A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  The young man, who was an American, said, “Your mother has a good deal to put up with!” His voice was rather adenoidal.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Constanza. And then she realized that this was the first time she had ever put anyone in his place. She did not like it, nor the self that spoke the words: it was as if something new and perfectly ready-made had slipped into her. It was ugly and easy and fascinating, and she knew she would do it again. She also knew that in the eyes of the world she had done exactly as required. It flashed through her: this is growing-up. With her old self she softened it by saying lightly, and smiling, “Well, you know, Milly, it isn’t your business, whatever it is.”

  “I shouldn’t have spoken to you,” the young man said, “it’s all the immorality in this place that gets me down. And I ask myself how a fine woman like your mother——”

  “Whatever it is,” said Constanza, coolly again, “my mother knows nothing about it.”

  The young man, who was half in love with Anna, took it in.

  5

  THEY HAD two more years. Anna never quite settled down again. She tried this and she tried that; she thought of reviving the fig scheme; she made plans for building a hospital or at least a first-aid station at Castelfonte; she turned her mind to starting something about women, but what was going on in England then was neither encouraging nor really to her taste, and when the prince said: cara, carissima, you haven’t got the vote even in America, have you? that was really that. She turned to schools.

  “Rico, do pay attention—these people cannot read or write.”

  “Già.”

  “Not read nor write. One must do something about it!”

  “Why?”

  “Really, Rico. Why, it’s the beginning of everything.”

  “Oh everything. . . . Dear Anna.”

  “You are evading the issue.”

  “What issue?”

  “Illiteracy is bad.”

  “Come to that, we haven’t all of us been reading and writing for such a long time in our part of the world. Our ancestors left it to the professionals.”

  “And theirs to the slaves. Thank God, things are different now.”

  “They are different,” said the prince. “But does it make a difference? Look at our Pina, she had six years at school, I daresay she didn’t mind, sitting still all day and no work, but look at her now, and look at Cosima who can’t even write figures.”

  “I admit that Cosima is three times more intelligent,” said Anna, “but that’s an accident. All the more pity that she did not have the schooling.”

  “And what would she do with it in her kitchen? Do you want people to read Leopardi in the evening after fourteen hours in the fields, and buy the newspaper? They haven’t got the time or the money, they haven’t got the soldi to buy lamp-oil. They wouldn’t enjoy Leopardi and they’d believe the newspaper. Most people are stupid and many things that are printed are stupid and stupid people always read the stupid things, so what you get is a more stupid world. When the stupid peasant has read the stupid newspaper, he feels he is a clever man and knows everything.”

  “We must raise the standard of newspapers and see that the people are less poor and tired. Nobody should work fourteen hours a day.”

  “Quite,” said the prince. “Only in Italy they would be even poorer if they didn’t.”

  “All that has to be changed.”

  “How? how? how?” said the prince. “How do you change things without making them worse? Where is it going to come from? Who is going to do it? Who is not out for himself?”

  “Changes are perfectly workable in a democracy.”

  “And how do you get that democracy, how do you change to that? It seems more unlikely than Constanza’s socialism.”

  “Fabian socialism,” said Constanza, who had been reading on the floor.

  “Ciao,” said the prince, “and how is my nihilist today?”

  “Very well indeed, papa. I never really had that phase, though it is attractive; but not so reasonable.”

  “If you’ve been listening,” said Anna, “do tell your father that we’ve got to do something about these disgraceful conditions.”

  “But you see, mama, I’m only for socialism with consent. Do you think people would consent to it in Italy?”

  “Oh, we would be asked, would we?” said the prince.

  “That’s my point, papa. I am not considering Revolution. The peasants might say yes, but they wouldn’t grasp what it’s about, and anyway it is known that it should be tried only in highly industrialized countries——”

  “Cristo,” said her father.

  “Education,” said Anna, “that’s what I’ve been saying, economic progress is inseparable——”

  “—and people like papa wouldn’t consent at all—I don’t think I could persuade papa, he is really quite obstinate—the rich won’t consent, it wouldn’t be like England and the Reform Bill when some of the rich were for it.”

  Anna, with automatic distaste, said: “Darling, you know that we are not what is called rich, besides it is not nice to refer to oneself as that.”

  “Mama,” Constanza said with firmness, “in Rome there are the rich and there are the poor. To say that we don’t belong to the rich is an insult to the poor. Even if papa does tell us we shall be ruined before Giorgio is a man.”

  “What are you going to do about it all?”

  “Do, do, do,” said the prince.

  “I’d get rid of the Salt Tax straight away,” said Constanza, “and I’d try stopping people from having so many bambini.”

  “Yes, that is shocking,” said Anna. “But one must begin with government. Why does nobody try to learn from us? The United States——”

  “Did they bring it off?” said Constanza. “Something went wrong.” She looked at her mother with personal reproach. “You had a civil war.”

  “Yes,” said Anna. “Something went wrong.”

  “And you didn’t always do right by the Indians.”

  “Nobody’s done right by us for centuries,” said the prince; “we’re Indians. Sack and invasions, sack and invasions—nothing’s gone right with Italy since . . . since, oh well. . . .”

