“Now,” said the man, “you are not to snatch. Come here. Come here. Vieni qua!” And he held up the piece of bread. The animal came near. “Now,” said the man, “I put this bread on your nose, and you don’t move, un — Ha!!”
The dog had tried to snatch the bread, the man had shouted and jerked it away, the animal had recoiled and given another expostulating yelp.
The game continued. All the room was watching, smiling. The dog did not understand at all. It came forward again, troubled. The man held the bread near its nose, and held up a warning finger. The beast dropped its head mournfully, cocking up its eye at the bread with varied feelings.
“Now — !” said the man, “not until I say three — Uno — due — ” the dog could bear it no longer, the man in jerking let go the bread and yelled at the top of his voice — ”e tre!” The dog gulped the piece of bread with a resigned pleasure, and the man pretended it had all happened properly on the word “three.”
So he started again. “Vieni qua! Vieni qua!” The dog, which had backed away with the bread, came hesitating, cringing forward, dropping its hind-quarters in doubt, as dogs do, advancing towards the new nugget of bread. The man preached it a little sermon.
“You sit there and look at this bread. I sit here and look at you, and I hold this bread. And you stop still, and I stop still, while I count three. Now then — uno — ” the dog couldn’t bear these numerals, with their awful slowness. He snatched desperately. The man yelled and lost the bread, the dog, gulping, turned to creep away.
Then it began again.
“Come here! Come here! Didn’t I tell thee I would count three? Già! I said I would count three. Not one, but three. And to count three you need three numbers. Ha! Steady! Three numbers. Uno — due E TRE!” The last syllables were yelled so that the room rang again. The dog gave a mournful howl of excitement, missed the bread, groped for it, and fled.
The man was red with excitement, his eyes shining. He addressed the company at large. “I had a dog,” he said, “ah, a dog! And I would put a piece of bread on his nose, and say a verse. And he looked at me so!” The man put his face sideways. “And he looked at me so!” He gazed up under his brows. “And he talked to me so — o: Zieu! Zieu! — But he never moved. No, he never moved. If he sat with that bread on his nose for half an hour, and if tears ran down his face, he never moved — not till I said three! Then — ah!” The man tossed up his face, snapped the air with his mouth, and gulped an imaginary crust. “AH, that dog was trained...” The man of forty shook his head.
“Vieni qua! Come here! Tweet! Come here!”
He patted his fat knee, and the dog crept forward. The man held another piece of bread.
“Now,” he said to the dog, “listen! Listen. I am going to tell you something.
‘Il soldato va alla guerra — ’
“No — no, not yet. When I say three!
‘Il soldato va alla guerra. Mangia male, dorme in terra — ’
“Listen. Be still. Quiet now. UNO — DUE — E — TRE!”
It came out in one simultaneous yell from the man, the dog in sheer bewilderment opened his jaws and let the bread go down his throat, and wagged his tail in agitated misery.
“Ah,” said the man, “you are learning. Come! Come here! Come! Now then! Now you know. So! So! Look at me so!”
The stout, good-looking man of forty bent forward. His face was flushed, the veins in his neck stood out. He talked to the dog, and imitated the dog. And very well indeed he reproduced something of the big, gentle, wistful subservience of the animal. The dog was his totem — the affectionate, self-mistrustful, warm-hearted hound.
So he started the rigmarole again. We put it into English. “Listen now. Listen! Let me tell it you.
‘So the soldier goes to the war! His food is rotten, he sleeps on the floor —
“Now! Now! No, you are not keeping quiet. Now! Now!
‘Il soldato va alla guerra Mangia male, dorme in terra — ’“
The verses, known to every Italian, were sung out in a singsong fashion. The audience listened as one man — or as one child — the rhyme chiming in every heart. They waited with excitement for the One — Two — and Three! The last two words were always ripped out with a tearing yell. I shall never forget the force of those syllables — E TRE! But the dog made a poor show — he only gobbled the bread and was uneasy.
This game lasted us a full hour: a full hour by the clock sat the whole room in intense silence, watching the man and the dog.
