VI
I
There are some experiences that remain in the mind as possessing a charm all their own, so that no matter what may follow after, they stand forth unblemished as something to remember with a sense of deep gratitude. And of these, the first glimpse of that lovely coastline that curves like a sickle round the Genoese Gulf is surely not the least, for nothing more perfect could ever be wedded to sunshine.
The train had steamed out of Genoa station and was moving slowly by the side of the water, now into a long dark rumbling tunnel, now out into the glorious sunshine again, the rich, orange sunshine of mid-October. The sea and the sky were incredibly blue, and the peace of the sky stooped down to the sea, and the peace of the sea reached up to the sky, and the drowsy, motherly peace of autumn encircled them both, as with arms.
Gian-Luca stood in the corridor of the train with Maddalena at his side; they were holding each other’s hands, and their faces were steadfastly turned to the window. The peace had got into Maddalena’s eyes so that they were full of contentment; from time to time they rested on her husband, and then she must murmur in a voice of rapture: “Com’ e bella, la nostra Italia!”
Gian-Luca silently pressed her hand, his heart was too full for speech at that moment. All the beauty and the wonder of this first homecoming had filled him with a kind of reverential awe. He was conscious of a queer sense of things familiar, he felt that he knew the little white houses with bright-colored garments flapping from their windows, and the pergolas covered with strong green vines, and the jars of rioting red carnations that stood along the sides of the roofs. There were people, too, in the tiny gardens, women with handkerchiefs bound round their heads; men lolling back on chairs in the sunshine; children who played on the hot, virile soil, and whose bare arms and legs were the color of copper, so that they seemed to be part of the soil, part of the eternally patient Mother from whom sprang all fruitful things. And Gian-Luca felt that he too was a child, but one who had grown very weary; and he wanted to lay his cheek close to this earth and let all the strength of it go throbbing through him, and all the joy of it make him feel young, until he forgot about suffering and sorrow, and cared for nothing at all but the sunshine and the glory of being alive.
Presently he said: “This will make me quite well, this is the thing I have been needing.”
And hearing him, Maddalena rejoiced, and she praised the Mother of God in her heart.
All the way, curving gently southward, the splendid blue water went with them; and the sun and the warm air came in at the window, touching Gian-Luca as though they felt happy to welcome this tired son home. And every few miles the leisurely train would stop at a wayside station, and the names of such places would be soft on the tongue, so that Gian-Luca must speak them aloud for the pleasure he took in their beauty. There were Nervi, Rapallo, Zoagli, Chiavari, Sestri Levant, Moneglia; and all these small hamlets were bathed in sunshine which the walls of their houses caught and gave back, and the vines and the flowers that clung to the walls, and the eyes and the faces of the children.
Very soon Maddalena was waving from the window, for the train was coming into Levanto, and there on the platform stood Cousin Sisto patiently waiting for the train.
“Eccoci! Here we are!” called Maddalena.
The Cousin Sisto waved too: “Maddalena, but this is splendid!” he shouted. “And Gian-Luca, but this is splendid!”
Cousin Sisto was a broad, squat person of fifty. His grey hair was cut en brosse, giving to his large head a square appearance, and the hair itself was very stiff in texture; you felt, indeed, that if you held him upside down, it would polish your parquet floors. His clothes were suggestive of Sundays or funerals, and belonged by rights to the latter; for Cousin Sisto had lost his Mamma a year ago at the age of eighty; and now, although he had gone out of mourning, his best suit survived, so he wore it for galas, enlivened by a bright yellow necktie. Cousin Sisto’s watch-chain was a thing to remember; it was made of an opulent red gold. The links were enormous and unusual in pattern; they ended in a species of curtain ring, which was clipped through his buttonhole. And now Cousin Sisto took out his watch, and the watch was of tarnished white metal; it was rather a shock after seeing that chain, but then, as its owner was wont to say, smiling: “Non importa, he lives in a pocket!”
“It is late, this train,” remarked Cousin Sisto, in a voice of incredulous surprise; “nearly one hour and a half of delay!” And he hurried them off to retrieve their luggage which was being hurled out of the van.
