Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions Part 23

There was the bed, certainly, if I could conquer my bashfulness and make use of it. Filomena treated the proposal as quite natural, and put the guitar and the mandoline on the chest of drawers, though there would have been plenty of room for them on the bed with me; she and the corporal prepared to leave the room, and I accepted their hospitality with excuses which I fancy I made with some realism because Peppino had kept me up talking half the night. They went away, I took off my boots, lay down on Filomena's bed, and was asleep in a moment.

At about six o'clock the noise of the corporal opening the door woke me.

He hoped he had not disturbed me, he had been in several times to fetch things and had tried to make no noise. I had known nothing about it.

Ivanhoe had come and was very hungry. Then he showed me the cupboard containing the basin and water for me to wash, and told his fidanzata we were ready for the dinner which she had been cooking while I slept. He seemed to consider the room as his instead of hers--but then it was he who was paying the twenty francs a month. Still I had a sense as though there was something wrong.

I was introduced to Ivanhoe, and we sat down to Filomena's dinner, which was like her embroidery and like her music--it was very well cooked, but the materials on which her skill had been expended were not worth cooking, they ought not to have been bought. The young lady was one of those artists who think more of treatment than of subject. The corporal, on the other hand, in the management of his matrimonial affairs, had chosen a good subject but was treating it in a way which my English prejudices made me think too free.

"I have not asked after your cold," said the corporal to his brother. "I hope it is better."

"It is quite well, thank you," replied Ivanhoe. "I have cured it with a remedy that never fails."

"I wish you could tell me what it is," I said.

"Willingly," said Ivanhoe. "You take a pail of water and a piece of iron; you make the iron red-hot and plunge it into the water; at first the water fizzles, but when the iron is cold the water is still; you put the water into bottles and drink one every day with your dinner. It always cures a cold."

"I must try it," I said. But I don't think I shall.

"Surely you know how to cure colds in England, where you all live in a perpetual fog and everyone is so rich that they can afford to make experiments?"

"We have poor people also in England."

But Ivanhoe knew better. "No," he said, smiling indulgently, "that is your English modesty; there are no poor people in your country."

"I a.s.sure you I have seen plenty. And as for modesty, I don't care very much about modesty--not for myself; I don't mind it in others."

"Ah! but you English are so practical."

"You have great men in England," said the corporal. "Chamberlain, Lincoln, you call him il presidente, and Darwin and--"

"Yes," interrupted Ivanhoe, "and great poets, Byron and Milton--il Paradiso Perduto--and that other one who wrote the drama named--what is his name? Gladstone."

"Some of our poets have written drama," I said. "What particular drama do you mean?"

"The one--it is from the History of Rome," replied Ivanhoe. "A man kills his wife, but I do not remember his name."

"Was it Romeo?" suggested the corporal.

"No; not Romeo. This was a black man. I read that Giovanni Gra.s.so acted it in London."

"It was Amleto," said the corporal.

"No, it was not," replied Ivanhoe. "And now I remember he was not black; he lived in Holland."

"Where is Holland?" inquired the corporal.

"Holland is in the north. The people who live there are called Aragonesi."

While Filomena prepared the coffee, I asked the corporal whether she allowed smoking in her bedroom. She did, so I gave him a cigarette and he admired my case saying it was sympathetic. I also gave Ivanhoe a cigarette, but Filomena did not smoke. There is a prejudice against ladies smoking in Sicily unless they wish to be considered as belonging either to the very highest or to the very lowest cla.s.s, and Filomena is content to belong to her own cla.s.s. So she looked on while we smoked and drank our coffee.

I said: "When we were speaking of English poets just now, you mentioned a name which we are more accustomed to a.s.sociate with politics, the name of Gladstone."

"Ah! politics!" said Ivanhoe. "You have now in England a struggle between your House of Lords and your House of Commons, is it not so?"

I replied that I had heard something about it.

"It is civil war," said Ivanhoe, "that is, it would have been civil war some years ago, but people are now beginning to see that it is intolerable that everyone should not be allowed to have his own way."

"I am afraid I do not quite follow you," I said.

"Well," he explained, "it is not difficult. Your House of Commons is composed entirely of poor men, so poor that they cannot afford to pay for legislation. Your House of Lords is rich, and rich people are egoists and will not pay; so the House of Commons is angry."

I did not ask where all the poor Members of the House of Commons were found in a country that had no poor people; Ivanhoe was too full of his subject to give me an opportunity.

"If the House of Lords still continues refusing to pay for legislation there will be no war, but the House of Lords will be abolished--annihilated."

"My dear Ivanhoe," I exclaimed, "what a head you have for politics!"

"Politics are quite simple if one studies the newspapers. I know all the politics of Italy, of France, Germany, England, Argentina, Russia. Don't you read the papers?"

"Yes, I read the papers, but I do not find our English papers--"

"Perhaps they are not so well edited as ours?"

"That may be the explanation," I agreed. "They certainly do not state things so clearly and simply as you do."

"Surely," he continued, "you do not approve of war?"

I replied that war was a "terrible scourge."

"It is worse," said Ivanhoe. "It is a survival of barbarism that men should make a living out of killing each other. War must be abolished."

"Will not that be rather difficult?" I objected.

"Not at all," he replied. "Soldiers are the instruments of war. If there were no soldiers there would be no war; just as if there were no mandolines there would be no music. And the money we now pay to the soldiers could then be distributed among the poor--an act pleasing to G.o.d and the saints."

But this did not suit the corporal who, being a coastguard, had no sympathy with cutting down the pay of the army.

"It is better as it is," said the corporal. "It is better to pay the money to soldiers, who are earning an honest living, than to pay it to poor people and encourage them in their idleness."

"But soldiers are receiving money for making war possible and that is not earning an honest living. There must be no more war. Soldiers must be abolished--obliterated."

"Obliterated" woke the corporal up thoroughly. It was all very well to talk about annihilating the House of Lords, which he had understood to mean demolishing some palace, but the army was a body of men, and if we were to begin obliterating them--why, he had friends in the army and it would never do, because--and so on, with interruptions by Ivanhoe, until Filomena began to grow restless about washing up and I began to take my leave. I thanked her for her charming hospitality and the corporal and Ivanhoe accompanied me back to the Albergo della Madonna. On the way I said:

"Please tell me, Corporal, you say that Filomena is your fidanzata, but it seems to me you are as good as--"

"We are not married," he interrupted, "but she has consented to become the mother of my children."

"Do I understand that you have already taken steps to ensure the attainment of that happy result?"