Our friends told us the man was the bus-inspector — their inspector. But they liked him. “Un bray’ uomo! Un bravo uomo! Eh si!” Perhaps they were a little uneasy, seeing him in his cups and hearing him yell so nakedly: AND THREE!
We talked rather sadly, wistfully. Young people, especially nice ones tike the driver, are too sad and serious these days. The little conductor made big brown eyes at us, wistful too, and sad we were going.
For in the morning they were driving back again to Sorgono, over the old road, and we were going on, to Terranova, the port. But we promised to come back in the summer, when it was warmer. Then we should all meet again.
“Perhaps you will find us on the same course still. Who knows!” said the driver sadly.
VII. TO TERRANOVA AND THE STEAMER
The morning was very clear and blue. We were up betimes. The old dame of the inn very friendly this morning. We were going already! Oh, but we hadn’t stayed long in Nuoro. Didn’t we like it?
Yes, we like it. We would come back in the summer when it was warmer.
Ah, yes, she said, artists came in the summer. Yes, she agreed, Nuoro was a nice place — _simpatico, molto simpatico_. And really it is. And really she was an awfully, nice, capable, human old woman: and I had thought her a beldame when I saw her ironing.
She gave us good coffee and milk and bread, and we went out into the town. There was the real Monday morning atmosphere of an old, same-as-ever provincial town: the vacant feeling of work resumed after Sunday, rather reluctantly; nobody buying anything, nobody quite at grips with anything. The doors of the old-fashioned shops stood open: In Nuoro they have hardly reached the stage of window-displays. One must go inside, into the dark caves, to see what the goods are. Near the doorways of the drapers’ shops stood rolls of that fine scarlet cloth, for the women’s costumes. In a large tailor’s window four women sat sewing, tailoring, and looking out of the window with eyes still Sunday-emancipate and mischievous. Detached men, some in the black-and-white, stood at the street corners, as if obstinately avoiding the current of work. Having had a day off, the salt taste of liberty still lingering on their lips, they were not going to be dragged so easily back into harness. I always sympathise with these rather sulky, forlorn males who insist on making another day of it. It shows a spark of spirit, still holding out against our over-harnessed world.
There is nothing to see in Nuoro: which, to tell the truth, is always a relief. Sights are an irritating bore. Thank heaven there isn’t a bit of Perugino or anything Pisan in the place: that I know of. Happy is the town that has nothing to show. What a lot of stunts and affectations it saves! Life is then life, not museum-stuffing. One could saunter along the rather inert, narrow, Monday-morning street, and see the women having a bit of a gossip, and see an old crone with a basket of bread on her head, and see the unwilling ones hanging back from work, and the whole current of industry disinclined to flow. Life is life and things are things. I am sick of gaping things, even Peruginos. I have had my thrills from Carpaccio and Botticelli. But now I’ve had enough. But I can always look at an old, grey-bearded peasant in his earthy white drawers and his black waist-frill, wearing no coat or over-garment, but just crooking along beside his little ox-wagon. I am sick of “things,” even Perugino.
The sight of the woman with the basket of bread reminded us that we wanted some food. So we searched for bread. None, if you please. It was Monday morning, eaten out. There would be bread at the forno, the oven. Where was the o
ven? Up the road and down a passage. I thought we should smell it. But no. We wandered back. Our friends had told us to take tickets early, for perhaps the bus would be crowded. So we bought yesterday’s pastry and little cakes, and slices of native sausage. And still no bread. I went and asked our old hostess.
“There is no fresh bread. It hasn’t come in yet,” she said.
“Never mind, give me stale.”
So she went and rummaged in a drawer.
“Oh dear, Oh dear, the women have eaten it all! But perhaps over there — ” she pointed down the street — ”they can give you some.”
They couldn’t.
I paid the bill — about twenty-eight francs, I think — and went out to look for the bus. There it was. In a dark little hole they gave me the long ticket-strips, first-class to Terranova. They cost some seventy francs the two. The q-b was still vainly, aimlessly looking along the street for bread.
