given with extreme discretion, was “A proprietor.” If in easy
circumstances, the Don must have been miserly, his diet was wretched
beyond description. And in the manner of his feeding he differed
strangely from the ordinary Italian who frequents restaurants.
Wonderful to observe, the representative diner. He always seems to know
exactly what his appetite demands; he addresses the waiter in a
preliminary discourse, sketching out his meal, and then proceeds to
fill in the minutiae. If he orders a common dish, he describes with
exquisite detail how it is to be prepared; in demanding something out
of the way he glows with culinary enthusiasm. An ordinary bill of fare
never satisfies him; he plays variations upon the theme suggested,
divides or combines, introduces novelties of the most unexpected kind.
As a rule, he eats enormously (I speak only of dinner), a piled dish of
macaroni is but the prelude to his meal, a whetting of his appetite.
Throughout he grumbles, nothing is quite as it should be, and when the
bill is presented he grumbles still more vigorously, seldom paying the
sum as it stands. He rarely appears content with his entertainment, and
often indulges in unbounded abuse of those who serve him. These
characteristics, which I have noted more or less in every part of
Italy, were strongly illustrated at the Concordia. In general, they
consist with a fundamental good humour, but at Cotrone the tone of the
dining-room was decidedly morose. One man—he seemed to be a sort of
clerk—came only to quarrel. I am convinced that he ordered things
which he knew the people could not cook just for the sake of reviling
their handiwork when it was presented. Therewith he spent incredibly
small sums; after growling and remonstrating and eating for more than
an hour, his bill would amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wine
included. Every day he threatened to withdraw his custom; every day he
sent for the landlady, pointed out to her how vilely he was treated,
and asked how she could expect him to recommend the Concordia to his
acquaintances. On one occasion I saw him push away a plate of
something, plant his elbows on the table, and hide his face in his
hands; thus he sat for ten minutes, an image of indignant misery, and
when at last his countenance was again visible, it showed traces of
tears.
I dwell upon the question of food because it was on this day that I
began to feel a loss of appetite and found myself disgusted with the
dishes set before me. In ordinary health I have the happiest
qualification of the traveller, an ability to eat and enjoy the
familiar dishes of any quasi-civilized country; it was a bad sign when
I grew fastidious. After a mere pretence of dinner, I lay down in my
room to rest and read. But I could do neither; it grew plain to me that
I was feverish. Through a sleepless night, the fever manifestly
increasing, I wished that illness had fallen on me anywhere rather than
at Cotrone.
CHAPTER IX
MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR
In the morning I arose as usual, though with difficulty. I tried to
persuade myself that I was merely suffering from a violent attack of
dyspepsia, the natural result of Concordia diet. When the waiter
brought my breakfast I regarded it with resentful eye, feeling for the
moment very much like my grumbling acquaintance of the dinner hour. It
may be as well to explain that the breakfast consisted of very bad
coffee, with goat’s milk, hard, coarse bread, and goat’s butter, which
tasted exactly like indifferent lard. The so-called butter, by a
strange custom of Cotrone, was served in the emptied rind of a
spherical cheese—the small caccio cavallo, horse cheese, which one
sees everywhere in the South. I should not have liked to inquire where,
how, when, or by whom the substance of the cheese had been consumed.
Possibly this receptacle is supposed to communicate a subtle flavour to
the butter; I only know that, even to a healthy palate, the stuff was
rather horrible. Cow’s milk could be obtained in very small quantities,
but it was of evil flavour; butter, in the septentrional sense of the
word, did not exist.
It surprises me to remember that I went out, walked down to the shore,
and watched the great waves breaking over the harbour mole. There was a
lull in the storm, but as yet no sign of improving weather; clouds
drove swiftly across a lowering sky. My eyes turned to the Lacinian
promontory, dark upon the turbid sea. Should I ever stand by the sacred
column? It seemed to me hopelessly remote; the voyage an impossible
effort.
I talked with a man, of whom I remember nothing but his piercing eyes
steadily fixed upon me; he said there had been a wreck in the night, a
ship carrying live pigs had gone to pieces, and the shore was sprinkled
with porcine corpses.
Presently I found myself back at the Concordia, not knowing exactly
how I had returned. The dyspepsia—I clung to this hypothesis—was
growing so violent that I had difficulty in breathing: before long I
found it impossible to stand.
My hostess was summoned, and she told me that Cotrone had “a great
physician,” by name “Dr. Scurco.” Translating this name from dialect
into Italian, I presumed that the physician’s real name was Sculco, and
this proved to be the case. Dr. Riccardo Sculco was a youngish man,
with an open, friendly countenance. At once I liked him. After an
examination, of which I quite understood the result, he remarked in his
amiable, airy manner that I had “a touch of rheumatism”; as a simple
matter of precaution, I had better go to bed for the rest of the day,
and, just for the form of the thing, he would send some medicine.
