A PATHETIC TALE
IL CONDE
"Vedi Napoli e poi mori."
The first time we got into conversation was in the National Museumin Naples, in the rooms on the ground floor containing the famouscollection of bronzes from Herculaneum and Pompeii: that marvellouslegacy of antique art whose delicate perfection has been preserved forus by the catastrophic fury of a volcano.
He addressed me first, over the celebrated Resting Hermes which we hadbeen looking at side by side. He said the right things about that whollyadmirable piece. Nothing profound. His taste was natural rather thancultivated. He had obviously seen many fine things in his lifeand appreciated them: but he had no jargon of a dilettante or theconnoisseur. A hateful tribe. He spoke like a fairly intelligent man ofthe world, a perfectly unaffected gentleman.
We had known each other by sight for some few days past. Staying in thesame hotel--good, but not extravagantly up to date--I had noticed himin the vestibule going in and out. I judged he was an old and valuedclient. The bow of the hotel-keeper was cordial in its deference, andhe acknowledged it with familiar courtesy. For the servants he was IlConde. There was some squabble over a man's parasol--yellow silk withwhite lining sort of thing--the waiters had discovered abandoned outsidethe dining-room door. Our gold-laced door-keeper recognized it and Iheard him directing one of the lift boys to run after Il Conde with it.Perhaps he was the only Count staying in the hotel, or perhaps he hadthe distinction of being the Count par excellence, conferred upon himbecause of his tried fidelity to the house.
Having conversed at the Museo--(and by the by he had expressed hisdislike of the busts and statues of Roman emperors in the gallery ofmarbles: their faces were too vigorous, too pronounced for him)--havingconversed already in the morning I did not think I was intruding when inthe evening, finding the dining-room very full, I proposed to share hislittle table. Judging by the quiet urbanity of his consent he did notthink so either. His smile was very attractive.
He dined in an evening waistcoat and a "smoking" (he called it so) witha black tie. All this of very good cut, not new--just as these thingsshould be. He was, morning or evening, very correct in his dress. I haveno doubt that his whole existence had been correct, well ordered andconventional, undisturbed by startling events. His white hair brushedupwards off a lofty forehead gave him the air of an idealist, of animaginative man. His white moustache, heavy but carefully trimmed andarranged, was not unpleasantly tinted a golden yellow in the middle. Thefaint scent of some very good perfume, and of good cigars (that lastan odour quite remarkable to come upon in Italy) reached me across thetable. It was in his eyes that his age showed most. They were a littleweary with creased eyelids. He must have been sixty or a couple of yearsmore. And he was communicative. I would not go so far as to call itgarrulous--but distinctly communicative.
He had tried various climates, of Abbazia, of the Riviera, of otherplaces, too, he told me, but the only one which suited him was theclimate of the Gulf of Naples. The ancient Romans, who, he pointed outto me, were men expert in the art of living, knew very well what theywere doing when they built their villas on these shores, in Baiae, inVico, in Capri. They came down to this seaside in search of health,bringing with them their trains of mimes and flute-players to amusetheir leisure. He thought it extremely probable that the Romans ofthe higher classes were specially predisposed to painful rheumaticaffections.
This was the only personal opinion I heard him express. It was basedon no special erudition. He knew no more of the Romans than an averageinformed man of the world is expected to know. He argued from personalexperience. He had suffered himself from a painful and dangerousrheumatic affection till he found relief in this particular spot ofSouthern Europe.
This was three years ago, and ever since he had taken up his quarterson the shores of the gulf, either in one of the hotels in Sorrento orhiring a small villa in Capri. He had a piano, a few books: pickedup transient acquaintances of a day, week, or month in the stream oftravellers from all Europe. One can imagine him going out for hiswalks in the streets and lanes, becoming known to beggars, shopkeepers,children, country people; talking amiably over the walls to thecontadini--and coming back to his rooms or his villa to sit before thepiano, with his white hair brushed up and his thick orderly moustache,"to make a little music for myself." And, of course, for a changethere was Naples near by--life, movement, animation, opera. A littleamusement, as he said, is necessary for health. Mimes and flute-players,in fact. Only unlike the magnates of ancient Rome, he had no affairsof the city to call him away from these moderate delights. He had noaffairs at all. Probably he had never had any grave affairs to attendto in his life. It was a kindly existence, with its joys and sorrowsregulated by the course of Nature--marriages, births, deaths--ruled bythe prescribed usages of good society and protected by the State.
