“No,” said the q-b, “not Deutschland unter alles. Not for long, anyhow.”
“How? Not for long? You think so? I think so too,” said the hounder. Then in Italian: “La Germania won’t stand under all for long. No, no. At present it is England über alles. _England über alles_. But Germany will rise up again.”
“Of course,” said the q-b. “How shouldn’t she?”
“Ah,” said the bounder, “while England keeps the money in her pocket, we shall none of us rise up. Italy won the war, and Germany lost it. And Italy and Germany they both are down, and England is up. They both are down, and England is up. England and France. Strange, isn’t it? Ah, the allies What are the allies for? To keep England up, and France halfway, and Germany and Italy down.”
“Ah, they won’t stay down for ever,” said the q-b.
“You think not? Ah! We will see. We will see how England goes on now.”
“England is not going on so marvellously, after all,” say I. “How not? You mean Ireland?”
“No, not only Ireland. Industry altogether. England is as near to ruin as other countries.”
“Ma! With all the money, and we others with no money! How will she be ruined?”
“And what good would it be to you if she were?”
“Oh, well — who knows. If England were ruined — ” a slow smile of anticipation spread over his face. How he would love it — how they would all love it, if England were ruined. That is, the business part of them, perhaps, would not love it. But the human part would. The human part fairly licks its lips at the thought of England’s ruin. The commercial part, however, quite violently disclaims the anticipations of the human part. And there it is. The newspapers chiefly speak with the commercial voice. But individually, when you are got at in a railway carriage or as now on a ship, up speaks the human voice, and you know how they love you. This is no doubt inevitable. When the exchange stands at a hundred and six men go humanly blind, I suppose, however much they may keep the commercial eye open. And having gone humanly blind they bump into one’s human self nastily: a nasty jar. You know then how they hate you. Underneath. they hate us, and as human beings we are objects of envy and malice. They hate us, with envy, and despise us, with jealousy. Which perhaps doesn’t hurt commercially. Humanly it is to me unpleasant.
The dinner was over, and the bounder was lavishing cigarettes — Murattis, if you please. We had all drunk two bottles of wine. Two other commercial travellers had joined the bounder at our table — two smart young fellows, one a bounder and one gentle and nice. Our two jewellers remained quiet, talking their share, but quietly and so sensitively. One could not help liking them. So we were seven people, six men.
“Wheesky! Will you drink wheesky, Mister?” said our original bounder. “Yes, one small Scotch! One Scotch wheesky.” All this in a perfect Scotty voice of a man standing at a bar calling for a drink. It was comical, one could not but laugh: and very impertinent. He called for the waiter, took him by the button-hole, and with a breast-to-breast intimacy asked if there was whisky. The waiter, with the same tone of you-and-I-are-men-who-have-the-same-feelings, said he didn’t think there was whisky, but he would look. Our bounder went round the table inviting us all to whiskies, and pressing on us his expensive English cigarettes with great aplomb.
The whisky came — and five persons partook. It was fiery, oily stuff from heaven knows where. The bounder rattled away, spouting his bits of English and his four words of German. He was in high feather, wriggling his large haunches on his chair and waving his hands. He had a peculiar manner of wriggling from the bottom of his back, with fussy self-assertiveness. It was my turn to offer whisky.
I was able in a moment’s lull to peer through the windows and see the dim lights of Capri — the glimmer of Anacapri up on the black shadow — the lighthouse. We had passed the island. In the midst of the babel I sent out a few thoughts to a few people on the island. Then I had to come back.
The bounder had once more resumed his theme of l’Inghilterra, l’Italia, la Germania. He swanked England as hard as he could. Of course England was the top dog, and if he could speak some English, if he were talking to English people, and if, as he said, he was going to England in April, why he was so much the more top-doggy than his companions, who could not rise to all these heights. At the same time, my nerves had too much to bear.
Where were we going and where had we been and where did we live? And ah, yes, English people lived in Italy. Thousands, thousands of English people lived in Italy. Yes, it was very nice for them. There used to be many Germans, but now the Germans were down. But the English — what could be better for them than Italy now: they had sun, they had warmth, they had abundance of everything, they had a charming people to deal with, and they had the cambio! Ecco! The other commercial travellers agreed. They appealed to the q-b if it was not so. And altogether I had enough of it.