Having listened to this with as pleasant a smile as I could command, I
caught the Doctor’s eye, and asked quietly, “Is there much congestion?”
His manner at once changed; he became businesslike and confidential.
The right lung; yes, the right lung. Mustn’t worry; get to bed and take
my quinine in dosi forti, and he would look in again at night.
The second visit I but dimly recollect. There was a colloquy between
the Doctor and my hostess, and the word cataplasma sounded
repeatedly; also I heard again “dosi forti.” The night that followed
was perhaps the most horrible I ever passed. Crushed with a sense of
uttermost fatigue, I could get no rest. From time to time a sort of
doze crept upon me, and I said to myself, “Now I shall sleep”; but on
the very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was falling into
oblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into consciousness. In the
same instant there gleamed before my eyes a little circle of fire,
which blazed and expanded into immensity, until its many-coloured glare
beat upon my brain and thrilled me with torture. No sooner was the
intolerable light extinguished than I burst into a cold sweat; an icy
river poured about me; I shook, and my teeth chattered, and so for some
minutes I lay in anguish, until the heat of fever re-asserted itself
,
and I began once more to toss and roll. A score of times was this
torment repeated. The sense of personal agency forbidding me to sleep
grew so strong that I waited in angry dread for that shock which
aroused me; I felt myself haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelled
against its cruelty.
Through the night no one visited me. At eight in the morning a knock
sounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray with
my ordinary breakfast. “The Signore is not well?” he remarked, standing
to gaze at me. I replied that I was not quite well; would he give me
the milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible all the other
things on the tray. A glimpse of butter in its cheese-rind had given me
an unpleasant sensation. The goat’s milk I swallowed thankfully, and,
glad of the daylight, lay somewhat more at my ease awaiting Dr. Sculco.
He arrived about half-past nine, and was agreeably surprised to find me
no worse. But the way in which his directions had been carried out did
not altogether please him. He called the landlady, and soundly rated
her. This scene was interesting, it had a fine flavour of the Middle
Ages. The Doctor addressed mine hostess of the Concordia as “thou,”
and with magnificent disdain refused to hear her excuses; she, the
stout, noisy woman, who ruled her own underlings with contemptuous
rigour, was all subservience before this social superior, and whined to
him for pardon. “What water is this?” asked Dr. Sculco, sternly, taking
up the corked jar that stood on the floor. The hostess replied that it
was drinking water, purchased with good money. Thereupon he poured out
a little, held it up to the light, and remarked in a matter-of-fact
tone, “I don’t believe you.”
However, in a few minutes peace was restored, and the Doctor prescribed
anew. After he had talked about quinine and cataplasms, he asked me
whether I had any appetite. A vision of the dining-room came before me,
and I shook my head. “Still,” he urged, “it would be well to eat
something.” And, turning to the hostess, “He had better have a
beefsteak and a glass of Marsala.” The look of amazement with which I
heard this caught the Doctor’s eye. “Don’t you like bistecca?” he
inquired. I suggested that, for one in a very high fever, with a good
deal of lung congestion, beefsteak seemed a trifle solid, and Marsala
somewhat heating. “Oh!” cried he, “but we must keep the machine going.”
And thereupon he took his genial leave.
I had some fear that my hostess might visit upon me her resentment of
the Doctor’s reproaches; but nothing of the kind. When we were alone,
she sat down by me, and asked what I should really like to eat. If I
did not care for a beefsteak of veal, could I eat a beefsteak of
mutton? It was not the first time that such a choice had been offered
me, for, in the South, bistecca commonly means a slice of meat done
on the grill or in the oven. Never have I sat down to a bistecca
which was fit for man’s consumption, and, of course, at the Concordia
it would be rather worse than anywhere else. I persuaded the good woman
to supply me with a little broth. Then I lay looking at the patch of
cloudy sky which showed above the houses opposite, and wondering
whether I should have a second fearsome night. I wondered, too, how
long it would be before I could quit Cotrone. The delay here was
particularly unfortunate, as my letters were addressed to Catanzaro,
the next stopping-place, and among them I expected papers which would
need prompt attention. The thought of trying to get my correspondence
forwarded to Cotrone was too disturbing; it would have involved an
enormous amount of trouble, and I could not have felt the least
assurance that things would arrive safely. So I worried through the
hours of daylight, and worried still more when, at nightfall, the fever
returned upon me as badly as ever.