He was a widower; but in the months of July and August he ventured tocross the Alps for six weeks on a visit to his married daughter. Hetold me her name. It was that of a very aristocratic family. She hada castle--in Bohemia, I think. This is as near as I ever came toascertaining his nationality. His own name, strangely enough, he nevermentioned. Perhaps he thought I had seen it on the published list. Truthto say, I never looked. At any rate, he was a good European--he spokefour languages to my certain knowledge--and a man of fortune. Notof great fortune evidently and appropriately. I imagine that to beextremely rich would have appeared to him improper, outre--too blatantaltogether. And obviously, too, the fortune was not of his making. Themaking of a fortune cannot be achieved without some roughness. It isa matter of temperament. His nature was too kindly for strife. In thecourse of conversation he mentioned his estate quite by the way, inreference to that painful and alarming rheumatic affection. One year,staying incautiously beyond the Alps as late as the middle of September,he had been laid up for three months in that lonely country housewith no one but his valet and the caretaking couple to attend to him.Because, as he expressed it, he "kept no establishment there." Hehad only gone for a couple of days to confer with his land agent. Hepromised himself never to be so imprudent in the future. The first weeksof September would find him on the shores of his beloved gulf.
Sometimes in travelling one comes upon such lonely men, whose onlybusiness is to wait for the unavoidable. Deaths and marriages have madea solitude round them, and one really cannot blame their endeavours tomake the waiting as easy as possible. As he remarked to me, "At my timeof life freedom from physical pain is a very important matter."
It must not be imagined that he was a wearisome hypochondriac. He wasreally much too well-bred to be a nuisance. He had an eye for thesmall weaknesses of humanity. But it was a good-natured eye. He madea restful, easy, pleasant companion for the hours between dinner andbedtime. We spent three evenings together, and then I had to leaveNaples in a hurry to look after a friend who had fallen seriously illin Taormina. Having nothing to do, Il Conde came to see me off at thestation. I was somewhat upset, and his idleness was always ready to takea kindly form. He was by no means an indolent man.
He went along the train peering into the carriages for a good seat forme, and then remained talking cheerily from below. He declared he wouldmiss me that evening very much and announced his intention of goingafter dinner to listen to the band in the public garden, the VillaNazionale. He would amuse himself by hearing excellent music and lookingat the best society. There would be a lot of people, as usual.
I seem to see him yet--his raised face with a friendly smile under thethick moustaches, and his kind, fatigued eyes. As the train began tomove, he addressed me in two languages: first in French, saying,"Bon voyage"; then, in his very good, somewhat emphaticEnglish, encouragingly, because he could see my concern: "Allwill--be--well--yet!"
My friend's illness having taken a decidedly favourable turn, I returnedto Naples on the tenth day. I cannot say I had given much thought to IlConde during my absence, but entering the dining-room I looked for himin his habitual place. I had an idea he might
have gone back to Sorrentoto his piano and his books and his fishing. He was great friends withall the boatmen, and fished a good deal with lines from a boat. But Imade out his white head in the crowd of heads, and even from a distancenoticed something unusual in his attitude. Instead of sitting erect,gazing all round with alert urbanity, he drooped over his plate. I stoodopposite him for some time before he looked up, a little wildly, if sucha strong word can be used in connection with his correct appearance.
"Ah, my dear sir! Is it you?" he greeted me. "I hope all is well."
He was very nice about my friend. Indeed, he was always nice, with theniceness of people whose hearts are genuinely humane. But this time itcost him an effort. His attempts at general conversation broke down intodullness. It occurred to me he might have been indisposed. But before Icould frame the inquiry he muttered:
"You find me here very sad."
"I am sorry for that," I said. "You haven't had bad news, I hope?"
It was very kind of me to take an interest. No. It was not that. Nobad news, thank God. And he became very still as if holding hisbreath. Then, leaning forward a little, and in an odd tone of awedembarrassment, he took me into his confidence.
"The truth is that I have had a very--a very--how shall Isay?--abominable adventure happen to me."
