Half past five. Spiaggia was waking up. All through the glowing August afternoon, silence had brooded over this little city of tired bathers. Only the olive trees were alive with the regular scream of the cicale — the dry heart beat of a summer day. Sometimes a dog had got up, barked, and lain down again, exhausted, no other dog even bothering to reply. The sacred siesta had not been desecrated, even by the English visitors with their barbarous habit of noisy walks in the full sun. The heat had triumphed, and everyone had retired behind jalousies to sleep through the burning hours.
Damiano Chilosà, being a Neapolitan and very tired, had gone frankly to bed, which he considered the coolest and most restful place. He was very tired because, besides trying to teach the Duchesse de Sans Souci to swim, he had cooked a wonderful picnic lunch for ten people. He knew that if he did not cook an occasional lunch or dinner he would not be teaching duchesses to swim. That was life: he accepted it. It was all very well to be a successful singer, and to have the entrée into the houses of the Great on that account, but it was not enough for Damiano. He knew pretty well what the Great really thought about the poor devil of a singer, and Damiano did not regard himself as a poor devil of a singer. It was only by the merest chance that he was a singer at all. Just lack of means and a natural gift for singing had led him into what was the easiest profession going. He regarded himself, and wished to be regarded, as the Barone Chilosà, scion of one of the most ancient families in Italy.
The noble family of Chilosà had long been drained to its dregs, and Damiano found himself among the dregs. But family pride dies hard. The Palazzo Chilosà, only one of the many strongholds of this once eminent race, had gone through centuries of changing fortune, till now, as the Hotel Paradiso, it sheltered a large party of London’s lightweight set and a featherweight Parisian or two, who, by force of what they considered character, managed to keep the hotel to themselves.
It was in this society that Damiano wished to shine, and it was his fine culinary gift as well as his delightful voice that had captured the heart of the Elect. He imagined that the ‘Barone’ helped, but really it had no effect at all. They didn’t care a bit what his family was, or whether he had any right to the title (which he hadn’t), as long as he sang and cooked so divinely. They might have got tired of him if he had only been able to sing. There were few things they could concentrate on for more than ten minutes, but one of them was food, and that was where he came in. They demanded his presence at all their al fresco parties. His ravioli at midnight! His spaghetti at dawn! It was food for the gods.
And he was such a dear, so obliging — always there when he was wanted to interpret and advise on boat-hiring, wine, barbers, villas, and where the best exchange could be had. They were always sending for him, and he always went — but with dignity, as though he had just dropped in as one of themselves, not with any subserviency. Per Dio, no!
Damiano dressed leisurely, and, opening his bedroom window, stepped out on to his little white terrace. It was cool there now; the sun had left its roof of dried broom. He sat down and looked out over the vineyard and olive orchard that he wished were his — over the orchard to the great mountain which wore the bloom of a purple plum against the dense blue sky.
‘Un bel di!’ he murmured. Never could a singer make, or at any rate keep, enough money to buy that orchard and possess that view. But — one fine day! He had hopes of Zio Alfredo, a bachelor uncle who was making a fortune in South America, and had been impressed by his nephew and his performance in Traviata at Buenos Aires. As to saving anything himself — it all went jingling through his fingers before ever he got home to Spiaggia. He could not even afford to marry the poor Carolina, who had been waiting for him nearly fourteen years, her youth and looks ebbing away. No one understood why he persevered with this childhood’s engagement to the simple peasant girl, and no one, except Carolina herself, believed that he would ever marry her. Still, he never failed to visit her each day, whatever his social engagements, and his letters and presents came pouring in regularly when he was singing abroad.
‘The giovannott’ of yesterday has arrived.’
A small boy like a bright brown bird made this announce-ment; Giannino, Damiano’s only servant, and his assistant at all the cooking parties; swift and agile bearer of pots and pans, and fanner of obstinate carbone fires.
‘He may enter.’
The young man of yesterday came by appointment. He had been sent by a friend of Damiano’s who had heard him, somewhere near Naples, amusing a few friends with his guitar. The result of yesterday’s interview was satisfactory, and here he was for his first lesson.
He entered. He was about nineteen, and of a god-like beauty: of the best period, fifth century, BC.