“Oh, yes,” said I, “it’s very nice to be in Italy: especially if you are not living in an hotel, and you have to attend to things for yourself. It is very nice to be overcharged every time, and then insulted if you say a word. It’s very nice to have the cambio thrown in your teeth, if you say two words to any Italian, even a perfect stranger. It’s very nice to have waiters and shop-people and railway porters sneering in a bad temper and being insulting in small, mean ways all the time. It’s very nice to feel what they all feel against you. And if you understand enough Italian, it’s very nice to hear what they say when you’ve gone by. Oh, very nice. Very nice indeed!”
I suppose the whisky had kindled this outburst in me. They sat dead silent. And then our bounder began, in his sugary-deprecating voice:
“Why no! Why no! It is not true, signore. No, it is not true. Why, England is the foremost nation in the world — ”
“And you want to pay her out for it.”
“But no, signore. But no. What makes you say so? Why, we Italians are so good-natured. Noi Italiani siamo cosi buoni. Siamo cosi buoni.”
They were the identical words of the schoolmistress.
“Buoni,” said I. “Yes — perhaps. Buoni when it’s not a question of the exchange and of money. But since it is always a question of cambio and soldi now, one is always, in a small way, insulted.”
I suppose it must have been the whisky. Anyhow Italians can never bear hard bitterness. The jewellers looked distressed, the bounders looked down their noses, half exulting even now, and half sheepish, being caught. The third of the commis voyageurs, the gentle one, made large eyes and was terrified that he was going to be sick. He represented a certain Italian liqueur, and he modestly asked us to take a glass of it. He went with the waiter to secure the proper brand. So we drank — and it was good. But he, the giver, sat with large and haunted eyes. Then he said he would go to bed. Our bounder gave him various advice regarding seasickness. There was a mild swell on the sea. So he of the liqueur departed.
Our bounder thrummed on the table and hummed something, and asked the q-b if she knew the Rosencavalier. He always appealed to her. She said she did. And ah, he was passionately fond of music, said he. Then he warbled in a head voice a bit more. He only knew classical music, said he. And he mewed a bit of Moussorgsky. The q-b said Moussorgsky was her favourite musician, for opera. Ah, cried the bounder, if there were but a piano! — There is a piano, said his mate. — Yes, he replied, but it is locked up. — Then let us get the key, said his mate, with aplomb. The waiters, being men with the same feelings as our two, would give them anything. So the key was forthcoming. We paid our bills — mine about sixty francs. Then we went along the faintly rolling ship, up the curved staircase to the drawing-room. Our bounder unlocked the door of this drawing-room, and switched on the lights.
It was quite a pleasant room, with deep divans upholstered in pale colours, and palm-trees standing behind little tables, and a black upright piano. Our bounder sat on the piano-stool and gave us an exhibition. He splashed out noise on the piano in splashes, like water splashing out of a pai
l. He lifted his head and shook his black mop of hair, and yelled out some fragments of opera. And he wriggled his large, bounder’s back upon the piano-stool, wriggling upon his well-filled haunches. Evidently he had a great deal of feeling for music: but very little prowess. He yelped it out, and wriggled, and splashed the piano; His friend the other bounder, a quiet one in a pale suit, with stout limbs, older than the wriggler, stood by the piano whilst the young one exhibited. Across the space of carpet sat the two brother jewellers, deep in a divan, their lean, semi-blonde faces quite inscrutable. The q-b sat next to me, asking for this and that music, none of which the wriggler could supply. He knew four scraps, and a few splashes — not more. The elder bounder stood near him quietly comforting, encouraging, and admiring him, as a lover encouraging and admiring his ingenue betrothed. And the q-b sat bright-eyed and excited, admiring that a man could perform so unselfconsciously self-conscious, and give himself away with such generous wriggles. For my part, as you may guess, I did not admire.