The energy of the epithet was sufficiently startling in that man ofmoderate feelings and toned-down vocabulary. The word unpleasant Ishould have thought would have fitted amply the worst experience likelyto befall a man of his stamp. And an adventure, too. Incredible! Butit is in human nature to believe the worst; and I confess I eyed himstealthily, wondering what he had been up to. In a moment, however,my unworthy suspicions vanished. There was a fundamental refinement ofnature about the man which made me dismiss all idea of some more or lessdisreputable scrape.
"It is very serious. Very serious." He went on, nervously. "I will tellyou after dinner, if you will allow me."
I expressed my perfect acquiescence by a little bow, nothing more.I wished him to understand that I was not likely to hold him to thatoffer, if he thought better of it later on. We talked of indifferentthings, but with a sense of difficulty quite unlike our former easy,gossipy intercourse. The hand raising a piece of bread to his lips, Inoticed, trembled slightly. This symptom, in regard to my reading of theman, was no less than startling.
In the smoking-room he did not hang back at all. Directly we had takenour usual seats he leaned sideways over the arm of his chair and lookedstraight into my eyes earnestly.
"You remember," he began, "that day you went away? I told you then Iwould go to the Villa Nazionale to hear some music in the evening."
I remembered. His handsome old face, so fresh for his age, unmarked byany trying experience, appeared haggard for an instant. It was like thepassing of a shadow. Returning his steadfast gaze, I took a sip of myblack coffee. He was systematically minute in his narrative, simply inorder, I think, not to let his excitement get the better of him.
After leaving the railway station, he had an ice, and read the paper ina cafe. Then he went back to the hotel, dressed for dinner, and dinedwith a good appetite. After dinner he lingered in the hall (there werechairs and tables there) smoking his cigar; talked to the little girlof the Primo Tenore of the San Carlo theatre, and exchanged a few wordswith that "amiable lady," the wife of the Primo Tenore. There was noperformance that evening, and these people were going to the Villa also.They went out of the hotel. Very well.
At the moment of following their example--it was half-past ninealready--he remembered he had a rather large sum of money in hispocket-book. He entered, therefore, the office and deposited the greaterpart of it with the book-keeper of the hotel. This done, he took acarozella and drove to the seashore. He got out of the cab and enteredthe Villa on foot from the Largo di Vittoria end.
He stared at me very hard. And I understood then how reallyimpressionable he was. Every small fact and event of that evening stoodout in his memory as if endowed with mystic significance. If he did notmention to me the colour of the pony which drew the carozella, and theaspect of the man who drove, it was a mere oversight arising from hisagitation, which he repressed manfully.
He had then entered the Villa Nazionale from the Largo di Vittoria end.The Villa Nazionale is a public pleasure-ground laid out in grass plots,bushes, and flower-beds between the houses of the Riviera di Chiaja andthe waters of the bay. Alleys of trees, more or less parallel, stretchits whole length--which is considerable. On the Riviera di Chiaja sidethe electric tramcars run close to the railings. Between the garden andthe sea is the fashionable drive, a broad road bordered by a low wall,beyond which the Mediterranean splashes with gentle murmurs when theweather is fine.
As life goes on late at night in Naples, the broad drive was all astirwith a brilliant swarm of carriage lamps moving in pairs, some creepingslowly, others running rapidly under the thin, motionless line ofelectric lamps defining the shore. And a brilliant swarm of stars hungabove the land humming with voices, piled up with houses, glitteringwith lights--and over the silent flat shadows of the sea.
The gardens themselves are not very well lit. Our friend went forward inthe warm gloom, his eyes fixed upon a distant luminous region extendingnearly across the whole width of the Villa, as if the air had glowedthere with its own cold, bluish, and dazzling light. This magic spot,behind the black trunks of trees and masses of inky foliage, breathedout sweet sounds mingled with bursts of brassy roar, sudden clashes ofmetal, and grave, vibrating thuds.
