________________________________________________
_ The next day but one, the three set off for Florence. Aaron had made
an excursion from Milan with the two young heroes, and dined with them
subsequently at the most expensive restaurant in the town. Then they
had all gone home--and had sat in the young men's bedroom drinking
tea, whilst Aaron played the flute. Francis was really musical, and
enchanted. Angus enjoyed the novelty, and the moderate patronage he
was able to confer. And Aaron felt amused and pleased, and hoped he
was paying for his treat.
So behold them setting off for Florence in the early morning. Angus
and Francis had first-class tickets: Aaron took a third-class.
"Come and have lunch with us on the train," said Angus. "I'll order
three places, and we can lunch together."
"Oh, I can buy a bit of food at the station," said Aaron.
"No, come and lunch with us. It will be much nicer. And we shall
enjoy it as well," said Angus.
"Of course! Ever so much nicer! Of course!" cried Francis. "Yes, why
not, indeed! Why should you hesitate?"
"All right, then," said Aaron, not without some feeling of constraint.
So they separated. The young men settled themselves amidst the red
plush and crochet-work, looking, with their hair plastered smoothly
back, quite as first class as you could wish, creating quite the right
impression on the porters and the travelling Italians. Aaron went to
his third-class, further up the train.
"Well, then, _au revoir_, till luncheon," cried Francis.
The train was fairly full in the third and second classes. However,
Aaron got his seat, and the porter brought on his bags, after disposing
of the young men's luggage. Aaron gave the tip uneasily. He always
hated tipping--it seemed humiliating both ways. And the airy aplomb of
the two young cavaliers, as they settled down among the red plush and
the obsequiousness, and said "Well, then, _au revoir_ till luncheon,"
was peculiarly unsettling: though they did not intend it so.
"The porter thinks I'm their servant--their valet," said Aaron to
himself, and a curious half-amused, half-contemptuous look flickered
on his face. It annoyed him. The falsity occasioned by the difference
in the price of the tickets was really humiliating. Aaron had lived
long enough to know that as far as manhood and intellect went--nay,
even education--he was not the inferior of the two young "gentlemen."
He knew quite well that, as far as intrinsic nature went, they did not
imagine him an inferior: rather the contrary. They had rather an
exaggerated respect for him and his life-power, and even his origin.
And yet--they had the inestimable cash advantage--and they were going
to keep it. They knew it was nothing more than an artificial cash
superiority. But they gripped it all the more intensely. They were
the upper middle classes. They were Eton and Oxford. And they were
going to hang on to their privileges. In these days, it is a fool who
abdicates before he's forced to. And therefore:
"Well, then--_au revoir_ till luncheon."
They were being so awfully nice. And inwardly they were not
condescending. But socially, they just had to be. The world is made
like that. It wasn't their own private fault. It was no fault at all.
It was just the mode in which they were educated, the style of their
living. And as we know, _le style, c'est l'homme_.
Angus came of very wealthy iron people near Merthyr. Already he had a
very fair income of his own. As soon as the law-business concerning
his father's and his grandfather's will was settled, he would be well
off. And he knew it, and valued himself accordingly. Francis was the
son of a highly-esteemed barrister and politician of Sydney, and in
his day would inherit his father's lately-won baronetcy. But Francis
had not very much money: and was much more class-flexible than Angus.
Angus had been born in a house with a park, and of awful, hard-willed,
money-bound people. Francis came of a much more adventurous, loose,
excitable family, he had the colonial newness and adaptability. He
knew, for his own part, that class superiority was just a trick,
nowadays. Still, it was a trick that paid. And a trick he was going
to play as long as it did pay.
While Aaron sat, a little pale at the gills, immobile, ruminating these
matters, a not very pleasant look about his nose-end, he heard a voice:
"Oh, there you ARE! I thought I'd better come and see, so that we
can fetch you at lunch time.--You've got a seat? Are you quite
comfortable? Is there anything I could get you? Why, you're in a
non-smoker!--But that doesn't matter, everybody will smoke. Are you
sure you have everything? Oh, but wait just one moment--"
It was Francis, long and elegant, with his straight shoulders and his
coat buttoned to show his waist, and his face so well-formed and so
modern. So modern, altogether. His voice was pleasantly modulated,
and never hurried. He now looked as if a thought had struck him. He
put a finger to his brow, and hastened back to his own carriage. In
a minute, he returned with a new London literary magazine.