Then he gave an order to Carlo, the porter, who groaned and sighed loudly as he heaved the small trunks on to his antiquated truck. At the entrance to the station stood Sisto’s conveyance, a species of market-wagon. A lean, white mare was drooping in the shafts, too languid to twitch the flies off her ears, where they clustered in blue-black blotches.
“Sacramento!” swore Sisto, “I forgot about the chickens and now the train has departed! Oh, well, never mind, they must wait until the morning. Carlo, come here and help me!” Carlo looked even more languid than the mare, and considerably less sweet-tempered. He dropped the handle of his truck with a frown, and together he and Sisto disinterred the chickens, banging their crate on the pavement. The crate appeared to be filled to bursting, judging by the heads that protruded, and those that could not find an opening to protrude from were firmly pressed against the slats. The fowls shuffled and squatted on top of each other in a futile effort to get ease; from time to time they clucked rather weakly, and tried to shake out their feathers.
Carlo examined the address on the label: “No train before ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” he announced, staring crossly at the crate.
“Allora? And what then?” demanded Cousin Sisto.
“It is big, it will take up much room in the station,” muttered Carlo, ignoring any inconvenience that might accrue to the chickens.
Sisto waved his objection away. “Climb up beside me,” he said to Maddalena, “Gian-Luca will not mind if he sits on the luggage? He knows that we are only simple country folk. Get in, Gian-Luca; are you ready? Va bene, and now we will make for home.”
He found his imitation panama hat, and pressed it down on his head. “Ee-yup!” he encouraged, cracking his whip, and the mare moved stiffly forward.
Gian-Luca refrained from looking at the crate, but he wondered if Maddalena had noticed. Perhaps she had not; now, at all events, her eyes were turned to the sea. He followed the direction of her gaze, determined to think of nothing but the sunshine; before him there stretched a calm little bay in a semicircle of hills. The sun had begun to drop down westward, and whatever it touched it gilded; the half-furled sail of a skiff in the harbor looked as though cut out of cloth of gold, while the windows of the villas that lay back from the water were all afire with the sunset.
Sisto turned inland and drove through the town, where people sat outside the café; some of these people were drinking Amarena, and Gian-Luca thought of Nerone. And now they were out on a white country road, a long straight road that sloped upwards; and down the road came the tinkling of bells and the sharp clip, clip of home-going mules, laden with loads of herbage. On their right lay a very ancient smithy where a youth was working the bellows; with each downward sweep of the rough, wooden pole, the fire glowed softly through the gathering dusk, and the blacksmith’s hammer clanged on the anvil in harmony with the mule-bells. They passed a pair of tall iron gates, above each gate was a crown.
“Guarda!” said Sisto, pointing with his whip; “the estate of my master, the Marchese.”
Gian-Luca could just glimpse a big, untidy garden from which came a mixture of sweet scents, and sweetest of all, the scent of hot earth, steaming a little under dew.
“He is rich, very rich,” Cousin Sisto was saying; “I will show you his villa, Maddalena. Just now he has gone to Milan on business, and it is I who must see to all things in his absence; I have very much to do at this time of the vendemmia, they are terrible robbers, our peasants.”
The road had begun to climb upwards in good earnest, and the mare was stumbling and straining. Her sides were going in and out like the bellows at the blacksmith’s down in the village.
“Ee-yup! Ee-yup!” commanded Cousin Sisto, in the voice of him who must be obeyed.
But the mare, unable for the moment to go farther, stood still, ignoring Cousin Sisto.
And now Gian-Luca forgot about the sunset, and could think of nothing but the mare. “We are much too heavy for her,” he protested, “she looks as though she would drop between the shafts; if you wait for a minute, I will get out and walk.”
“Neanche per sogno!” laughed Cousin Sisto, “she would never understand it; you will see, she can go very well when she wishes.”
“But her flanks are all dripping with sweat,” said Gian-Luca, “her flanks are quite grey with sweat!”
Then Sisto heaved a sympathetic sigh and glanced over his shoulder at Gian-Luca. “She is old, very old, poverina,” he said sadly, and proceeded to lash her with the whip.
“Stop!” shouted Gian-Luca, “my wife and I will walk. Come down, Maddalena, we will walk!” And he jumped out and held up his hand to Maddalena, where she sat beside Cousin Sisto.
