire. It sizzled and smoked and spit fat, and I wondered. He told me he wanted it to catch fire. It refused. He groped in the hearth for the bits of twigs with which the fire had been started. These twig-stumps he stuck in the fat, like an orange stuck with cloves, then he held it in the fire again. Now at last it caught, and it was a flaming torch running downwards with a thin shower of flaming fat. And now he was satisfied. He held the fat-torch with its yellow flares over the browning kid, which he turned horizontal for the occasion. All over the roast fell the flaming drops, till the meat was all shiny and browny. He put it to the fire again, holding the diminishing fat, still burning bluish, over it all the time in the upper air.
While this was in process a man entered with a loud Good-evening. We replied Good-evening — and evidently he caught a strange note. He came and bent down and peered under my hat-brim, then under the q-b’s hat-brim; we still wore hats and overcoats, as did everybody. Then he stood up suddenly and touched his cap and said Scusi — excuse me. I said Niente, which one always says, and he addressed a few jovial words to the crouching roaster: who again would hardly answer him. The omnibus was arrived from Oristano, I made out — with a few passengers.
This man brought with him a new breezy atmosphere, which the roaster did not like. However, I made place on the low bench, and the attention this time was accepted. Sitting down at the extreme end, he came into the light, and I saw a burly man in the prime of life, dressed in dark brown velvet, with a blonde little moustache and twinkling blue eyes and a tipsy look. I thought he might be some local tradesman or farmer. He asked a few questions, in a boisterous familiar fashion, then went out again. He appeared with a small iron spit, a slim rod, in one hand, and in the other hand two joints of kid and a handful of sausages. He stuck his joints on his rod. But our roaster still held the interminable flat kid before the now red, flameless fire. The fat-torch was burnt out, the cinder pushed in the fire. A moment’s spurt of flame, then red, intense redness again, and our kid before it like a big, dark hand.
“Eh,” said the newcomer, whom I will call the girovago, “it’s done. The kid’s done. It’s done.”
The roaster slowly shook his head, but did not answer. He sat like time and eternity at the hearth-end, his face flame-flushed, his dark eyes still fire-abstract, still sacredly intent on the roast.
“Na-na-na!” said the girovago. “Let another body see the fire.” And with his pieces of meat awkwardly skewered on his iron stick he tried to poke under the authorised kid and get at the fire. In his soft mutter, the old man bade him wait for the fire till the fire was ready for him. But the girovago poked impudently and good humouredly, and said testily that the authorised kid was done.
“Yes, surely it is done,” said I, for it was already a quarter to eight.
The old roasting priest muttered, and took out his knife from his pocket. He pressed the blade slowly, slowly deep into the meat: as far as a knife will go into a piece of kid. He seemed to be feeling the meat inwardly. And he said it was not done. He shook his head, and remained there like time and eternity at the end of the rod.
The girovago said Sangue di Dio, but couldn’t roast his meat! And he tried to poke his skewer near the coals. So doing his pieces fell off into the ashes, and the invisible onlookers behind raised a shout of laughter. However, he raked it out and wiped it with his hand and said No matter, nothing lost.
Then he turned to me and asked the usual whence and whither questions. These answered, he said wasn’t I German. I said No, I was English. He looked at me many times, shrewdly, as if he wanted to make out something. Then he asked, where were we domiciled — and I said Sicily. And then very pertinently, why had we come to Sardinia. I said for pleasure, and to see the island.
“Ah, per divertimento!” he repeated, half-musingly, not believing me in the least.
Various men had now come into the room, though they all remained indistinct in the background. The girovago talked and jested abroad in the company, and the half-visible men laughed in a rather hostile manner.
At last the old roaster decided the kid was done. He lifted it from the fire and scrutinised it thoroughly, holding the candle to it, as if it were some wonderful epistle from the flames. To be sure it looked marvellous, and smelled so good: brown and crisp, and hot, and savoury, not burnt in any place whatever. It was eight o’clock.
“It’s done! It’s done! Go away with it! Go,” said the girovago, pushing the old roaster with his hand. And at last the old man consented to depart, holding the kid like a banner.
“It looks so good!” cried the q-b. “And I am so hungry.”