As he walked on, all these noises combined together into a piece ofelaborate music whose harmonious phrases came persuasively through agreat disorderly murmur of voices and shuffling of feet on the gravel ofthat open space. An enormous crowd immersed in the electric light, asif in a bath of some radiant and tenuous fluid shed upon their heads byluminous globes, drifted in its hundreds round the band. Hundredsmore sat on chairs in more or less concentric circles, receivingunflinchingly the great waves of sonority that ebbed out into thedarkness. The Count penetrated the throng, drifted with it in tranquilenjoyment, listening and looking at the faces. All people of goodsociety: mothers with their daughters, parents and children, young menand young women all talking, smiling, nodding to each other. Very manypretty faces, and very many pretty toilettes. There was, of course, aquantity of diverse types: showy old fellows with white moustaches, fatmen, thin men, officers in uniform; but what predominated, he toldme, was the South Italian type of young man, with a colourless, clearcomplexion, red lips, jet-black little moustache and liquid black eyesso wonderfully effective in leering or scowling.
Withdrawing from the throng, the Count shared a little table in frontof the cafe with a young man of just such a type. Our friend had somelemonade. The young man was sitting moodily before an empty glass.He looked up once, and then looked down again. He also tilted his hatforward. Like this--
The Count made the gesture of a man pulling his hat down over his brow,and went on:
"I think to myself: he is sad; something is wrong with him; young menhave their troubles. I take no notice of him, of course. I pay for mylemonade, and go away."
Strolling about in the neighbourhood of the band, the Count thinks hesaw twice that young man wandering alone in the crowd. Once their eyesmet. It must have been the same young man, but there were so many thereof that type that he could not be certain. Moreover, he was not verymuch concerned except in so far that he had been struck by the marked,peevish discontent of that face.
Presently, tired of the feeling of confinement one experiences in acrowd, the Count edged away from the band. An alley, very sombre bycontrast, presented itself invitingly with its promise of solitudeand coolness. He entered it, walking slowly on till the sound of theorchestra became distinctly deadened. Then he walked back and turnedabout once more. He did this several times before he noticed that therewas somebody occupying one of the benches.
The spot being midway between two lamp-posts the light was faint.
The man
lolled back in the corner of the seat, his legs stretched out,his arms folded and his head drooping on his breast. He never stirred,as though he had fallen asleep there, but when the Count passed by nexttime he had changed his attitude. He sat leaning forward. His elbowswere propped on his knees, and his hands were rolling a cigarette. Henever looked up from that occupation.
The Count continued his stroll away from the band. He returned slowly,he said. I can imagine him enjoying to the full, but with his usualtranquillity, the balminess of this southern night and the sounds ofmusic softened delightfully by the distance.
Presently, he approached for the third time the man on the garden seat,still leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. It was a dejectedpose. In the semi-obscurity of the alley his high shirt collar and hiscuffs made small patches of vivid whiteness. The Count said that he hadnoticed him getting up brusquely as if to walk away, but almost beforehe was aware of it the man stood before him asking in a low, gentle tonewhether the signore would have the kindness to oblige him with a light.
The Count answered this request by a polite "Certainly," and dropped hishands with the intention of exploring both pockets of his trousers forthe matches.
"I dropped my hands," he said, "but I never put them in my pockets. Ifelt a pressure there--"
He put the tip of his finger on a spot close under his breastbone,the very spot of the human body where a Japanese gentleman begins theoperations of the Harakiri, which is a form of suicide followingupon dishonour, upon an intolerable outrage to the delicacy of one'sfeelings.
"I glance down," the Count continued in an awestruck voice, "and what doI see? A knife! A long knife--"
"You don't mean to say," I exclaimed, amazed, "that you have been heldup like this in the Villa at half-past ten o'clock, within a stone'sthrow of a thousand people!"
He nodded several times, staring at me with all his might.
"The clarionet," he declared, solemnly, "was finishing his solo, and Iassure you I could hear every note. Then the band crashed fortissimo,and that creature rolled its eyes and gnashed its teeth hissing at mewith the greatest ferocity, 'Be silent! No noise or--'"
I could not get over my astonishment.
"What sort of knife was it?" I asked, stupidly.
"A long blade. A stiletto--perhaps a kitchen knife. A long narrow blade.It gleamed. And his eyes gleamed. His white teeth, too. I could seethem. He was very ferocious. I thought to myself: 'If I hit him hewill kill me.' How could I fight with him? He had the knife and I hadnothing. I am nearly seventy, you know, and that was a young man. Iseemed even to recognize him. The moody young man of the cafe. The youngman I met in the crowd. But I could not tell. There are so many like himin this country."