Obedient as always, she climbed down from her seat and stood beside her husband in the road. Then Gian-Luca went to the back of the cart and tried to ease the wheels forward. Meanwhile Cousin Sisto stared round in amazement.
“But what is the matter?” he demanded. “Ma guarda, she is twenty years old the good mare, do you expect her to fly?”
The cart had begun to move slowly again, but nothing would induce Gian-Luca to get in; so he and Maddalena tramped on through the dust, which sprayed up over their ankles.
Cousin Sisto felt annoyed. “He is mad!” he was thinking. “He makes his wife walk for a horse!” and he looked down on Maddalena with pity, “Povera disgraziata!” he muttered.
Still walking, they arrived at the gates of the farm, where Lidia was standing to receive them; a plump, comely woman with wavy brown hair, and small, very even white teeth. But seeing Maddalena tramping through the dust, she held up her hands and exclaimed:
“Madonna! What has happened?” she inquired in agitation. “Has there been an accident, Sisto?”
“It was only our Giuseppina,” said Sisto; “she pretended that the cart was too heavy.”
“The Giuseppina is sly,” smiled Lidia; “she is old, and the old grow crafty. But to walk, that is too bad, and on your first evening! However, you are safely arrived, God be thanked; and now do come in, I must get to know Gian-Luca, I am happy in having a new cousin.”
II
Early the next morning they went out on the hills, and Gian-Luca saw the vendemmia. He was walking through a region of wide, green vineyards in which worked an army of peasants; their strong, slim bodies arched over the vines as they stooped to gather in the grapes. Here and there stood huge baskets overflowing with fruit that glowed purple-red in the heat; for the sun was already gathering power, pushing the mist away from the hilltops, pushing the light clouds away from the sky that stretched widely, fervently blue. The paths between the vines were strewn with crushed grapes, and the air was heavy with a queer, intense odor of fermentation and sweating human bodies; it smelt of fertility, virility and women, all steaming together in the sunshine.
The peasants were quick to observe a stranger; they glanced at Gian-Luca from under their lids, and whenever they stood up to ease their backs, they stared quite openly at him. Their eyes were the eyes of curious children, of the very young of the earth; they were not the eyes of those bygone Legions who had flung out the straight, white roads. For some reason Gian-Luca appeared to amuse them, perhaps it was his English clothes; but whatever it was, no sooner had he passed than they started laughing and talking loudly, calling him “forestiere.” Once or twice he spoke to them in Italian, but at this they seemed rather nonplussed, as though something in the fact of his knowing their language struck them as embarrassing. He observed that with Maddalena, however, these people were perfectly at ease; and quite soon her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and there she was, one of them, gathering grapes. Then Lidia followed suit, and Gian-Luca was alone with Sisto and his son Leone.
Leone was a lumping lad of sixteen, his expression was bovine and surly. Like his father, he wore his hair en brosse, but in his case, the top of his pate was so black that it looked like a monster pen-wiper. His thick throat was bare, he was wearing no collar, and his shirt was unfastened for coolness; round his neck hung a little gilt crucifix and a medal of the Virgin Mary. He spoke seldom, eyeing Gian-Luca with suspicion, but his voice when he did speak was gruff; his voice was already that of a man, and his lip was well shadowed with down. He appeared to be curiously unobservant except in regard to beetles; butterflies also attracted his attention, which was rather unfortunate for them. The little, round beetles crept out of the vines, disturbed by the busy peasants, and whenever a beetle came the way of Leone, Leone crushed it with his foot. His hand would swoop out to afflict flying things, a game at which he was unusually dexterous, and the palm of his hand would be covered with powder from the wings of his unfortunate victims. Gian-Luca looked once or twice at Sisto, who however, seemed to be quite unperturbed by the unpleasant pastime of his offspring, and presently Leone wandered away, muttering something about chickens.
Then his father turned to Gian-Luca with a smile. “A fine fellow, no? He is useful on the farm; my Claudio is a soldier in the Bersaglieri, but this one shall be a fattore.”