He wore, in spite of the heat, a closely-fitting jacket of enormous check, much cut in at the waist after the fashion of the less informed Neapolitan tailors, white trousers, a red tie spotted white with a large horseshoe in the middle of it, a striped waistcoat, and three diamond rings. His feet were shod in boots apparently made of bright yellow paper, with shiny black pointed toes and welts. He wore no hat, and his mass of sable hair had been carefully trained to rise vertically a good half foot from his sloping brow. His appearance, in short, was the beau ideal of the Neapolitan vuappo.
Yesterday this had saddened Damiano, who hoped that he would be less gorgeous today; instead he wore yet another diamond ring. Damiano understood that it was in his honour that all these hot clothes were worn, and the extra ring signified grateful appreciation. ‘Some day perhaps I shall tell him. He has much to learn.’
The lesson began. The voice of Marco Tale rushed into his throat because he was nervous. He sang flat, and grew very hot, and nearly burst into tears. Yesterday he had brought his guitar, and sung with perfect musicality and a thrilling voice the Neapolitan songs he had known from his childhood. This was quite different. He had never sung a scale in his life. Discipline was unknown either to his voice or to himself. It was a painful hour, and after such a fiasco he would not be surprised to be told by the Barone that he need not come again.
This did not happen, however. He was merely advised to arrange with the Spiaggia organist for lessons in the theory of music and to come at the same time tomorrow for another lesson.
‘That is, if you are appassionato; if you wish to be a singer, I will give you a lesson every day for a month, and start you. But if not —’ he shrugged his shoulders.
‘If you have faith in my voice, Signor Barone, I will work day and night. Today I sang like a dog, and feared you would buttarmi via.’
‘Yes; you did sing like a dog, and I am glad to know that you are aware of it. But I shall not “throw you out”. I understand enough, figlio mio, to know that never again will you sing so like a dog. You have the voice and temperament of a great artist, but you have much — very much’ — with a glance he could not control at the coiffure and the rings — ‘to learn.’
It was soon manifest that Marco, who came from a very poor home, had spent his all on the new clothes, which had been bought expressly for that important interview with Damiano. For lodging and food there remained nothing to speak of. As soon as Damiano discovered this, he cleared out a small cupboard, where Marco established himself with his belongings; these consisted of a few rags of peasant clothes, a metal comb, a bottle of pungent hair pomade, and his guitar.
There was no happy mean between the peasant clothes and the garments which gave Damiano such pain. So one of his own discarded flannel suits, a white shirt with turn-down collar, and a pair of rope-soled shoes such as everyone wore in the summer transformed Marco from superficial vulgarity to distinction. Only on occasions he still wore his diamond rings.
‘Why, my friend, do you wear those false diamond rings?’
‘Because I cannot afford real ones,’ Marco replied simply.
Damiano held out his plump hand.
‘This is the only ring for a man. You will find no Englishman of any breeding wears anything else.’
A heavy signet ring was the only decoration. It bore the Chilosà crest, with the simple but pregnant motto ‘Per Bene’.
‘Of course, you are not of noble family, and have no coat of arms.’ Marco sadly assented. ‘Still, it is possible even for a commoner to wear a signet ring.’
The diamond rings disappeared. They were given to Giannino; Giannino gave two of them to his girl, aged ten, who appreciated them very much; he kept one for himself for festas. They served, in fact, to heal the wounds of jealousy caused in Giannino’s breast by the unknown giovannott’s occupation of that cupboard; so they were not bought in vain.
Marco’s slim, brown hands went unadorned.
His education progressed. Not only was he advancing in the elements of musical theory and voice production with astonishing swiftness, but he was apprehending the finer shades of behaviour, with the example of Damiano, that stickler for the correct thing, ever before him. He had, of course, good manners and address, as all Italians have, but he had to unlearn a number of customs to which he had been bred from infancy, such as spitting on the floor and eating maccheroni, however skilfully, with his fingers. Damiano had stirred his social ambition. He saw him go out, perfectly dressed in clothes of English cut (they were made by Poole) to parties given by those inglese pazzi, who, for all their mad behaviour, were said to be the cream of English society. He longed to join them, to have a little ‘flirt’ with one of those pretty blonde women who were so strangely thin, like matches. He strongly suspected that it was not only in their thinness that they resembled matches. Damiano forbade his meeting anyone for the present.