“Ready when you are,” said our new driver rather snappily. He was a pale, cross-looking young man with brown eyes and fair “ginger” hair. So in we clambered, waved farewell to our old friends, whose bus was ready to roll away in the opposite direction. As we bumped past the “piazza” I saw Velveteens standing there, isolate, and still, apparently, scowling with unabated irritation.
I am sure he has money: why the first class yesterday, otherwise. And I’m sure she married him because he is a townsman with property.
Out we rolled, on our last Sardinian drive. The morning was of a bell-like beauty, blue and very lovely. Below on the right stretched the concave valley, tapestried with cultivation. Up into the morning light rose the high, humanless hills, with wild, treeless moor-slopes.
But there was no glass in the left window of the coupé, and the wind came howling in, cold enough. I stretched myself on the front seat, the q-b screwed herself into a corner, and we watched the land flash by. How well this new man drove! the long-nosed, freckled one with his gloomy brown eyes. How cleverly he changed gear, so that the automobile mewed and purred comfortably, like a live thing enjoying itself. And how dead he was to the rest of the world, wrapped in his gloom like a young bus-driving Hamlet. His answers to his mates were monosyllabic — or just no answers at all. He was one of those responsible, capable, morose souls, who do their work with silent perfection and look as if they were driving along the brink of doom, say a word to them and they’ll go over the edge. But gentle au fond, of course. Fiction used to be fond of them: a sort of ginger-haired, young, mechanic Mr. Rochester who has even lost the Jane illusion.
Perhaps it was not fair to watch him so closely from behind.
His mate was a bit of a bounder, with one of those rakish military caps whose soft tops cock sideways or backwards. He was in Italian khaki, riding-breeches and puttees. He smoked his cigarette bounderishly: but at the same time, with peculiar gentleness, he handed one to the ginger Hamlet. Hamlet accepted it, and his mate held him a light as the bus swung on. They were like man and wife. The mate was the alert and wide-eyed Jane Eyre whom the ginger Mr. Rochester was not going to spoil in a hurry.
The landscape was different from yesterday’s. As we dropped down the shallow, winding road from Nuoro, quite quickly the moors seemed to spread on either side, treeless, bushy, rocky, desert. How hot they must be in summer! One knows from Grazia Deledda’s books.
A pony with a low trap was prancing unhappily in the roadside. We slowed down and slid harmlessly past. Then again, on we whizzed down the looped road, which turned back on itself as sharply as a snake that has been wounded. Hamlet darted the bus at the curves; then softly padded round like an angel: then off again for the next parabola.
We came out into wide, rather desolate, moorland valley spaces, with low rocks away to the left, and steep slopes, rocky-bushy, on the right. Sometimes groups of black-and-white men were working in the forlorn distances. A woman in the madder costume led a panniered ass along the wastes. The sun shone magnificently, already it was hotter here. The landscape had quite changed. These slopes looked east and south to the sea, they were sun-wild and sea-wild.
The first stop was where a wild, rough lane came down the hill to our road. At the corner stood a lonely house — and in the road-side the most battered, life-weary old carriage I have ever seen. The jaunty mate sorted out the post — the boy with the tattered-battered brown carriage and brown pony signed the book as we all stood in the roadway. There was a little wait for a man who was fetching up another parcel. The postbag and parcels from the tattered carriage were received and stowed and signed for. We walked up and down in the sun to get warm. The landscape was wild and open round about.
Pip! goes Mr. Rochester, peremptorily, at the horn. Amazing how obediently we scuffle in. Away goes the bus, rushing towards the sea. Already one felt that peculiar glare in the half-way heavens, that intensification of the light in the lower sky, which is caused by the sea to sunward.
Away in front three girls in brown costume are walking along the side of the white high-road, going with panniers towards a village up a slight incline. They hear us, turn round, and instantly go off their heads, exactly like chickens in the road. They fly towards us, crossing the road, and swifter than any rabbits they scuttle, one after another, into a deep sidetrack, like a deep ditch at right angles to the road. There, as we roll past, they are all crouched, peering out at us fearfully, like creatures from their hole. The bus mate salutes them with a shout, and we roll on towards the village on the low summit.
