Part 6 (1/2)
”Then my mother is a Scotsman.”
I glanced from the sea into his face; there was something of the same calm depth in both, the same sunny composure. What is it, this limpid state of the mind? What do we call this alloy of profundity and frankness? We call it intelligence. I would like to meet that man or woman who can make Attilio say something foolish. He does not know what it is to feel shy. Serenely objective, he discards those subterfuges which are the usual safeguard of youth or inexperience--the evasions, reservations and prevarications that defend the shallow, the weak, the self-conscious. His candour rises above them. He feels instinctively that these things are pitfalls.
”Have you no sweetheart, Attilio?”
”Certainly I have. But it is not a man's affair. We are only children, you understand--siamo ancora piccoli.”
”Did you ever give her a kiss?”
”Never. Not a single one.”
I relight my pipe, and then inquire:
”Why not give her a kiss?”
”People would call me a disrespectful boy.”
”n.o.body, surely, need be any the wiser?”
”She is not like you and me.”
A pause....
”Not like us? How so?”
”She would tell her sister.”
”What of it?”
”The sister would tell her mother, who would say unpleasant things to mine. And perhaps to other folks. Then the fat would be in the fire. And that is why.”
Another pause....
”What would your mother say to you?”
”She would say: 'You are the oldest male; you should conduct yourself accordingly. What is this lack of judgment I hear about?'”
”I begin to understand.”
Siena
Driven from the Paradise of Levanto, I landed not on earth but--with one jump--in h.e.l.l. The Turks figure forth a h.e.l.l of ice and snow; this is my present abode; its name is Siena. Every one knows that this town lies on a hill, on three hills; the inference that it would be cold in January was fairly obvious; how cold, n.o.body could have guessed. The sun is invisible. Streets are deep in snow. Icicles hang from the windows.
Worst of all, the hotels are unheated. Those English, you know,--they refuse to supply us with coal....
Could this be the city where I was once nearly roasted to death? It is an effort to recall that glistening month of the Palio festival, a month I spent at a genuine pension for a set purpose, namely, to write a study on the habits of ”The Pension-cats of Europe”--those legions of elderly English spinsters who lead crepuscular lives in continental boarding-houses. I tore it up, I remember; it was unfair. These ladies have a perfect right to do as they please and, for that matter, are not nearly as ridiculous as many married couples that live outside boarding-houses. But when Siena grew intolerable--a stark, ill-provisioned place; you will look in vain for a respectable grocer or butcher; the wine leaves much to be desired; indeed, it has all the drawbacks of Florence and none of its advantages--why, then we fled into Mr. Edward Hutton's Unknown Tuscany. There, at Abbadia San Salvatore (though the summit of Mount Amiata did not come up to expectation) we at last felt cool again, wandering amid venerable chestnuts and wondrously tinted volcanic blocks, mountain-fragments, full of miniature glens and moisture and fernery--a green twilight, a landscape made for fairies....
Was this the same Siena from which we once escaped to get cool? m.u.f.fled up to the ears, with three waistcoats on, I move in and out of doors, endeavouring to discover whether there be any appreciable difference in temperature between the external air and that of my bedroom. There cannot be much to choose between them. They say I am the only foreigner now in Siena. That, at least, is a distinction, a record. Furthermore, no matches, not even of the sulphur variety, were procurable in any of the shops for the s.p.a.ce of three days; that also, I imagine, cannot yet have occurred within the memory of living man.
While stamping round the great Square yesterday to keep my feet warm, a Florentine addressed me; a commercial gentleman, it would seem. He disapproved of this square--it was not regular in shape, it was not even level. What a piazza! Such was his patriotism that he actually went on to say unfriendly things about the tower. Who ever thought of building a tower at the bottom of a hill? It was good enough, he dared say, for Siena. Oh, yes; doubtless it satisfied their artistic notions, such as they were.