‘I shall know when you are ready to meet them. Till then you must not be seen by them. Mr Adolphus Nerely is giving a select party in his garden when the moon is full. For that I hope you will be ready to appear, singing Neapolitan songs with your guitar. I shall cook the supper. I shall not sing. I have already told Mr Nerely that I have made a discovery, and he is anxious that you should appear at this party.’
He did not tell Marco all that he had told Mr Nerely, for fear he should become conceited. He was at present singularly free from this failing.
‘Your hair you must really control better. I have already told you that it must be flat — flat. Such coiffures as yours are not seen in the houses of English gentlemen.’
‘My hair is a desperation’ (he called it dishperazione). ‘I cannot keep it down.’
‘Pomade and more pomade, and a handkerchief tied round while dressing. Enrico the barber shall attend to you before the party.’
Stile inglese was preached at Marco from morning to night.
‘The English are the only people who can dress. Next come the good Italians, but only because they have the intelligence to copy the English. In dress and bearing follow the English, but in little else. They have no manners because they have no imagination and are without altruism. But the finest gentleman in the world, perhaps, is the Englishman who has made Italy his home. Mr Adolphus Nerely is an example. True, he must have been born with unusual sensibility. A hater of sport — a lover of art. He began to build the Villa Glaucus when he was twenty-four. He is now fifty, and lor years that house on the edge of the sea has been a temple of the arts. A man of wealth, he has never had to work, and his life has been spent in the collection of beautiful things and the friendship of artists. Observe him well.’
Damiano was on his favourite subject. He puffed at the Havana cigar he had chosen at the tobacconist’s with the fastidiousness of a connoisseur.
‘None of your stinking Napolitani for me,’ he had said, ‘and a Toscano is little better. For me always a Havana del primo ordine, which you do not find here. This miserable cabbage is the best in the shop.’
The tobacconist, an old friend accustomed to Dumiano’s ways, had only laughed with good-humour.
‘The best we can do here, Maestro,’ giving him a light. The ‘Maestro’ implied more respect than ‘Barone’, a title not insisted upon by Damiano among his intimate friends, for many reasons. Marco’s Macedonia cigarette was lighted with the same match, while he vowed to himself that never would he yield to the lure of the common Neapolitan cigar.
So Marco learned. As the moon waxed his store of worldly wisdom grew, and, by the time it was full and the night of Mr Nerely’s party had arrived, Damiano felt no misgivings about introducing his protégé to the distinguished company.
Marco wore a white silk shirt open at the throat, and, to enhance his picturesque beauty, Damiano lent him a black Spanish cape, which he immediately put on as though he had worn Spanish capes all his life. Together they walked down through shining olive groves, with Giannino behind carrying the guitar and a bundle of freshly-gathered herbs for Damiano’s cooking. Marco was pale and thoughtful, while Damiano nervously plied him with last injunctions as to behaviour.
‘Above all, be cool. Show no fear.’
‘I must admit that my heart is going tup, tup’ (tup, tup fa ’o core).
‘That is only right. So it is with all true artists. Courage! You will make a furore tonight.’
Their arrival at the Villa Glaucus was the first sensation.
The villa was high and solitary above the sea, but Mr Nerely and his guests were gathered on the spacious terrace of the foresteria, or guest-house, where Damiano was to cook the supper. The foresteria was right down on the sea, which lapped the walls of the terrace in fine weather, and in a storm broke right over it. This terrace was approached by a long and dignified series of steps, and it was as he walked down these that Marco was first observed by Mr Nerely and his guests, who had just finished dancing to the delicious music made by three barbers and three tailors, expert performers upon the mandoline and guitar.
Damiano, who led the way, they could recognise, but the strange figure in the cape, moving with slow, young dignity, intrigued them.
‘Signor Tale!’
Who was Signor Tale? Mr Nerely, all in white, with snowy hair, drooping moustache, and hawklike aristocratic countenance, began immediately to present him.
Damiano noticed with pride how gracefully his pupil kissed the hand of the Duchesse de Sans Souci — just the flutter of the lips, and perhaps the faint pressure of the hand which might or might not have been intentional.
The Duchesse de Sans Souci had the largest eyes in Europe and the smallest feet. She wore a Chinese coat and chiffon trousers gathered in at the ankles with gold bells which tinkled when she moved. Marco had never seen anything like her before, but he kept his head. He kissed all the ladies’ hands, and warmed to his work. It was not necessary to speak much, as the English ladies, naturally, did not understand Italian; he had only to look serious and interesting. His hair was smooth as a raven’s wing, and his classic features were like carved ivory in the moonlight.