"Something to read--I shall have to FLY--See you at lunch," and he had
turned and elegantly hastened, but not too fast, back to his carriage.
The porter was holding the door for him. So Francis looked pleasantly
hurried, but by no means rushed. Oh, dear, no. He took his time. It
was not for him to bolt and scramble like a mere Italian.
The people in Aaron's carriage had watched the apparition of the
elegant youth intently. For them, he was a being from another sphere
--no doubt a young milordo with power wealth, and glamorous life behind
him. Which was just what Francis intended to convey. So handsome--so
very, very impressive in all his elegant calm showiness. He made such
a _bella figura_. It was just what the Italians loved. Those in the
first class regions thought he might even be an Italian, he was so
attractive.
The train in motion, the many Italian eyes in the carriage studied
Aaron. He, too, was good-looking. But by no means as fascinating
as the young milordo. Not half as sympathetic. No good at all at
playing a role. Probably a servant of the young signori.
Aaron stared out of the window, and played the one single British role
left to him, that of ignoring his neighbours, isolating himself in
their midst, and minding his own business. Upon this insular trick
our greatness and our predominance depends--such as it is. Yes, they
might look at him. They might think him a servant or what they liked.
But he was inaccessible to them. He isolated himself upon himself,
and there remained.
It was a lovely day, a lovely, lovely day of early autumn. Over the
great plain of Lombardy a magnificent blue sky glowed like mid-summer,
the sun shone strong. The great plain, with its great stripes of
cultivation--without hedges or boundaries---how beautiful it was!
Sometimes he saw oxen ploughing. Sometimes. Oh, so beautiful, teams
of eight, or ten, even of twelve pale, great soft oxen in procession,
ploughing the dark velvety earth, a driver with a great whip at their
head, a man far behind holding the plough-shafts. Beautiful the soft,
soft plunging motion of oxen moving forwards. Beautiful the strange,
snaky lifting of the muzzles, the swaying of the sharp horns. And the
soft, soft crawling motion of a team of oxen, so invisible, almost,
yet so inevitable. Now and again straight canals of water flashed
blue. Now and again the great lines of grey-silvery poplars rose and
made avenues or lovely grey airy quadrangles across the plain. Their
top boughs were spangled with gold and green leaf. Sometimes the vine-
leaves were gold and red, a patterning. And the great square farm-
homesteads, white, red-roofed, with their out-buildings, stood naked
amid the lands, without screen or softening. There was something big
and exposed about it all. No more the cosy English ambushed life, no
longer the cosy littleness of the landscape. A bigness--and nothing
to shelter the unshrinking spirit. It was all exposed, exposed to the
sweep of plain, to the high, strong sky, and to human gaze. A kind of
boldness, an indifference. Aaron was impressed and fascinated. He
looked with new interest at the Italians in the carriage with him--for
this same boldness and indifference and exposed gesture. And he found
it in them, too. And again it fascinated him. It seemed so much
bigger, as if the walls of life had fallen. Nay, the walls of English
life will have to fall.
Sitting there in the third-class carriage, he became happy again. The
_presence_ of his fellow-passengers was not so hampering as in England.
In England, everybody seems held tight and gripped, nothing is left
free. Every passenger seems like a parcel holding his string as fast
as he can about him, lest one corner of the wrapper should come undone
and reveal what is inside. And every other passenger is forced, by
the public will, to hold himself as tight-bound also. Which in the
end becomes a sort of self-conscious madness.
But here, in the third class carriage, there was no tight string round
every man. They were not all trussed with self-conscious string as
tight as capons. They had a sufficient amount of callousness and
indifference and natural equanimity. True, one of them spat
continually on the floor, in large spits. And another sat with his
boots all unlaced and his collar off, and various important buttons
undone. They did not seem to care if bits of themselves did show,
through the gaps in the wrapping. Aaron winced--but he preferred it
to English tightness. He was pleased, he was happy with the Italians.
He thought how generous and natural they were.
So the towns passed by, and the hours, and he seemed at last to have
got outside himself and his old conditions. It seemed like a great
escape. There was magic again in life--real magic. Was it illusion,
or was it genuine? He thought it was genuine, and opened his soul a
if there was no danger.