Dr. Sculco had paid his evening visit, and the first horror of
ineffectual drowsing had passed over me, when my door was flung
violently open, and in rushed a man (plainly of the commercial
species), hat on head and bag in hand. I perceived that the diligenza
had just arrived, and that travellers were seizing upon their bedrooms.
The invader, aware of his mistake, discharged a volley of apologies,
and rushed out again. Five minutes later the door again banged open,
and there entered a tall lad with an armful of newspapers; after
regarding me curiously, he asked whether I wanted a paper. I took one
with the hope of reading it next morning. Then he began conversation. I
had the fever? Ah! everybody had fever at Cotrone. He himself would be
laid up with it in a day or two. If I liked, he would look in with a
paper each evening—till fever prevented him. When I accepted this
suggestion, he smiled encouragingly, cried “Speriamo!” and clumped
out of the room.
I had as little sleep as on the night before, but my suffering was
mitigated in a very strange way. After I had put out the candle, I
tormented myself for a long time with the thought that I should never
see La Colonna. As soon as I could rise from bed, I must flee Cotrone,
and think myself fortunate in escaping alive; but to turn my back on
the Lacinian promontory, leaving the cape unvisited, the ruin of the
temple unseen, seemed to me a miserable necessity which I should lament
as long as I lived. I felt as one involved in a moral disaster; working
in spite of reason, my brain regarded the matter from many points of
view, and found no shadow of solace. The sense that so short a distance
separated me from the place I desired to see, added exasperation to my
distress. Half-delirious, I at times seemed to be in a boat, tossing on
wild waters, the Column visible afar, but only when I strained my eyes
to discover it. In a description of the approach by land, I had read of
a great precipice which had to be skirted, and this, too, haunted me
with its terrors: I found myself toiling on a perilous road, which all
at once crumbled into fearful depths just before me. A violent
shivering fit roused me from this gloomy dreaming, and I soon after
fell into a visionary state which, whilst it lasted, gave me such
placid happiness as I have never known when in my perfect mind. Lying
still and calm, and perfectly awake, I watched a succession of
wonderful pictures. First of all I saw great vases, rich with ornament
and figures; then sepulchral marbles, carved more exquisitely than the
most beautiful I had ever known. The vision grew in extent, in
multiplicity of detail; presently I was regarding scenes of ancient
life—thronged streets, processions triumphal or religious, halls of
feasting, fields of battle. What most impressed me at the time was the
marvellously bright yet delicate colouring of everything I saw. I can
give no idea in words of the pure radiance which shone from every
object, which illumined every scene. More remarkable, when I thought of
it next day, was the minute finish of these pictures, the definite
ness
of every point on which my eye fell. Things which I could not know,
which my imagination, working in the service of the will, could never
have bodied forth, were before me as in life itself. I consciously
wondered at peculiarities of costume such as I had never read of; at
features of architecture entirely new to me; at insignificant
characteristics of that by-gone world, which by no possibility could
have been gathered from books. I recall a succession of faces, the
loveliest conceivable; and I remember, I feel to this moment the pang
of regret with which I lost sight of each when it faded into darkness.
As an example of the more elaborate visions that passed before me, I
will mention the only one which I clearly recollect. It was a glimpse
of history. When Hannibal, at the end of the second Punic War, was
confined to the south of Italy, he made Croton his head-quarters, and
when, in reluctant obedience to Carthage, he withdrew from Roman soil,
it was at Croton that he embarked. He then had with him a contingent of
Italian mercenaries, and, unwilling that these soldiers should go over
to the enemy, he bade them accompany him to Africa. The Italians
refused. Thereupon Hannibal had them led down to the shore of the sea,
where he slaughtered one and all. This event I beheld. I saw the strand
by Croton; the promontory with its temple; not as I know the scene
to-day, but as it must have looked to those eyes more than two thousand
years ago. The soldiers of Hannibal doing massacre, the perishing
mercenaries, supported my closest gaze, and left no curiosity
unsatisfied. (Alas! could I but see it again, or remember clearly what
was shown tome!) And over all lay a glory of sunshine, an indescribable
brilliancy which puts light and warmth into my mind whenever I try to
recall it. The delight of these phantasms was well worth the ten days’
illness which paid for them. After this night they never returned; I
hoped for their renewal, but in vain. When I spoke of the experience to
Dr. Sculco, he was much amused, and afterwards he often asked me
whether I had had any more visioni. That gate of dreams was closed,
but I shall always feel that, for an hour, it was granted to me to see
the vanished life so dear to my imagination. If the picture
corresponded to nothing real, tell me who can, by what power I
By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy Page 7