‘My dear! I’ve never seen anything like it!’ — ‘Look at the profile!’ — ‘The slant of the eyes.’ — ‘I’m all unhinged!’ — ‘Too marvellous!’
‘Is it right? Is it kind?’ murmured someone from the shadows.
When the excitement of Marco’s arrival had subsided, and the barbers and tailors had struck up again, Mr Nerely took Damiano and his pupil into the foresteria and gave them some champagne. Marco was only allowed half a glass. ‘Till he has sung. After that —?’
The host produced a large box of cigars.
‘Ah, look, Marco! These are the cigars of cigars!’ Damiano took one and fondled it between finger and thumb. ‘This is the kind you must smoke when you are a great singer. They are the best in the world.’
Marco looked at the box.
‘Corona Corona,’ he read. ‘What a beautiful name! That I shall never forget.’
The few drops of unaccustomed champagne gave Marco the courage he needed. On the terrace he took his guitar and, leaning against a pillar, began to sing without a trace of nervousness. He opened with the hackneyed ‘O Sole Mio’ and went on through ‘O Surdato ’nnamurato’ to ‘Tu Sola!’ which he sang with tragic intensity. Everyone was enchanted, except one man, a husband, who had been brought out by some stupid piece of carelessness and was always threatening to leave, but, unfortunately, never did. He was heard to mutter:
‘By Jove, you know, I think these foreign chaps rather overdo it, what?’
He was the strong, military type of Englishman to whom Italy and its inhabitants make no appeal. When everyone gathered round Marco after ‘Tu Sola!’ he was muttering:
‘Dam dagoes, you know. All right to engage ’em to sing if you like that sort of thing, but — make pets of ‘em — no. It doesn’t do, my dear fellow. Believe me, I know. It doesn’t do.’
No one took the slightest notice of him.
Vicin’ ‘o mare facimme l’ammore a core a core pe ce spassa!
sang Marco, and the barbers and tailors were so carried away that they all sang it with him. The rosemary-scented air rang with rich Italian voices and the rhythmic twang of mandolines and guitars.
Damiano tore himself away from the scene of triumph to the foresteria, where his dishes awaited him under the watchful eyes of Giannino. It was even better than he had hoped. Marco’s success was his own, and his good-natured face was radiant as he lifted the lid of the pollo cacciatore which was simmering over a gentle fire.
The husband disapproved of this supper mania. Cooking, he felt, should be done by servants, and certainly not by greasy singers. The whole atmosphere of the party was deplorable, and he was really getting fed up with Italy and its exaggerated moonlight and silly stage effects. Thank God, the moors were not far off!
The supper roused as many superlatives as Marco’s singing. The maccheroni were cooked five minutes beyond Damiano’s regulation, in deference to British taste, which he understood accepted macaroni pudding done to a pulp (and sweetened, too, if such a thing were to be believed). This concession was painful to the artist, but he had once heard an English guest whisper, ‘Not quite cooked, is it?’ That was enough for him.
The pollo cacciatore was followed by exquisite crépes Suzette, which Damiano flapped about in champagne on a chafing-dish and tossed on to plates greedily extended. He could have gone on flapping them till dawn — no one had ever had enough.
Marco sang again after supper with more feeling and less voice, and Damiano was persuaded to give Tosti’s ‘Luna d’ Estate’ and ‘Pecché?’ which he sang as well as they could be sung, in spite of the excellent supper he had eaten. He was no exception to the rule that all really inspired cooks are greedy.
It was not till the east was rosy that Damiano and his pupil, both flushed with triumph, left the Villa Glaucus. Together they watched the sun’s path of gold across the star-sapphire sea.
‘A symbol!’ cried Damiano. ‘Yours will be a golden path. The gods have given you many gifts.’
‘The best is your goodness to me, caro Maestro,’ said Marco humbly. ‘How can I ever repay you for what you have done for me?’
Damiano waved this away.
‘I should not have helped you if I had not known it was worthwhile.’
Marco hesitated a moment, evidently wanting to say something.
‘Well, what is it?’
‘Maestro, I have longed to show in some way my appreciation of your goodness to me, and I have always been wondering how I can do it. I have no money. I cannot buy the wonderful present I should like to give you. But these I have for you.’