I had had enough. Rising, I bowed and marched off. The q-b came after me. Good-night, said I, at the head of the corridor. She turned in, and I went round the ship to look at the dark night of the sea.
Morning came sunny with pieces of cloud: and the Sicilian coast towering pale blue in the distance. How wonderful it must have been to Ulysses to venture into this Mediterranean and open his eyes on all the loveliness of the tall coasts. How marvellous to steal with his ship into these magic harbours. There is something eternally morning-glamourous about these lands as they rise from the sea. And it is always the Odyssey which comes back to one as one looks at them. All the lovely morning-wonder of this world, in Homer’s day!
Our bounder was dashing about on deck, in one of those rain-coats gathered in at the waist and ballooning out into skirts below the waist. He greeted me with a cry of “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.” “Very long,” said I. “Goodbye, Piccadilly — ” he continued. “Ciau.” said I, as he dashed jauntily down the steps. Soon we saw the others as well. But it was morning, and I simply did not want to speak to them — except just good-day. For my life I couldn’t say two more words to any of them this morning: except to ask the mild one if he had been sick. He had not.
So we waited for the great Città di Trieste to float her way into Palermo harbour. It looked so near — the town there, the great circle of the port, the mass of the hills crowding round. Panormus, the All-harbour. I wished the bulky steamer would hurry up. For I hated her now. I hated her swankiness, she seemed made for commercial travellers with cash. I hated the big picture that filled one end of the state-room: an elegant and ideal peasant-girl, a sort of Italia, strolling on a lovely and ideal cliff’s edge, among myriad blooms, and carrying over her arm, in a most sophisticated fashion, a bough of almond blossom and a sheaf of anemones. I hated the waiters, and the cheap elegance, the common de luxe. I disliked the people, who all turned their worst, cash-greasy sides outwards on this ship. Vulgar, vulgar post-war commercialism and dog-fish money-stink. I longed to get off. And the bloated boat edged her way so slowly into the port, and then more slowly still edged round her fat stern. And even then we were kept for fifteen minutes waiting for someone to put up the gangway for the first-class. The second-class, of course, were streaming off and melting like thawed snow into the crowds of onlookers on the quay, long before we were allowed to come off.
Glad, glad I was to get off that ship: I don’t know why, for she was clean and comfortable and the attendants were perfectly civil. Glad, glad I was not to share the deck with any more commercial travellers. Glad I was to be on my own feet, independent. No, I would not take a carriage. I carried my sack on my back to the hotel, looking with a jaundiced eye on the lethargic traffic of the harbour front. It was about nine o’clock.
Later on, when I had slept, I thought as I have thought before, the Italians are not to blame for their spite against us. We, England, have taken upon ourselves for so long the role of leading nation. And if now, in the war or after the war, we have led them all into a real old swinery — which we have, notwithstanding all Entente cant — then they have a legitimate grudge against us. If you take upon yourself to lead, you must expect the mud to be thrown at you if you lead into a nasty morass. Especially if, once in the bog, you think of nothing else but scrambling out over other poor devils’ hacks. Pretty behaviour of great nations!
And still, for all that, I must insist that I am a single human being, an individual, not a mere national unit, a mere chip of l’Inghilterra or la Germania. I am not a chip of any nasty old block. I am myself.
In the evening the q-b insisted on going to the marionettes, for which she has a sentimental passion. So the three of us — we were with the American friend once more — chased through dark and tortuous side-streets and markets of Palermo in the night, until at last a friendly man led us to the place. The back streets of Palermo felt friendly, not huge and rather horrible, like Naples near the port.
The theatre was a little hole opening simply off the street. There was no one in the little ticket box, so we walked past the door-screen. A shabby old man with a long fennel-stalk hurried up and made us places on the back benches, and hushed us when we spoke of tickets. The play was in progress. A serpent-dragon was just having a tussle with a knight in brilliant brass armour, and my heart came into my mouth. The audience consisted mostly of boys, gazing with frantic interest on the bright stage. There was a sprinkling of soldiers and elderly men. The place was packed — about fifty souls crowded on narrow little ribbons of benches, so close one behind the other that the end of the man in front of me continually encroached and sat on my knee. I saw on a notice that the price of entry was forty centimes.
