Part 17

Reading the city papers, one would think that south Italian youths are the most broken-hearted creatures in the world; they are always trying to poison themselves for love. Sometimes they succeed, of course; but sometimes—dear me, no! Suicides look manly, that is all. They are part of the game. The more sensible youngsters know exactly how much corrosive sublimate to take without immediate fatal consequences, allowing for time to reach the nearest hospital. There, the kindly physician and his stomach-pump will perform their duty, and the patient wears a feather in his cap for the rest of his life. The majority of these suicides are on a par with French duels—a harmless institution whereby the protagonists honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a patent of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the citizens, but they rarely indulge in suicides because—well, there are no hospitals handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too risky by half.

And a good proportion of these suicides are only simulated. The wily victim buys some innocuous preparation which sends him into convulsions with ghastly symptoms of poisoning, and, after treatment, remains the enviable hero of a mysterious masculine passion. Ask any town apothecary. A doctor friend of mine lately analysed the results of his benevolent exertions upon a young man who had been seen to drink some dreadful liquid out of a bottle, and was carried to his surgery, writhing in most artistic agonies. He found not only no poison, but not the slightest trace of any irritant whatever.

The true courtship of these Don Giovannis of Taranto will be quite another affair—a cash transaction, and no credit allowed. They will select a life partner, upon the advice of ma mère and a strong committee of uncles and aunts, but not until the military service is terminated. Everything in its proper time and place.

Meanwhile they gaze and perhaps even serenade. This looks as if they were furiously in love, and has therefore been included among the rules of the game. Youth must keep up the poetic tradition of “fiery.” Besides, it is an inexpensive pastime—the cinematograph costs forty centimes—and you really cannot sit in the barber’s all night long.

But catch them marrying the wrong girl!

POSTSCRIPT.—Here are two samples of youthful love-letters from my collection.

1.—From a disappointed maiden, aged 13. Interesting, because intermediate between the archaic and pink-paper stages:

“IDOL OF MY HEART,

“Do not the stars call you when you look to Heaven? Does not the moon tell you, the black-cap on the willow when it says farewell to the sun? The birds of nature, the dreary country sadly covered by a few flowers that remain there? Once your look was passionate and pierced me like a sunny ray, now it seems the flame of a day. Does nothing tell you of imperishable love?” I love you and love you as (illegible) loves its liberty, as the corn in the fields loves the sun, as the sailor loves the sea tranquil or stormy. To you I would give my felicity, my future; for one of your words I would spill my blood drop by drop.

“Of all my lovers you are the only ideal consort (consorto) to whom I would give my love and all the expansion of my soul and youthful enthusiasm (intusiamo), the greatest enthusiasm (co-tusiamo) my heart has ever known. O cruel one who has deigned to put his sweet poison in my heart to-day, while to-morrow you will pass me with indifference. Cold, proud as ever, serious and disdainful—you understand? However that may be, I send you the unrepenting cry of my rebellious heart: I love you!

“It is late at night, and I am still awake, and at this hour my soul is sadder than ever in its great isolation (insolamende); I look on my past love and your dear image. Too much I love you and (illegible) without your affection.

“How sadly I remember your sweet words whispered on a pathetic evening when everything around was fair and rosy. How happy I then was when life seemed radiant with felicity and brightened by your love. And now nothing more remains of it; everything is finished. How sad even to say it. My heart is shipwrecked far, far away from that happiness which I sought.”

(Three further pages of this.)

2.—From a boy of 14 who takes the initiative; such letters are rare. Note the business-like brevity.

“DEAR Miss ANNE,

I write you these few lines to say that I have understood your character (carattolo). Therefore, if I may have the honour of being your sweetheart, you will let me know the answer at your pleasure. I salute you, and remain,

“Signing myself,” SALVATORE. “Prompt reply requested!”

XII MOLLE TARENTUM

One looks into the faces of these Tarentines and listens to their casual conversations, trying to unravel what manner of life is theirs. But it is difficult to avoid reading into their characters what history leads one to think should be there.

The upper classes, among whom I have some acquaintance, are mellow and enlightened; it is really as if something of the honied spirit of those old Greek sages still brooded over them. Their charm lies in the fact that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle upbringing, at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to reposeful sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he becomes as a pebble tossed in the waters, smooth, burnished, and (to outward appearances) indistinguishable from his fellows.