Sisto was making a great effort to be friendly, despite the unfortunate incident of the mare; he was very disappointed in Maddalena’s husband; however, they must make the best of him. He had said to his wife on the previous night: “He is queer, Maddalena’s husband. Imagine it, making a poor woman walk because of a beast—and then our Giuseppina—I remarked: ‘She is twenty years old, Giuseppina, do you expect her to fly?’ ”
“He is very handsome,” his wife had replied; “a fine figure he has, but too thin; and how little he eats—such an excellent supper, such good ravioli, and the melanzane ripiene. All that I could lay my two hands on I cooked, and then he must come and eat nothing!”
Sisto had shrugged his shoulders in disgust: “He is hardly a man, my Lidia; and as for not eating, he ate many grapes, and figs, and much bread; but such stuff is for children, I think he is hardly a man!”
However, he had always been fond of Maddalena, so that now he was trying to be friendly. “Are you feeling the heat?” he inquired of Gian-Luca. “You English are not used to the heat.”
Gian-Luca looked surprised: “But I am not English; I thought you knew I was Italian.”
“Ma no, you are English,” laughed Sisto, amused. “You speak fine Italian, but your manners are English, and then, who but an Englishman pushes a cart that has a good horse to draw it?”
Gian-Luca was silent, this was quite unexpected. So Sisto regarded him as English! But at last he said firmly: “You are quite wrong, Sisto, I consider myself an Italian—there are many Italians living in England.”
“All the same, you are English,” smiled Sisto. His round, brown face looked incredibly stubborn. “One can see that you are English,” he persisted; “your clothes, your behavior, your manner of eating—” Then he hastened to add: “They are nice folk, the English, we like them, they bring us much money.”
How many times in his life had Gian-Luca listened to similar words: “The English are rich, they bring us much money.” Yes, and how many times had he himself said them! He stared at Cousin Sisto in exasperation.
“One gets sick of this talk of their money,” he muttered.
“Caspita, I do not!” chuckled Sisto.
And now Cousin Sisto wished to hear about London, and above all about the Doric. Did it pay? Was the food good? What sort of a man was Millo? Had Gian-Luca grown rich? His Nonna must be rich; it paid well, a salumeria! Gian-Luca tried to answer all these questions politely, and after a little, to his infinite relief, Sisto began to talk of the Marchese, who he said was a person of vast importance, owing to his very great wealth. Now Sisto must puff himself out and grow pompous; was he not the fattore? And the watch-chain protruded on his round little stomach, and a long coral horn, worn against the evil-eye, swung to and fro from the watch-chain.
“It is I who do all things,” he told Gian-Luca, “a very responsible position. The Marchese is merry, he admires pretty women, and he has a dull wife. She is good, poverina—too good; it is said that she longs to be a nun. The Marchese says: ‘Sisto, I leave all to you, take care of my grapes, and see that you weigh them.’ And I answer: ‘You may trust me, Signor Marchese, not the pip of a grape shall be stolen.’ Which reminds me,” went on Sisto, glancing at his watch, “that the hour has arrived for the weighing of the grapes; it is time that we hurry home!”
They turned and went back to the courtyard of the farm, in which had been set up an immense pair of scales. The peasants had begun to arrive with full baskets balanced on their heads or their shoulders. Sisto eyed them with open suspicion and made notes in a thick black notebook.
“Avanti!” he ordered peremptorily, and the weighing of the grapes began.
Each peasant in turn must empty his burden on to the giant scales; Sisto weighed it, then the grapes were tipped back into the basket, and off went the basket down the steep little track that led to the Villa Sabelli.
Sisto rumbled a good deal under his breath: “Due cento sessanta kili,” he rumbled, and presently: “Cinquecento ottantatre e mezzo—va bene!” And he made some fresh entries in his notebook.
And now the whole courtyard was redolent of grapes, the rough stones were slippery with them. The hands of the peasants were stained and sticky, while the sweat from their labor stood out on their arms, beading the coarse, black hairs of the men, and the smooth, olive skins of the women. Gian-Luca was rather surprised to notice that several large baskets made their way into the farmhouse, the others, he knew, had gone down to the villa to await the treading of the grapes. But Sisto waved a nonchalant hand in the direction of his cellar; then he made some very elaborate calculations, called for Leone to take away the scales, hummed the “Marcia Reale,” winked once at Gian-Luca—and that was the end of the weighing for the morning.
III
That afternoon Sisto took them to the villa. “You will like to see how we make our good wine,” he said pleasantly to Gian-Luca. “The Marchese is very fond of good wine, and why not? He is young and merry!”