It is a small, stony, hen-scratched place of poor people. We roll on to a standstill. There is a group of poor people. The women wear the dark-brown costume, and again the bolero has changed shape. It is a rather fantastic low corset, curiously shapen; and originally, apparently, made of wonderful elaborate brocade. But look at it now.
There is an altercation because a man wants to get into the bus with two little black pigs, each of which is wrapped in a little sack, with its face and ears appearing like a flower from a wrapped bouquet. He is told that he must pay the fare for each pig as if it were a Christian. Cristo del mondo! A pig, a little pig, and paid for as if it were a Christian. He dangles the pig-bouquets, one from each hand, and the little pigs open their black mouths and squeal with self-conscious appreciation of the excitement they are causing. Dio benedetto! it is a chorus. But the bus mate is inexorable. Every animal, even if it were a mouse, must be paid for and have a ticket as if it were a Christian. The pig-master recoils stupefied with indignation, a pig-bouquet under each arm. “How much do you charge for the fleas you carry?” asks a sarcastic youth.
A woman sitting sewing a soldier’s tunic into a little jacket for her urchin, and thus beating the sword into a ploughshare, stitches unconcernedly in the sun. Round-cheeked but rather slatternly damsels giggle. The pig-master, speechless with fury, slings the pig-bouquets, like two bottles one on either side the saddle of the ass whose halter is held by a grinning but also malevolent girl: malevolent against pig-prices, that is. The pigs, looking abroad from their new situation, squeal the eternal pig-protest against an insufferable humanity.
“Andiamo! Andiamo!” says ginger Mr. Rochester in his quiet but intense voice. The bus-mate scrambles up and we charge once more into the strong light to seaward.
In we roll, into Orosei, a dilapidated, sun-smitten, godforsaken little town not far from the sea. We descend in piazza. There is a great, false baroque façade to a church, up a wavering vast mass of steps: and at the side a wonderful jumble of roundnesses with a jumble of round tiled roofs, peaked in the centre. It must have been some sort of convent. But it is eminently what they call a “painter’s bit” — that pallid, big baroque face, at the top of the slow incline, and the very curious dark building at the side of it, with its several dark-tiled round roofs, like pointed hats, at varying altitudes. The whole space has a strange Spanish look, neglected, arid, yet with a bigness and a dilapidated dignity and a stoniness which carry one back to the Middle Ages, when life was violent and Orosei was no doubt a port
and a considerable place. Probably it had bishops.
The sun came hot into the wide piazza; with its pallid heavy façade up on the stony incline on one side, and arches and a dark great courtyard and outer stairways of some unknown building away on the other, the road entering downhill from the inland, and dropping out below to the sea-marshes, and with the impression that once some single power had had the place in grip, had given this centre an architectural unity and splendour now lost and forgotten. Orosei was truly fascinating.
But the inhabitants were churlish. We went into a sort of bar-place, very primitive, and asked for bread.
“Bread alone?” said the churl.
“If you please.”
“There isn’t any,” he answered.
“Oh — where can we get some then?”
“You can’t get any.”
“Really!”
And we couldn’t. People stood about glum, not friendly.
There was a second great automobile, ready to set off for Tortoli, far to the south, on the east coast. Mandas is the railway junction both for Sorgono and Tortoli. The two buses stood near and communed. We prowled about the dead, almost extinct town — or call it village. Then Mr. Rochester began to pip his horn peremptorily, so we scuffled in.
The post was stowed away. A native in black broad-cloth came running and sweating, carrying an ox-blood suit-case, and said we must wait for his brother-in-law, who was a dozen yards away. Ginger Mr. Rochester sat on his driver’s throne and glared in the direction whence the brother-in-law must come. His brow knitted irritably, his long, sharp nose did not promise much patience. He made the horn roar like a sea-cow. But no brother-in-law.
“I’m going to wait no longer,” said he,
“Oh, a minute, a minute! That won’t do us any harm,” expostulated his mate. No answer from the long-faced, long-nosed ginger Hamlet. He sat statuesque, but with black eyes looking daggers down the still void road.
“Eh va bene,” he murmured through closed lips, and leaned forward grimly for the starting handle.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 789