The distress of that moment was reflected in his face. I should thinkthat physically he must have been paralyzed by surprise. His thoughts,however, remained extremely active. They ranged over every alarmingpossibility. The idea of setting up a vigorous shouting for helpoccurred to him, too. But he did nothing of the kind, and the reason whyhe refrained gave me a good opinion of his mental self-possession. Hesaw in a flash that nothing prevented the other from shouting, too.
"That young man might in an instant have thrown away his knife andpretended I was the aggressor. Why not? He might have said I attackedhim. Why not? It was one incredible story against another! He mighthave said anything--bring some dishonouring charge against me--what doI know? By his dress he was no common robber. He seemed to belong to thebetter classes. What could I say? He was an Italian--I am a foreigner.Of course, I have my passport, and there is our consul--but to bearrested, dragged at night to the police office like a criminal!"
He shuddered. It was in his character to shrink from scandal, much morethan from mere death. And certainly for many people this would havealways remained--considering certain peculiarities of Neapolitanmanners--a deucedly queer story. The Count was no fool. His belief inthe respectable placidity of life having received this rude shock, hethought that now anything might happen. But also a notion came into hishead that this young man was perhaps merely an infuriated lunatic.
This was for me the first hint of his attitude towards this adventure.In his exaggerated delicacy of sentiment he felt that nobody'sself-esteem need be affected by what a madman may choose to do toone. It became apparent, however, that the Count was to be denied thatconsolation. He enlarged upon the abominably savage way in which thatyoung man rolled his glistening eyes and gnashed his white teeth. Theband was going now through a slow movement of solemn braying by all thetrombones, with deliberately repeated bangs of the big drum.
"But what did you do?" I asked, greatly excited.
"Nothing," answered the Count. "I let my hands hang down very still. Itold him quietly I did not intend making a noise. He snarled like a dog,then said in an ordinary voice:
"'Vostro portofolio.'"
"So I naturally," continued the Count--and from this point acted thewhole thing in pantomime. Holding me with his eyes, he went throughall the motions of reaching into his inside breast pocket, taking outa pocket-book, and handing it over. But that young man, still bearingsteadily on the knife, refused to touch it.
He directed the Count to take the money out himself, received it intohis left hand, motioned the pocketbook to be returned to the pocket,all this being done to the sweet thrilling of flutes and clarionetssustained by the emotional drone of the hautboys. And the "young man,"as the Count called him, said: "This seems very little."
"It was, indeed, only 340 or 360 lire," the Count pursued. "I had leftmy money in the hotel, as you know. I told him this was all I had on me.He shook his head impatiently and said:
"'Vostro orologio.'"
The Count gave me the dumb show of pulling out his watch, detaching it.But, as it happened, the valuable gold half-chronometer he possessed hadbeen left at a watch-maker's for cleaning. He wore that evening (on aleather guard) the Waterbury fifty-franc thing he used to take with himon his fishing expeditions. Perceiving the nature of this booty, thewell-dressed robber made a contemptuous clicking sound with his tonguelike this, "Tse-Ah!" and waved it away hastily. Then, as the Countwas returning the disdained object to his pocket, he demanded with athreateningly increased pressure of the knife on the epigastrium, by wayof reminder:
"'Vostri anelli.'"
"One of the rings," went on the Count, "was given me many years ago bymy wife; the other is the signet ring of my father. I said, 'No. Thatyou shall not have!'"
Here the Count reproduced the gesture corresponding to that declarationby clapping one hand upon the other, and pressing both thus against hischest. It was touching in its resignation. "That you shall not have,"he repeated, firmly, and closed his eyes, fully expecting--I don't knowwhether I am right in recording that such an unpleasant word had passedhis lips--fully expecting to feel himself being--I really hesitate tosay--being disembowelled by the push of the long, sharp blade restingmurderously against the pit of his stomach--the very seat, in all humanbeings, of anguishing sensations.
Great waves of harmony went on flowing from the band.