  “The Fall of Rome?” suggested his daughter.

  “Quite,” said the prince.

  “The Empire was a most corrupt society,” said Anna.

  “So unlike the present Court,” said Constanza and giggled.

  Her father joined her. “Sono piemontesi.” It was a family joke of long standing.

  “Do leave the Royal Family alone,” said Anna.

  Bent on teasing her mother, Constanza went on, “Ought you really to interfere with your illiterati, mama? and the poor? Isn’t that flying in the face of providence? When it’s all going to turn out for the best in paradise—the last shall be the first? Do you pay attention to the teachings of our Church, mama?”

  “It’s in the Bible,” snapped Anna, “and it’s never been an excuse for twirling your thumbs. Heaven helps those who help themselves.”

  “But it is you helping the illiterate.”

  “Helping them to help themselves,” said Anna.

  “Are you really going ahead with the League?” said Constanza.

  “League?” said the prince.

  “Contro l’Analfabetismo.”

  “Misericordia! And where——”

  “—is the money coming from?” said Constanza.

  “Mrs. Throgmore-Wylie has promised us substantial——”

  “Heaven help us all,” said the prince.

  •

  But nothing came of it. Nothing. Nor of the plan for a hospital; even the more modest first-aid station had to be abandoned. Here circumstances had seemed to be playing into Anna’s hands. One of the men at Castelfonte had his hip hurt by a falling tree. They sent for the nearest doctor and the prince. Both arrived at night-fall. The hip was found to be badly injured and a kitchen-table operation out of the questi
on. The prince rode fifteen miles to a neighbour who owned a motor car. They got the thing out and there and up the hill, they threw out the back-seats and put in a mattress, and they managed to get the injured man to the hospital by dawn. It was a near thing, but they were in time. After a lengthy convalescence and a complicated treatment at Milan, the man came home without limp or pain. But when Anna said, “Well, now you see,” the prince said: “You see, if we had built that first-aid place there wouldn’t be any money left for this kind of thing.”

  “Did it cost a great deal then?” she asked.

  “A great deal. And that damned thing lost an axle or something after that night. Poor Archimede hasn’t been the same again either.” Archimede was the prince’s horse.

  •

  Anna’s sister and her husband came to stay; an elderly couple, their children married. In a sense it was a farewell visit; he was retiring from the Diplomatic Service, after a not undistinguished career, leaving friends in many places; they were planning to settle in the American South-West for their old age.

  “Already,” said Anna. “Oh, Harriet, how time has flown.”

  “Not for you, Noushka. With your darling baby boy. . . . But it does seem like yesterday when you were a little girl and Jack taught you to skate. . . . Remember the time you came home from Florence and insisted on talking Italian to us all, and only papa was able to answer you back? Now and here you are. I just look at you. . . . You ought to have had my job really, you would have been able to help Jack ever so much more than I was able to. If only papa could see you! I wonder what he would say—you a Roman Catholic, and become so very foreign: you’re like an Italian woman to me, our little Anna!”

  Anna put herself en fête. She arranged dinner-parties—she had become rather slack over these in the last years—and tightened her hold on the happy-go-lucky ways of the house. The house played up; when stimulated they could put up quite a show, and now they did.

  Anna’s sisters had always been kind to her, more than that. Now it was like having mammina in the house again, only the standards were higher.

  She saw to it that they met everybody, saw that her sister—half shame-faced, half excited—had the right kind of audience with the Pope. The prince took them to the Opera, and their box overflowed with people who came to talk and be introduced.

  “My, what a handsome couple.”

  “The Monfalconi,” said Anna, “very dear neighbours of ours.”

  “Isn’t she gorgeous? I bet your girl is going to look like her when she’s more grown-up, they’re the same type of beauty.”

  Morning after morning and often again at sunset, Anna took her brother-in-law to see the sights of the City. She had done it so often; to her it never palled. He responded, Anna was pleased, she had always got on with Jack. They were standing on the Capitoline.

  “Do you know, I was once offered Rome? I took Berlin. Nearer the hub of things, I thought. Look what I have missed!”

  Anna said, “It is my home.”

  “Perhaps I was a fool,” he said, “I went after what I wanted, wanted most. Then. Now is another story. It won’t matter a darn in Arizona.”

  “It was Rico who taught me Rome. Rico never goes and looks at anything, he doesn’t have to; one gets Rome by being here.”

  “That house of yours,” he said, “the palazzo, it’s got something.”

  Anna was immensely pleased. She never praised or showed off the house, she could not bear to. She had feared that her relations, used to larger places, to more luxury, impersonal comforts, might not see what she saw.

  “That’s what I used to admire about you,” he said, “you always went after what you wanted.”

  “Did I?” said Anna.

  “Oh my good girl! For a clever woman you know precious little about yourself. And when you got it, you didn’t look back at the price.”

  “Price?” said Anna.

  He turned to her. “Well, maybe there isn’t a price, maybe you got it all free.”

  Anna, who had rarely an intuition but who had slipped back into more open ways with this companion of her youth, said, “You don’t like Rico, is that what you mean?”

