VIII
I
Gian-Luca left school the following Christmas, having made neither enemies nor friends. He was missed a little by both teachers and students; by the former because of a quick intelligence that had made him an interesting pupil, by the latter because there was now no “Macaroni” to be teased and left out of things.
For a few weeks he experienced the novel sensation of having nothing to do. Just at first this was rather a pleasant sensation; he could lounge in and out of the shop as he pleased, or better still, stroll down the street to Nerone’s and hang about bothering Rosa in her kitchen until she drove him away. But after a time this enforced idleness began to pall on Gian-Luca, and then it was that he formed a new habit—he formed the habit of books. Hitherto all books had meant lesson-books, he had read scarcely anything else, and lesson-books had been part of a rule imposed not by himself but by others. Now, however, it was different, he himself was the rule, he could read or not read what he chose; and this fact gave Gian-Luca a pleasant sense of power, so that even the volumes which he had brought from school became suddenly much more interesting.
From his early childhood he had loved the sound of words, and now he began to discover things about them; their length, their shape, their color, their balance, their relation one to the other. He discovered the felicity of certain groupings, the strength and virility of others; the power of a name, the clamor of a line, the solemnity and vastness of a stanza. For the magic that unsealed his ears and his eyes, lay for him in a volume of verses; the verses were Italian; he had found the book one day, quite by chance, in Mario’s bedroom. No one had ever heard of the author, or at least, so Mario said:
“Non lo conosco,” said Mario with a shrug. “He is doubtless somebody new.” When Teresa and Fabio had retired for the night Gian-Luca had relighted his gas, which was forbidden, and then he had crept back to bed with his book. As he read he began to see pictures again—yet now he was very wide awake—these were pictures that someone unknown had seen first, and left for Gian-Luca on the pages. The next morning he was knocking at Mario’s door before that good fellow was up.
“It is I, Gian-Luca.”
Mario’s voice came, rather husky: “Per carita! What do you want?”
Gian-Luca put his head into the room, then his hand which was clutching the book. Mario reared up in bed like an angry retriever, his curly hair standing on end.
“Is it not enough that I work half the night because the Padrone has decided to serve suppers? Is it not enough that Rosa must wake me at six to do her infernal washing? Is it not enough that Geppe has a cold and coughs and weeps without ceasing? And now you! Come in, there’s a draught in my ear; I shall have the earache in a minute!”
Gian-Luca obeyed him; closing the door, he went over and stood at the foot of the bed. His face was so solemn that in spite of his temper Mario began to smile:
“Have you decided to visit the North Pole or has Fabio swallowed a yard of salame? I am wide awake now—what has brought you so early, and why do you look so grave?”
“I came,” said Gian-Luca, “to ask you for this book—I find it has beautiful verses.”
“What book? Oh, that thing! Ma si, you can keep it. I cannot recall at the moment who gave it—a friend of Rosa’s, I think; but put it in your pocket, Rosa disapproves of verses, and I hear her coming upstairs.”
As a matter of fact the book had been a present to Mario from his barmaid, given in the days when sentimental tokens had passed very freely between them. But Mario had never read one of the poems, and moreover, he now wished to deny the barmaid who, being a Latin, was causing him trouble by refusing to be denied.
Rosa came in: “What has happened?” she demanded. “I hope that no one is ill.”
“Not at all,” said Mario, winking anxiously at Gian-Luca, “it is only that this imp here has come to torment us, having nothing better to do—”
“Oh, well,” sighed Rosa. “I must not be idle, I have very much to do.” And she left them.
“Now go!” commanded Mario, glaring at Gian Luca, “but first, have you hidden that book as I told you? You have? That is well; I am glad that you take it; I wonder that Rosa has not found it already—I thought I had burnt it up.”
II
Gian-Luca’s unknown Italian poet was a wonder-worker, it seemed, for he wove a spell not only for himself, but for all his fellow craftsmen. Having read and reread what he had to say, Gian-Luca bethought him of Browning, and found to his delight that though Browning was English—a very great drawback he felt to any poet—yet, nevertheless, he could make the heart beat and the eyes fill with sudden tears. From Browning he turned to Tennyson and Wordsworth, and finally rediscovered Kipling. He had studied them all while he was at school, but now when he read them they seemed different.
Alone in the room that had once been Olga’s, Gian-Luca made friends of his books. He would talk to them, pet them: “Oh, bello!” he would say, stroking a page with his hand. Or he might feel disapproval, in which case he would scold: “That is ugly, I do not like that line; if you were in Italian it would fit much better, it would not have so many small words.”
He made a shelf from an old packing-case, so that his friends might be well lodged, and when it was finished he nailed it to the wall directly opposite his bed. The shelf was just long enough to cover the wounds that had gaped in the plaster for years.
“Bene!” smiled Gian-Luca, “I have hidden them all now; they were ugly, I am glad that they are hidden!”
One morning he sought out Fabio in the shop, asking him gravely for books.
“Ma che! I have none, but here are macaroons!” laughed Fabio, giving him a handful.
Gian-Luca ate the macaroons with much gusto, but the next day he sought out Mario.
“Can you lend me some books?” inquired Gian-Luca.
“Ma che! I have none,” said Mario.
Then, seeing Gian-Luca’s look of disappointment, Mario scratched his chin, thinking hard: “I have it, Gian-Luca! I know where you must go, you must go to the Free Lending people; there they have hundreds and thousands of books; you can bring away with you a sackful.”