Lunch-time came. Francis summoned Aaron down the rocking tram. The
three men had a table to themselves, and all felt they were enjoying
themselves very much indeed. Of course Francis and Angus made a great
impression again. But in the dining car were mostly middle-class,
well-to-do Italians. And these did not look upon our two young heroes
as two young wonders. No, rather with some criticism, and some class-
envy. But they were impressed. Oh, they were impressed! How should
they not be, when our young gentlemen had such an air! Aaron was
conscious all the time that the fellow-diners were being properly
impressed by the flower of civilisation and the salt of the earth,
namely, young, well-to-do Englishmen. And he had a faint premonition,
based on experience perhaps, that fellow-passengers in the end never
forgive the man who has "impressed" them. Mankind loves being
impressed. It asks to be impressed. It almost forces those whom it
can force to play a role and to make an impression. And afterwards,
never forgives.
When the train ran into Bologna Station, they were still in the
restaurant car. Nor did they go at once to their seats. Angus had
paid the bill. There was three-quarters-of-an-hour's wait in Bologna.
"You may as well come down and sit with us," said Francis. "We've got
nobody in our carriage, so why shouldn't we all stay together during
the wait. You kept your own seat, I suppose."
No, he had forgotten. So when he went to look for it, it was occupied
by a stout man who was just taking off his collar and wrapping a white
kerchief round his neck. The third class carriages were packed. For
those were early days after the war, while men still had pre-war
notions and were poor. Ten months would steal imperceptibly by, and
the mysterious revolution would be effected. Then, the second class
and the first class would be packed, indescribably packed, crowded, on
all great trains: and the third class carriages, lo and behold, would
be comparatively empty. Oh, marvellous days of bankruptcy, when nobody
will condescend to travel third!
However, these were still modest, sombre months immediately after the
peace. So a large man with a fat neck and a white kerchief, and his
collar over his knee, sat in Aaron's seat. Aaron looked at the man,
and at his own luggage overhead. The fat man saw him looking and
stared back: then stared also at the luggage overhead: and with his
almost invisible north-Italian gesture said much plainer than words
would have said it: "Go to hell. I'm here and I'm going to stop here."
There was something insolent and unbearable about the look--and about
the rocky fixity of the large man. He sat as if he had insolently
taken root in his seat. Aaron flushed slightly. Francis and Angus
strolled along the train, outside, for the corridor was already
blocked with the mad Bologna rush, and the baggage belonging. They
joined Aaron as he stood on the platform.
"But where is YOUR SEAT?" cried Francis, peering into the packed and
jammed compartments of the third class.
"That man's sitting in it."
"Which?" cried Francis, indignant.
"The fat one there--with the collar on his knee."
"But it was your seat--!"
Francis' gorge rose in indignation. He mounted into the corridor.
And in the doorway of the compartment he bridled like an angry horse
rearing, bridling his head. Poising himself on one hip, he stared
fixedly at the man with the collar on his knee, then at the baggage
aloft. He looked down at the fat man as a bird looks down from the
eaves of a house. But the man looked back with a solid, rock-like
impudence, before which an Englishman quails: a jeering, immovable
insolence, with a sneer round the nose and a solid-seated posterior.
"But," said Francis in English--none of them had any Italian yet.
"But," said Francis, turning round to Aaron, "that was YOUR SEAT?"
and he flung his long fore-finger in the direction of the fat man's
thighs.
"Yes!" said Aaron.
"And he's TAKEN it--!" cried Francis in indignation.
"And knows it, too," said Aaron.
"But--!" and Francis looked round imperiously, as if to summon his
bodyguard. But bodyguards are no longer forthcoming, and train-guards
are far from satisfactory. The fat man sat on, with a sneer-grin,
very faint but very effective, round his nose, and a solidly-planted
posterior. He quite enjoyed the pantomime of the young foreigners.
The other passengers said something to him, and he answered laconic.
Then they all had the faint sneer-grin round their noses. A woman in
the corner grinned jeeringly straight in Francis' face. His charm
failed entirely this time: and as for his commandingness, that was
ineffectual indeed. Rage came up in him.