Suddenly the Count felt the nightmarish pressure removed from thesensitive spot. He opened his eyes. He was alone. He had heard nothing.It is probable that "the young man" had departed, with light steps,some time before, but the sense of the horrid pressure had lingered evenafter the knife had gone. A feeling of weakness came over him. He hadjust time to stagger to the garden seat. He felt as though he had heldhis breath for a long time. He sat all in a heap, panting with the shockof the reaction.
The band was executing, with immense bravura, the complicated finale. Itended with a tremendous crash. He heard it unreal and remote, as if hisears had been stopped, and then the hard clapping of a thousand, moreor less, pairs of hands, like a sudden hail-shower passing away. Theprofound silence which succeeded recalled him to himself.
A tramcar resembling a long glass box wherein people sat with theirheads strongly lighted, ran along swiftly within sixty yards of
the spotwhere he had been robbed. Then another rustled by, and yet anothergoing the other way. The audience about the band had broken up, and wereentering the alley in small conversing groups. The Count sat up straightand tried to think calmly of what had happened to him. The vilenessof it took his breath away again. As far as I can make it out he wasdisgusted with himself. I do not mean to say with his behaviour. Indeed,if his pantomimic rendering of it for my information was to be trusted,it was simply perfect. No, it was not that. He was not ashamed. Hewas shocked at being the selected victim, not of robbery so much as ofcontempt. His tranquillity had been wantonly desecrated. His lifelong,kindly nicety of outlook had been defaced.
Nevertheless, at that stage, before the iron had time to sink deep, hewas able to argue himself into comparative equanimity. As his agitationcalmed down somewhat, he became aware that he was frightfully hungry.Yes, hungry. The sheer emotion had made him simply ravenous. He left theseat and, after walking for some time, found himself outside the gardensand before an arrested tramcar, without knowing very well how he camethere. He got in as if in a dream, by a sort of instinct. Fortunately hefound in his trouser pocket a copper to satisfy the conductor. Thenthe car stopped, and as everybody was getting out he got out, too. Herecognized the Piazza San Ferdinando, but apparently it did not occur tohim to take a cab and drive to the hotel. He remained in distress onthe Piazza like a lost dog, thinking vaguely of the best way of gettingsomething to eat at once.
Suddenly he remembered his twenty-franc piece. He explained to me thathe had that piece of French gold for something like three years. He usedto carry it about with him as a sort of reserve in case of accident.Anybody is liable to have his pocket picked--a quite different thingfrom a brazen and insulting robbery.
The monumental arch of the Galleria Umberto faced him at the top ofa noble flight of stairs. He climbed these without loss of time, anddirected his steps towards the Cafe Umberto. All the tables outsidewere occupied by a lot of people who were drinking. But as he wantedsomething to eat, he went inside into the cafe, which is divided intoaisles by square pillars set all round with long looking-glasses.The Count sat down on a red plush bench against one of these pillars,waiting for his risotto. And his mind reverted to his abominableadventure.
He thought of the moody, well-dressed young man, with whom he hadexchanged glances in the crowd around the bandstand, and who, he feltconfident, was the robber. Would he recognize him again? Doubtless. Buthe did not want ever to see him again. The best thing was to forget thishumiliating episode.
The Count looked round anxiously for the coming of his risotto, and,behold! to the left against the wall--there sat the young man. He wasalone at a table, with a bottle of some sort of wine or syrup and acarafe of iced water before him. The smooth olive cheeks, the red lips,the little jet-black moustache turned up gallantly, the fine black eyesa little heavy and shaded by long eyelashes, that peculiar expression ofcruel discontent to be seen only in the busts of some Roman emperors--itwas he, no doubt at all. But that was a type. The Count looked awayhastily. The young officer over there reading a paper was like that,too. Same type. Two young men farther away playing draughts alsoresembled--
The Count lowered his head with the fear in his heart of beingeverlastingly haunted by the vision of that young man. He began toeat his risotto. Presently he heard the young man on his left call thewaiter in a bad-tempered tone.
At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waitersbelonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him withobsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of thewaiters in the Cafe Umberto. The young man muttered something and oneof the waiters walking rapidly to the nearest door called out into theGalleria: "Pasquale! O! Pasquale!"