We had come in towards the end of the performance, and so sat rather bewildered, unable to follow. The story was the inevitable Paladins of France — one heard the names Rinaldo! Orlando! again and again. But the story was told in dialect, hard to follow.
I was charmed by the figures. The scene was very simple, showing the interior of a castle. But the figures, which were about two-thirds of human size, were wonderful in their brilliant, glittering gold armour, and their martial prancing motions. All were knights — even the daughter of the king of Babylon. She was distinguished only by her long hair. All were in the beautiful glittering armour, with helmets and visors that could be let down at will. I am told this armour has been handed down for many generations. It certainly is lovely. One actor alone was not in armour, the wizard Magicce, or Malvigge, the Merlin of the Paladins. He was in a long scarlet robe, edged with fur, and wore a three-cornered scarlet hat.
So we watched the dragon leap and twist and get the knight by the leg: and then perish. We watched the knights burst into the castle. We watched the wonderful armour-clashing embraces of the delivered knights, Orlando and his bosom friend and the little dwarf, clashing their armoured breasts to the breasts of their brothers and deliverers. We watched the would-be tears flow. — And then the statue of the witch suddenly go up in flames, at which a roar of exultation from the boys. Then it was over. The theatre was empty in a moment, but the proprietors and the two men who sat near us would not let us go. We must wait for the next performance.
My neighbour, a fat, jolly man, told me all about it. His neighbour, a handsome tipsy man, kept contradicting and saying it wasn’t so. But my fat neighbour winked at me, not to take offence.
This story of the Paladins of France lasted three nights. We had come on the middle night — of course. But no matter — each night was a complete story. I am sorry I have forgotten the names of the knights. But the story was, that Orlando and his friend and the little dwarf, owing to the tricks of that same dwarf, who belonged to the Paladins, had been captured and immured in the enchanted castle of the ghastly old witch who lived on the blood of Christians. It was now the business of Rinaldo and the rest of the Paladins, by the help of Magicce the good wizard, to release their captured brethren from the ghoulish old witch.
So much I
made out of the fat man’s story, while the theatre was filling. He knew every detail of the whole Paladin cycle. And it is evident the Paladin cycle has lots of yersions. For the handsome tipsy neighbour kept saying he was wrong, he was wrong, and giving different stories, and shouting for a jury to come and say who was right, he or my fat friend. A jury gathered, and a storm began to rise. But the stout proprietor with a fennel-wand came and quenched the noise, telling the handsome tipsy man he knew too much and wasn’t asked. Whereupon the tipsy one sulked.
Ah, said my friend, couldn’t I come on Friday. Friday was a great night. On Friday they were giving I Beati Paoli: The Blessed Pauls. He pointed to the walls where were the placards announcing The Blessed Pauls. These Pauls were evidently some awful secret society with masking hoods and daggers and awful eyes looking through the holes. I said were they assassins like the Black Hand. By no means, by no means. The Blessed Pauls were a society for the protection of the poor. Their business was to track down and murder the oppressive rich. Ah, they were a wonderful, a splendid society. Were they, said I, a sort of camorra? Ah, on the contrary — here he lapsed into a tense voice — they hated the camorra. These, the Blest Pauls, were the powerful and terrible enemy of the Grand Camorra. For the Grand Camorra oppresses the poor. And therefore the Pauls track down in secret the leaders of the Grand Camorra, and assassinate them, or bring them to the fearful hooded tribunal which utters the dread verdict of the Beati Paoli. And when once the Beati Paoli have decreed a man’s death — all over. Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo! Why don’t I come on Friday?
It seems to me a queer moral for the urchins thick-packed and gazing at the drop scene. They are all males: urchins or men. I ask my fat friend why there are no women — no girls. Ah, he says, the theatre is so small. But, I say, if there is room for all the boys and men, there is the same room for girls and women. Oh, no — not in this small theatre. Besides this is nothing for women. Not that there is anything improper, he hastens to add. Not at all. But what should women and girls be doing at the marionette show? It was an affair for males.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 794