"Oh well--something must be done," said he decisively. "But didn't you
put something in the seat to RESERVE it?"
"Only that _New Statesman_--but he's moved it."
The man still sat with the invisible sneer-grin on his face, and that
peculiar and immovable plant of his Italian posterior.
"Mais--cette place etait RESERVEE--" said Francis, moving to the
direct attack.
The man turned aside and ignored him utterly--then said something to
the men opposite, and they all began to show their teeth in a grin.
Francis was not so easily foiled. He touched the man on the arm. The
man looked round threateningly, as if he had been struck.
"Cette place est reservee--par ce Monsieur--" said Francis with
hauteur, though still in an explanatory tone, and pointing to Aaron.
The Italian looked him, not in the eyes, but between the eyes, and
sneered full in his face. Then he looked with contempt at Aaron.
And then he said, in Italian, that there was room for such snobs in
the first class, and that they had not any right to come occupying
the place of honest men in the third.
"Gia! Gia!" barked the other passengers in the carriage.
"Loro possono andare prima classa--PRIMA CLASSA!" said the woman in
the corner, in a very high voice, as if talking to deaf people, and
pointing to Aaron's luggage, then along the train to the first class
carriages.
"C'e posto la," said one of the men, shrugging his shoulders.
There was a jeering quality in the hard insolence which made Francis
go very red and Augus very white. Angus stared like a death's-head
behind his monocle, with death-blue eyes.
"Oh, never mind. Come along to the first class. I'll pay the
difference. We shall be much better all together. Get the luggage
down, Francis. It wouldn't be possible to travel with this lot, even
if he gave up the seat. There's plenty of room in our carriage--and
I'll pay the extra," said Angus.
He knew there was one solution--and only one--Money.
But Francis bit his finger. He felt almost beside himself--and
quite powerless. For he knew the guard of the train would jeer too.
It is not so easy to interfere with honest third-class Bolognesi
in Bologna station, even if they _have_ taken another man's seat.
Powerless, his brow knitted, and looking just like Mephistopheles
with his high forehead and slightly arched nose, Mephistopheles in
a rage, he hauled down Aaron's bag and handed it to Angus. So they
transferred themselves to the first-class carriage, while the fat
man and his party in the third-class watched in jeering, triumphant
silence. Solid, planted, immovable, in static triumph.
So Aaron sat with the others amid the red plush, whilst the train
began its long slow climb of the Apennines, stinking sulphurous
through tunnels innumerable. Wonderful the steep slopes, the great
chestnut woods, and then the great distances glimpsed between the
heights, Firenzuola away and beneath, Turneresque hills far off, built
of heaven-bloom, not of earth. It was cold at the summit-station, ice
and snow in the air, fierce. Our travellers shrank into the carriage
again, and wrapped themselves round.
Then the train began its long slither downhill, still through a whole
necklace of tunnels, which fortunately no longer stank. So down and
down, till the plain appears in sight once more, the Arno valley. But
then began the inevitable hitch that always happens in Italian travel.
The train began to hesitate--to falter to a halt, whistling shrilly
as if in protest: whistling pip-pip-pip in expostulation as it stood
forlorn among the fields: then stealing forward again and stealthily
making pace, gathering speed, till it had got up a regular spurt:
then suddenly the brakes came on with a jerk, more faltering to a
halt, more whistling and pip-pip-pipping, as the engine stood jingling
with impatience: after which another creak and splash, and another
choking off. So on till they landed in Prato station: and there they
sat. A fellow passenger told them, there was an hour to wait here: an
hour. Something had happened up the line.
"Then I propose we make tea," said Angus, beaming.
"Why not! Of course. Let us make tea. And I will look for water."
So Aaron and Francis went to the restaurant bar and filled the little
pan at the tap. Angus got down the red picnic case, of which he
was so fond, and spread out the various arrangements on the floor
of the coupe. He soon had the spirit-lamp burning, the water heating.