But I do not care about the ordinary city folk. They have an air of elaborate superciliousness which testifies to ages of systematic half-culture. They seem to utter that hopeless word, connu! And what, as a matter of fact, do they know? They are only dreaming in their little backwater, like the oysters of the lagoon, distrustful of extraneous matter and oblivious of the movement in a world of men beyond their shell. You hear next to nothing of “America,” that fruitful source of fresh notions; there is no emigration to speak of; the population is not sufficiently energetic—they prefer to stay at home. Nor do they care much about the politics of their own country: one sees less newspapers here than in most Italian towns. “Our middle classes,” said my friend the Italian deputy of whom I have already spoken, “are like our mules: to be endurable, they must be worked thirteen hours out of the twelve.” But these have no industries to keep them awake, no sports, no ambitions; and this has gone on for long centuries, In Taranto it is always afternoon. “The Tarentines,” says Strabo, “have more holidays than workdays in the year.”

And never was city-population more completely cut off from the country; never was wider gulf between peasant and townsman. There are charming walks beyond the New Quarter—a level region, with olives and figs and almonds and pomegranates standing knee-deep in ripe odorous wheat; but the citizens might be living at Timbuctu for all they know of these things. It rains little here; on the occasion of my last visit not a drop had fallen for fourteen months; and consequently the country roads are generally smothered in dust. Now, dusty boots are a scandal and an offence in the eyes of the gentle burghers, who accordingly never issue out of their town walls. They have forgotten the use of ordinary appliances of country life, such as thick boots and walking-sticks; you will not see them hereabouts. Unaware of this idiosyncrasy, I used to carry a stick on my way through the streets into the surroundings, but left it at home on learning that I was regarded as a kind of perambulating earthquake. The spectacle of a man clattering through the streets on horseback, such as one often sees at Venosa, would cause them to barricade their doors and prepare for the last judgment.

Altogether, essentially nice creatures, lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss or novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general. The breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science, the joys of rivers and green lanes—all these things are a closed book to them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely human: a case of partial atrophy. For the purely human needs a corrective; it is not sufficiently humbling, and that is exactly what makes them so supercilious. We must take a little account of the Cosmos nowadays—it helps to rectify our bearings. They have their history, no doubt. But save for that one gleam of Periclean sunshine the record, though long and varied, is sufficiently inglorious and does not testify to undue exertions.

A change is at hand.

Gregorovius lamented the filthy condition of the old town. It is now spotless.

He deplored that Taranto possessed no museum. This again is changed, and the provincial museum here is justly praised, though the traveller may be annoyed at finding his favourite rooms temporarily closed (is there any museum in Italy not “partially closed for alterations”?). New accessions to its store are continually pouring in; so they lately discovered, in a tomb, a Hellenistic statuette of Eros and Aphrodite, 30 centimetres high, terra-cotta work of the third century. The goddess stands, half-timidly, while Eros alights in airy fashion on her shoulders and fans her with his wings—an exquisite little thing.

He was grieved, likewise, that no public collection of books existed here. But the newly founded municipal library is all that can be desired. The stranger is cordially welcomed within its walls and may peruse, at his leisure, old Galateus, Giovan Giovene, and the rest of them.

Wandering among those shelves, I hit upon a recent volume (1910) which gave me more food for thought than any of these ancients. It is called “Cose di Puglie,” and contains some dozen articles, all by writers of this province of old Calabria, on matters of exclusively local interest—its history, meteorology, dialects, classical references to the country, extracts from old economic documents, notes on the development of Apulian printing, examples of modern local caricature, descriptions of mediæval monuments; a kind of anthology, in short, of provincial lore. The typography, paper and illustrations of this remarkable volume are beyond all praise; they would do honour to the best firm in London or Paris. What is this book? It is no commercial speculation at all; it is a wedding present to a newly married couple—a bouquet of flowers, of intellectual blossoms, culled from their native Apulian meadows. One notes with pleasure that the happy pair are neither dukes nor princes. There is no trace of snobbishness in the offering, which is simply a spontaneous expression of good wishes on the part of a few friends. But surely it testifies to most refined feelings. How immeasurably does this permanent and yet immaterial feast differ from our gross wedding banquets and ponderous gilt clocks and tea services! Such persons cannot but have the highest reverence for things of the mind; such a gift is the fairest efflorescence of civilization. And this is only another aspect of that undercurrent of spirituality in south Italy of whose existence the tourist, harassed by sordid preoccupations, remains wholly unaware.