The Villa Sabelli was a low, white building with a large coat-of-arms above its door. The paint on this door had once been bright green, but now it was faded to a soft bluish-grey, and its surface was webbed with many little lines, owing to the heat of the summers. An old stone court with a marble fountain stretched to the right of the entrance; but the fountain was usually tongue-tied and dry, because of the shortage of water. At each corner of this crumbling, silent fountain, grew a splendid cypress tree, thrusting its roots far under the flagstones, digging in the dark with relentless fingers and lifting the stones in the process. Wherever a stone had been slightly dislodged, something humble had found an asylum; for all things might prosper to repletion in this garden, and the will to grow was a positive frenzy; weed or flower they all throve very much alike, and remained undisturbed for the most part. Everything needed thinning out or pruning, everything was arrogantly fruitful, and everything was indiscriminately watered from the three deep vasche near the lodge. But the glory of the garden was its grove of orange trees, already beginning to color very faintly; a grove that was planted in symmetrical lines that stretched for more than a mile. Sisto pointed it out with great pride, as well he might, thought Gian-Luca, for this was a miniature forest of fruit, in which presently every green globe would turn golden.
“This is where our Marchesa walks reading her prayers, the poverina,” whispered Sisto; “just now she is making a retreat near Rome. She is doubtless praying for the soul of the Marchese; she is good, very good, but Santa Madonna, our Marchese is only young!”
He led them round to the back of the villa and down a wide flight of stone steps; then he knocked on a massive oak door with his stick. Through the chinks of the door came the same acrid odor that Gian-Luca had noticed in the vineyards. The door was opened by a very old man.
“Beppo!” announced Sisto grandly. “He is old, you will say, but he still treads more grapes than anyone in the paese.”
Beppo was wearing a dingy cotton shirt that clung to his body with sweat; his trousers were rolled back over his thighs, and the flesh of his hairy old legs had shriveled, leaving a cordage of sinews. His legs and his broad gnarled feet were stained and moist from the juice and skins of the grapes; his toes were beaded all over with grape pips, and soiled with dirt from the floor. He was toothless, and so he spoke very little, preferring to nod and grin, and after he had carefully closed the oak door, he climbed back into his vat.
There were three outside cellars at the Villa Sabelli, that were connected with each other by arches. Their ceilings were vaulted, their floors and walls of stone, and just now they conveyed a strong impression of a church given over to some pagan ritual. The vats were a species of glorified barrel standing on a rough wooden platform; they were high, they were wide, four of them to a cellar; and in each vat a man was prancing and stamping, raising his knees with a rhythmical motion grotesquely suggestive of dancing. The cellars were full of the soft, slushing sound made by the grapes in dying; a sound half solid, half liquid, that mingled with the grunts and the heavy breathing of the men, and the creaking of the age-old barrels. The fumes in these cellars were well-nigh overpowering, for Beppo was frightened of chills; all that he would allow was a half-open lattice high up in the farthest wall. It was said that a man could get drunk on such fumes; there was something wicked about them. Wicked but merry, no doubt—like the Marchese, whose excellent wine was in the making.
From time to time someone crawled out of his vat in order to stretch his legs; and his toes would be stuck with grape pips like Beppo’s, and after he had padded about for a little, with the dust and refuse of the floor. Then someone must pause to have a good spit—for habit will defy most conventions—and if he was dexterous he spat clear of his barrel, but if not—oh, well, then the juices of the body would be mingled with the juices of the vine!
Sisto looked on in apparent satisfaction, and after a while it was time to go home. “Come, Maddalena,” said Sisto smiling; “to you this is nothing, you have seen it all before; we came for your husband—in England, of course, one could not see such a fine sight. When he gets back he can tell them about it; he can tell them how we make our good wine.”
And Gian-Luca said politely: “I will certainly tell them, it has been very interesting, Sisto.” But his head felt heavy with the fumes of the cellars, and he longed to get back into the clean, open air and the health-giving blessing of the sunshine.
Maddalena took his arm as they walked through the garden: “It is better than this in Romagna,” she whispered; “this vendemmia is so small; but I would not tell Sisto, he wishes very much to impress his new cousin, he is proud of his little paese.”