“Ha-ha! It makes one hungry to see good meat, Signora. Now it is my turn. Heh — Gino — ” the girovago flourished his arm. And a handsome, unwashed man with a black moustache came forward rather sheepishly. He was dressed in soldier’s clothes, neutral grey, and was a big, robust, handsome fellow with dark eyes and Mediterranean sheepishness. “Here, take it thou,” said the girovago, pressing the long spit into his hand. “It is thy business, cook the supper, thou art the woman. — But I’ll keep the sausages and do them.”
The so-called woman sat at the end of the hearth, where the old roaster had sat, and with his brown, nervous hand piled the remaining coals together. The fire was no longer flamy: and it was sinking. The dark-browed man arranged it so that he could cook the meat. He held the spit negligently over the red mass. A joint fell off. The men laughed. “It’s lost nothing,” said the dark-browed man, as the girovago had said before: and he skewered it on again and thrust it to the fire. But meanwhile he was looking up from under his dark lashes at the girovago and at us.
The girovago talked continually. He turned to me, holding the handful of sausages.
“This makes a tasty bit,” he said.
“Oh, yes — good salsiccia,” said I.
“You are eating the kid? You are eating at the inn?” he said. I replied that I was.
“No,” he said. “You stay and eat with me. You eat with me. The sausage is good, the kid will soon be done, the fire is grateful.”
I laughed, not quite understanding him. He was certainly a bit tipsy.
“Signora,” he said, turning to the q-b. She did not like him.
He was impudent, and she shut a deaf ear to him as far as she could.
“Signora,” he said, “do you understand me what I say?”
She replied that she did.
“Signora,” he said, “I sell things to the women. I sell them things.”
“What do you sell?” she asked in astonishment.
“Saints,” he said.
“Saints!” she cried in more astonishment.
“Yes, saints,” he said with tipsy gravity.
She turned in confusion to the company in the background
The fat soldier came forward, he was the chief of the carabinieri.
“Also combs and bits of soap and little mirrors,” he explained sarcastically.
“Saints!” said the girovago once more. “And also ragazzini — also youngsters. Wherever I go there is a little one comes running calling Babbo! Babbo! Daddy! Daddy! Wherever I go — youngsters. And I’m the babbo.”
All this was received with a kind of silent sneer from the invisible assembly in the background. The candle was burning low, the fire was sinking too. In vain the dark-browed man tried to build it up. The q-b became impatient for the food.
She got up wrathfully and stumbled into the dark passage, exclaiming: “Don’t we eat yet?”
“Eh — Patience! Pati
ence, Signora. It takes time in this house,” said the man in the background.
The dark-browed man looked up at the girovago and said:
“Are you going to cook the sausages with your fingers?”
He too was trying to be assertive and jesting, but he was the kind of person no one takes any notice of. The girovago rattled on in dialect, poking fun at us and at our being there in this inn. I did not quite follow.
“Signora!” said the girovago. “Do you understand Sardinian?”
“I understand Italian — and some Sardinian,” she replied rather hotly. “And I know that you are trying to laugh at us — to make fun of us.”
He laughed fatly and comfortably.
“Ah, Signora,” he said. “We have a language that you wouldn’t understand — not one word. Nobody here would understand it but me and him — ” he pointed to the black-browed one. “Everybody would want an interpreter — everybody.”
But he did not say interpreter — he said interprete, with the accent on the penultimate, as if it were some sort of priest.
“A what?” said I.
He repeated with tipsy unction, and I saw what he meant. “Why?” said I. “It is a dialect? What is your dialect?”
“My dialect,” he said, “is Sassari. I come from Sassari. If I spoke my dialect they would understand something. But if I speak this language they would want an interpreter.”
“What language is it then?”
He leaned up to me, laughing.
“It is the language we use when the women are buying things and we don’t want them to know what we say: me and him — ”
“Oh,” said I. “I know. We have that language in England. It is called thieves’ Latin — Latino dei furbi.”
The men at the back suddenly laughed, glad to turn the joke against the forward girovago. He looked down his nose at me. But seeing I was laughing without malice, he leaned to me and said softly, secretly:
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 784