Francis proposed that he and Aaron should dash into Prato and see
what could be bought, whilst the tea was in preparation. So off
they went, leaving Angus like a busy old wizard manipulating his
arrangements on the floor of the carriage, his monocle beaming with
bliss. The one fat fellow--passenger with a lurid striped rug over
his knees watched with acute interest. Everybody who passed the
doorway stood to contemplate the scene with pleasure. Officials came
and studied the situation with appreciation. Then Francis and Aaron
returned with a large supply of roast chestnuts, piping hot, and hard
dried plums, and good dried figs, and rather stale rusks. They found
the water just boiling, Angus just throwing in the tea-egg, and the
fellow-passenger just poking his nose right in, he was so thrilled.
Nothing pleased Angus so much as thus pitching camp in the midst of
civilisation. The scrubby newspaper packets of chestnuts, plums, figs
and rusks were spread out: Francis flew for salt to the man at the
bar, and came back with a little paper of rock-salt: the brown tea
was dispensed in the silver-fitted glasses from the immortal luncheon-
case: and the picnic was in full swing. Angus, being in the height of
his happiness, now sat on the seat cross-legged, with his feet under
him, in the authentic Buddha fashion, and on his face the queer rapt
alert look, half a smile, also somewhat Buddhistic, holding his glass
of brown tea in his hand. He was as rapt and immobile as if he really
were in a mystic state. Yet it was only his delight in the tea-party.
The fellow-passenger peered at the tea, and said in broken French, was
it good. In equally fragmentary French Francis said very good, and
offered the fat passenger some. He, however, held up his hand in
protest, as if to say not for any money would he swallow the hot-
watery stuff. And he pulled out a flask of wine. But a handful
of chestnuts he accepted.
The train-conductor, ticket-collector, and the heavy green soldier who
protected them, swung open the door and stared attentively. The fellow
passenger addressed himself to these new-comers, and they all began
to smile good-naturedly. Then the fellow-passenger--he was stout and
fifty and had a brilliant striped rug always over his knees--pointed
out the Buddha-like position of Angus, and the three in-starers smiled
again. And so the fellow-passenger thought he must try too. So he put
aside his rug, and lifted his feet from the floor, and took his toes
in his hands, and tried to bring his legs up and his feet under him.
But his knees were fat, his trousers in the direst extreme of peril,
and he could no more manage it than if he had tried to swallow himself.
So he desisted suddenly, rather scared, whilst the three bunched and
official heads in the doorway laughed and jested at him, showing their
teeth and teasing him. But on our gypsy party they turned their eyes
with admiration. They loved the novelty and the fun. And on the thin,
elegant Angus in his new London clothes, they looked really puzzled,
as he sat there immobile, gleaming through his monocle like some
Buddha going wicked, perched cross-legged and ecstatic on the red
velvet seat. They marvelled that the lower half of him could so
double up, like a foot-rule. So they stared till they had seen
enough. When they suddenly said "Buon 'appetito," withdrew their
heads and shoulders, slammed the door, and departed.
Then the train set off also--and shortly after six arrived in Florence.
It was debated what should Aaron do in Florence. The young men had
engaged a room at Bertolini's hotel, on the Lungarno. Bertolini's was
not expensive--but Aaron knew that his friends would not long endure
hotel life. However, he went along with the other two, trusting to
find a cheaper place on the morrow.
It was growing quite dark as they drove to the hotel, but still was
light enough to show the river rustling, the Ponte Vecchio spanning
its little storeys across the flood, on its low, heavy piers: and
some sort of magic of the darkening, varied houses facing, on the
other side of the stream. Of course they were all enchanted.
"I knew," said Francis, "we should love it."
Aaron was told he could have a little back room and pension terms for
fifteen lire a day, if he stayed at least fifteen days. The exchange
was then at forty-five. So fifteen lire meant just six-shillings-and-
six pence a day, without extras. Extras meant wine, tea, butter, and
light. It was decided he should look for something cheaper next day.
By the tone of the young men, he now gathered that they would prefer
it if he took himself off to a cheaper place. They wished to be on
their own.
"Well, then," said Francis, "you will be in to lunch here, won't you?
Then we'll see you at lunch."
It was as if both the young men had drawn in their feelers now. They
were afraid of finding the new man an incubus. They wanted to wash
their hands of him. Aaron's brow darkened.
"Perhaps it was right your love to dissemble
But why did you kick me down stairs? . . ."
Then morning found him out early, before his friends had arisen. It
was sunny again. The magic of Florence at once overcame him, and he
forgot the bore of limited means and hotel costs. He went straight out
of the hotel door, across the road, and leaned on the river parapet.