  “Oh I,” he said, “I like Rico very much. I’ve learnt to like the likes of him.” He considered her. “I shouldn’t have thought he was the sort of man you would have picked. You are a romantic, Anna, always were; people didn’t see it because you were so clever and gay; but that’s what you are, my dear.”

  Anna, still in her open strain, said, “Haven’t I made a romantic marriage?” She offered him a smile.

  “Oh, if you are thinking of the trappings. . . . It’s supposed to take two to make that kind of a marriage. Rico is not a romantic figure.”

  Her brother-in-law looked straight ahead, down at the Forum. He was far from being a fool and he had lived in Europe for twenty years; he had heard things. Had not Anna? Anna must have changed a good deal if she could take all that in her stride; but then she had changed. Jack was very fond of Anna, wrong-headed though she appeared to him, and he did not think much of her entourage: flatterers, all of them. Anna had always drawn these, but he thought he knew Anna better, what she wanted was firmness, firmness from a source she could accept. Poor thing, she will not get it here; ah, and then she is spoilt, so very spoilt. And alone. He thought he saw a duty. “My dear girl,” he began, “no woman ever is everything to a man.” He did not say, any one woman.

  “Oh, if you are thinking of men like my father,” Anna said readily. “No woman would have minded playing second fiddle to a man like him. Not that he didn’t worship my mother. But Rico has no ambitions, no ideals. . . .”

  “My poor Anna, it isn’t only those——”

  “It is I,” she cut in, “I, if the truth were known, who have given up a great deal for Rico!”

  Her tone was fatuous, insulating. He decided to keep his mouth shut. They were still looking at the Forum.

  “I could stand here for ever,” said Anna.

  All he allowed himself to say was, “My dear, romantics are dangerous animals. To themselves, and to others.”

  •

  It was decided to mark the visit by a family photograph. When it came to the posing, the men balked. “We’ll leave it to Giorgio,” said the prince, “he’ll represent us, he’s dressed the part.” Giorgio was wearing a lace frock and kid boots. Anna’s sister also backed out, so what remained of the group—remains, on a gilt-edged rectangle of thick pasteboard above the photographer’s florid engraved signature, is Anna, seated, hands in lap, flawlessly pretty, smiling, flanked by Constanza brushed and tidied up for the occasion yet with a look as if butter would not be entirely safe in her mouth, and Giorgio in his finery, perched on what must have been a stool concealed behind a papier-mâché column.

  •

  In Early June, a few days before they were due to leave, they went to watch the Girandola, the great fireworks in the Piazza del Popolo. It was splendid and breathless and loud, and the crowd was in ecstasy.

  Anna, exalted, said to her sister, “We ought to have had a ball for you—if we’d had someone to give it for.” In two years from now, said the prince, they would be giving one for Constanza. “Oh,” said Anna, “you must come back for that, you must promise to come back.”

  They promised to come back.

  Another great burst of racing crackling light, another soft fall, another great sigh from the crowd. Bravo—! Bravo—! Constanza and the prince were clapping their hands like demons. Overcome, Harriet pressed her sister’s arm: “What a lovely, lovely life you have!” Anna turned to her and her own face, too, was alight.

  When at last they had to go, Anna decided to see them on their way and went with them as far as the Italian Lakes. She would have liked Rico to come too and do the honours of his country, but the prince said he had business.

  •

  Meanwhile Constanza was lying at Castelfonte in the shade. Her lazy hand was tracing tangles in the boy’s dark hair, as dark and
curly as her own. They were in the mulberry grove; outside the heat was shimmering, here the air was light and flowing like brook water.

  The boy raised his head. “Listen.”

  Constanza did not stir.

  “Did you hear foot-steps?” he said.

  “Nothing human. It’s too hot; they’re all asleep.”

  “Asleep—or doing as we do.”

  “Doing as we do,” said Constanza fondly. “Half the world doing as we do: the others are too old.”

  The boy laughed. He, like her, had beautifully perfect teeth, delicately shaped, white: animal teeth, effective, workmanlike. “Fools sleep,” he said.

  “A good hour,” Constanza said, “we are awake and they are asleep.”

  “The night is good too,” the boy said, “the night is best.”

  “More difficult,” she said. “The night is fraught with dangers.”

  He gave her a quick suspicious look. “You promised,” he said.

  “Yes yes, caro,” Constanza said, “I’ll manage.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will give our signal?”

  “I’ll give the signal.”

  “Oh, Constanza.”

  “Now is now,” she said.

  Presently he said, “Do you love me?”

  She moved so that she could look at him. “Sei bello,” she said.

  Exultant, he said: “E tu!”

  Later he said, “Shall I see you tomorrow?”

  “How not.”

  “And Thursday?”

  “Thursday.”

  “And next week?”

  “Dio volente.”

  “And the week after that?”

  “You look too far ahead,” said Constanza.

  “You don’t love me,” said the boy.

  Constanza touched his cheek with her finger-tip. “Today I love you very much,” she said.

  “Two months from now I shall be at the collegio.”

  “Già. And tomorrow there may be an earthquake. Two months are a fine piece of time.”