Everybody knows Pasquale, the shabby old fellow who, shuffling betweenthe tables, offers for sale cigars, cigarettes, picture postcards, andmatches to the clients of the cafe. He is in many respects an engagingscoundrel. The Count saw the grey-haired, unshaven ruffian enter thecafe, the glass case hanging from his neck by a leather strap, and, at aword from the waiter, make his shuffling way with a sudden spurt tothe young man's table. The young man was in need of a cigar with whichPasquale served him fawningly. The old pedlar was going out, when theCount, on a sudden impulse, beckoned to him.
Pasquale approached, the smile of deferential recognition combiningoddly with the cynical searching expression of his eyes. Leaning hiscase on the table, he lifted the glass lid without a word. The Counttook a box of cigarettes and urged by a fearful curiosity, asked ascasually as he could--
"Tell me, Pasquale, who is that young signore sitting over there?"
The other bent over his box confidentially.
"That, Signor Conde," he said, beginning to rearrange his wares busilyand without looking up, "that is a young Cavaliere of a very good familyfrom Bari. He studies in the University here, and is the chief, capo, ofan association of young men--of very nice young men."
He paused, and then, with mingled discretion and pride of knowledge,murmured the explanatory word "Camorra" and shut down the lid. "A verypowerful Camorra," he breathed out. "The professors themselves respectit greatly . . . una lira e cinquanti centesimi, Signor Conde."
Our friend paid with the gold piece. While Pasquale was making up thechange, he observed that the young man, of whom he had heard so muchin a few words, was watching the transaction covertly. After the oldvagabond had withdrawn with a bow, the Count settled with the waiter andsat still. A numbness, he told me, had come over him.
The young man paid, too, got up, and crossed over, apparently for thepurpose of looking at himself in the mirror set in the pillar nearest tothe Count's seat. He was dressed all in black with a dark green bow tie.The Count looked round, and was startled by meeting a vicious glanceout of the corners of the other's eyes. The young Cavaliere from Bari(according to Pasquale; but Pasquale is, of course, an accomplishedliar) went on arranging his tie, settling his hat before the glass, andmeantime he spoke just loud enough to be heard by the Count. He spokethrough his teeth with the most insulting venom of contempt and gazingstraight into the mirror.
"Ah! So you had some gold on you--you old liar--you old birba--youfurfante! But you are not done with me yet."
The fiendishness of his expression vanished like lightning, and helounged out of the cafe with a moody, impassive face.
The poor Count, after telling me this last episode, fell back tremblingin his chair. His forehead broke into perspiration. There was a wantoninsolence in the spirit of this outrage which appalled even me. What itwas to the Count's delicacy I won't attempt to guess. I am sure that ifhe had been not too refined to do such a blatantly vulgar thing as dyingfrom apoplexy in a cafe, he would have had a fatal stroke there andthen. All irony apart, my difficulty was to keep him from seeingthe full extent of my commiseration. He shrank from every excessivesentiment, and my commiseration was practically unbounded. It did notsurprise me to hear that he had been in bed a week. He had got up tomake his arrangements for leaving Southern Italy for good and all.
And the man was convinced that he could not live through a whole year inany other climate!
No argument of mine had any effect. It was not timidity, though he didsay to me once: "You do not know what a Camorra is, my dear sir. I ama marked man." He was not afraid of what could be done to him.His delicate conception of his dignity was defiled by a degradingexperience. He couldn't stand that. No Japanese gentleman, outraged inhis exaggerated sense of honour, could have gone about his preparationsfor Hara-kiri with greater resolution. To go home really amounted tosuicide for the poor Count.
There is a saying of Neapolitan patriotism, intended for the informationof foreigners, I presume: "See Naples and then die." Vedi Napoli e poimori. It is a saying of excessive vanity, and everything excessive wasabhorrent to the nice moderation of the poor Count. Yet, as I was seeinghim off at the railway station, I thought he was behaving with singularfidelity to its conceited spirit. Vedi Napoli! . . . He h
ad seen it!He had seen it with startling thoroughness--and now he was going tohis grave. He was going to it by the train de luxe of the InternationalSleeping Car Company, via Trieste and Vienna. As the four long, sombrecoaches pulled out of the station I raised my hat with the solemnfeeling of paying the last tribute of respect to a funeral cortege.Il Conde's profile, much aged already, glided away from me in stonyimmobility, behind the lighted pane of glass--Vedi Napoli e poi mori!
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