There ran the Arno: not such a flood after all, but a green stream
with shoals of pebbles in its course. Across, and in the delicate
shadow of the early sun, stood the opposite Lungarno, the old flat
houses, pink, or white, or grey stone, with their green shutters, some
closed, some opened. It had a flowery effect, the skyline irregular
against the morning light. To the right the delicate Trinita bridge,
to the left, the old bridge with its little shops over the river.
Beyond, towards the sun, glimpses of green, sky-bloomed country:
Tuscany.
There was a noise and clatter of traffic: boys pushing hand-barrows
over the cobble-stones, slow bullocks stepping side by side, and
shouldering one another affectionately, drawing a load of country
produce, then horses in great brilliant scarlet cloths, like vivid
palls, slowly pulling the long narrow carts of the district: and men
hu-huing!--and people calling: all the sharp, clattering morning noise
of Florence.
"Oh, Angus! Do come and look! OH, so lovely!"
Glancing up, he saw the elegant figure of Francis, in fine coloured-
silk pyjamas, perched on a small upper balcony, turning away from the
river towards the bedroom again, his hand lifted to his lips, as if
to catch there his cry of delight. The whole pose was classic and
effective: and very amusing. How the Italians would love it!
Aaron slipped back across the road, and walked away under the houses
towards the Ponte Vecchio. He passed the bridge--and passed the
Uffizi--watching the green hills opposite, and San Miniato. Then he
noticed the over-dramatic group of statuary in the Piazza Mentana--
male and physical and melodramatic--and then the corner house. It was
a big old Florentine house, with many green shutters and wide eaves.
There was a notice plate by the door--"Pension Nardini."
He came to a full stop. He stared at the notice-plate, stared at
the glass door, and turning round, stared at the over-pathetic dead
soldier on the arm of his over-heroic pistol-firing comrade; _Mentana_
--and the date! Aaron wondered what and where Mentana was. Then at
last he summoned his energy, opened the glass door, and mounted the
first stairs.
He waited some time before anybody appeared. Then a maid-servant.
"Can I have a room?" said Aaron.
The bewildered, wild-eyed servant maid opened a door and showed him
into a heavily-gilt, heavily-plush drawing-room with a great deal of
frantic grandeur about it. There he sat and cooled his heels for half
an hour. Arrived at length a stout young lady--handsome, with big
dark-blue Italian eyes--but anaemic and too stout.
"Oh!" she said as she entered, not knowing what else to say.
"Good-morning," said Aaron awkwardly.
"Oh, good-morning! English! Yes! Oh, I am so sorry to keep you, you
know, to make you wait so long. I was upstairs, you know, with a lady.
Will you sit?"
"Can I have a room?" said Aaron.
"A room! Yes, you can."
"What terms?"
"Terms! Oh! Why, ten francs a day, you know, pension--if you stay--
How long will you stay?"
"At least a month, I expect."
"A month! Oh yes. Yes, ten francs a day."
"For everything?"
"Everything. Yes, everything. Coffee, bread, honey or jam in the
morning: lunch at half-past twelve; tea in the drawing-room, half-
past four: dinner at half-past seven: all very nice. And a warm
room with the sun--Would you like to see?"
So Aaron was led up the big, rambling old house to the top floor--then
along a long old corridor--and at last into a big bedroom with two
beds and a red tiled floor--a little dreary, as ever--but the sun just
beginning to come in, and a lovely view on to the river, towards the
Ponte Vecchio, and at the hills with their pines and villas and verdure
opposite.
Here he would settle. The signorina would send a man for his bags, at
half past two in the afternoon.
At luncheon Aaron found the two friends, and told them of his move.
"How very nice for you! Ten francs a day--but that is nothing. I am
so pleased you've found something. And when will you be moving in?"
said Francis.
"At half-past two."
"Oh, so soon. Yes, just as well.--But we shall see you from time to
time, of course. What did you say the address was? Oh, yes--just
near the awful statue. Very well. We can look you up any time--and
you will find us here. Leave a message if we should happen not to be
in--we've got lots of engagements--" _
Read next: CHAPTER XVI. FLORENCE
Read previous: CHAPTER IV. XX SETTEMBRE
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