Gian-Luca discovered the Free Library, but he asked for books in Italian.
The Librarian smiled. “We have nothing in Italian—plain English, my child, that’s what we keep here—try Shakespeare, he’s not bad you know!”
As the days went on the Librarian grew more friendly. “Do you write yourself?” he inquired without a tremor. Gian-Luca shook his head. “You should try,” said the Librarian, “it’s never too young to begin.”
“So far I am reading,” Gian-Luca told him.
“So I have observed,” said the Librarian.
“Some day I shall make money, and then I will write,” Gian-Luca remarked confidentially. “It is better to grow rich before writing lovely things, otherwise one might starve.”
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings—” began the Librarian, and he laughed. “I see that you appreciate England, my child; however, I believe that some writers make money—”
“It is dangerous, my grandmother says that it is dangerous, and she is very clever,” said Gian-Luca. “You see, I have only got myself, so I cannot write until I am rich.”
“I wish I’d only got myself,” sighed the Librarian; “there are quite a number of me.”
“How many?” asked Gian-Luca, rather surprised.
“Five girls and two boys,” said the Librarian.
It was true that Teresa had mocked at poets when Gian-Luca had mentioned quite vaguely one evening that it must be rather fine to write verses.
“That is not for you,” she had told him firmly. “For you is a business life—some day you may inherit this shop of ours, when Nonno and I are dead. Although,” she had added, “we see no reason why you should not read if you find it amusing, but never read so much that you neglect other matters. Poets are very foolish people as a rule—they must also be very conceited. Nonno and I are not young any more, so you must be self-reliant, a worker—you cannot afford to start scribbling nonsense, for you stand very much alone.”
This had neither surprised nor shocked Gian-Luca, indeed he agreed with Teresa. A person who was minus even a name would have to fight hard for a place in the world, and something in this thought made him stubborn and defiant—his arrogant underlip shot out a little whenever he remembered himself.
He was old for his age, every day he felt older; perhaps it was because he now knew life so well, knew all sorts of queer things about fathers and children—children who had no real names. Every morning on waking he looked at his motto, kneeling up in bed the better to see it; and every night he would examine it afresh—he found it so reassuring.
“I have got myself,” he would mutter softly, and his muttering was not unlike a little prayer, and then: “I am neither Italian nor English—not anything at all—I am just Gian-Luca.”
At times this made him feel very lonely, but at others it struck him as being rather splendid; and when this happened his mouth would grow willful, with its arrogant underlip.
However, Gian-Luca did try to write verses, though shy and shamefaced about it. He felt quite sure that it was a waste of time, but as he had nothing very useful to do and something inside him kept asking and urging, he decided to give it its own way. Of the poems by that unknown Italian poet, there was one that Gian-Luca particularly adored: “Gioia della Luce” the poem was called, “The Joy of Light,” and the more he read it the less he understood its meaning, and yet somehow he felt that he did understand it—but not exactly with his brain. The poem was long, it went on and on in a turbulent torrent of words. The great, ringing words stumbled over each other, shouting, proclaiming, lifting up their arms—at least that was the idea that came to Gian-Luca—the words were lifting up their arms! It made him want to laugh, it made him want to cry, it made him want to run for miles and miles. It reminded him of bluebells and blossoms at Kew Gardens, of the longings that Mario had sometimes for the sea, of things that he himself had only half imagined, of things so vast and splendid that imagination failed. Yes, that was what he knew to be so queer about the poem, it was full of little happenings like the bluebells and the blossoms, it was also full of bigness like most of Mario’s longings—and of something that Gian-Luca knew to be within himself.
With the blessed self-assurance and temerity of youth, he selected this poem as his model. “I will write about myself,” he thought complacently, “I will write in big and lovely-sounding words.”
“ ‘Sono Gian-Luca—Gian-Luca—’ ” he began, and he suddenly added, “ ‘poverino.’ ” Then he tore up the paper; no, it was not quite right, the words sounded neither big nor lovely. He reread his model and started again, this time he composed four verses.
“Dio!” said Gian-Luca, “they are very bad indeed.” And once more he tore up the paper.
By the end of a week he had written an epic with which he was not at first ill pleased; but the more he admired it, the more he became certain that the epic ought not to be admired.
“Che, che!” he grumbled; “how is this, I wonder? I feel but I cannot express; perhaps I had better try something little—I will write about the bluebells at Kew.”
The bluebells at Kew proved still harder to express, for he felt that they required so few words. He knew just what they looked like and just what they meant, but when he had finished his lyric about bluebells, it might have been written about onions. He consulted the “Gioia della Luce” once more, and this time while he read it he scowled; he was growing very angry, and he swore a fat oath that Rocca occasionally used. He wanted to punish the “Gioia della Luce,” and proceeded to slam the book.
“Now you cannot get out to annoy me,” he said fiercely; “I will keep all your beautiful words in prison, I will keep them shut up for a month.” After which he hurled the book under the bed, where it lay amid old dust and boxes.
“It is no good,” sighed Gian-Luca, feeling calmer now, but sad; “I can read but I cannot write.”
And some instinct told him that he would never write, however hard he might try. He might live to grow rich, to grow very, very old—older than Fabio and Teresa; he might do many splendid and wonderful things, but one thing he would not do, he would never write a poem that in any way equaled “Gioia della Luce.”