From under his cape he produced a large handful of cigars.
They were Corona Coronas.
‘How — how did you get those?’ Damiano felt a creeping of the scalp as though his hair were beginning to stand on end.
‘Oh, it was quite easy. When I went to fetch your watch from the kitchen. It was the work of a moment. No one saw me.’
Damiano at first could only stand helpless with his teeth chattering and his underlip quivering.
‘You are not pleased, Maestro? You do not like them?’
‘Pleased —!’
Then he found his tongue. There are no English equivalents for the phrases that poured from it. Enough that Marco shuddered and paled beneath them. When the first flood was exhausted —
‘Ruin! Ruin! You have ruined me! I, Damiano, of the noble family of Chilosà, to be suspected of such a petty crime! Never, never can I show my face among gente per bene. What will they say? He will miss the cigars — I had shown I liked them — what can he think but that? — Ah! and that antipatico Englishman who was there. “Dagoes”, I heard him say. Dagoes! and now this! I am shamed before the world.’
Marco was appalled by the effect on his noble friend of what he considered a simple little act of friendship.
‘I will take them back now,’ he said eagerly. ‘I will say I took them by mistake. Or I might even put them back without anyone knowing. I could creep down on to the terrace — they will be all in bed —’
Damiano seized him.
‘Do not ever go near the place again. If they saw you they would think I had sent you for something else. Dio mio, Dio mio! Even if they do not suspect me, they will think it is either you or the little Giannino stealing for me. Leave me! Go, go, and never let me see your face again!’
Marco fled, sobbing, and was lost among the olives.
☙
Damiano Chilosà’s social ambitions died that morning. This dreadful incident cut them off sharp, as the stem of a flower is cut and wounded by a steel knife. Marco was one of the blooms that fell.
A strange series of coincidences combined to change completely the pattern of Damiano’s life. First, the inglesi pazzi disappeared like gipsies in a night, leaving nothing behind but a few discarded bathing caps, and one of the Sans Souci’s famous beach shoes, which were garnished with red and green silk seaweed to go with her bathing wrap of wide amber ciré ribbon. This shoe was presented to Damiano with a wink by the owner of the bathing establishment. He was not displeased by the implication of the wink, but put the shoe away in a drawer and tried to forget all about it.
The English party left without a word for Damiano, nor did he, in fact, ever hear from any of them again. This had a sinister significance for him, though it really meant nothing at all except that they had found someone else to do odd jobs for them. The soldier escaped to the moors without a backward glance, and the rest changed partners and moved to the Lido, whose star was just beginning to rise (or set, if you please).
Then Zio Alfredo died most unexpectedly, leaving Damiano quite a decent little fortune. He broke his singing contracts, bought the vineyard and olive orchard of his heart, married Carolina, and settled down to a peaceful domestic life, all in the space of three months. No one, not even Carolina, knew the true history of Marco’s disappearance. The general opinion was that he had been captured by the inglesi pazzi, and indeed there were persistent rumours that he had been seen bathing at the Lido. Whatever happened, Damiano has never seen him again, but he follows his career very closely.
Nothing but the loss of his voice or an accident to his face could prevent the success of Marco Tale. As neither of these things has happened, he is now the idol of the two Americas.
☙
Last Christmas Damiano Chilosà sat on his terrace gazing out at his orchard and his vineyard, and away to the mountain that was like a damson against the blue winter sky. It was a mild and lovely Christmas day. Little Damiano, aged three, was blowing his new trumpet, his great brown eyes rolling with delight. Carolina was in the kitchen, where all good wives should be, preparing delicious food for Damiano’s Christmas dinner. She has not wasted her fourteen years of waiting. She never errs as to a leaf, a pinch or a minute, and now Damiano doesn’t so much as put his head inside the kitchen door, unless, of course, a delay occurs.
Giannino is doing his military service, which bores him extremely, and his place in the Chilosà household is only being filled by a stop-gap.
The flesh is creeping over Damiano’s bones like an oncoming tide. He heeds it not. Of what use is a figure to the owner of a vineyard and an olive orchard? The garments of Poole have long passed on to the backs of slimmer friends. One has been dissected by Ferruccio the tailor, to his own profit and the benefit of his clients.
Ferruccio the tailor and Enrico the barber were coming to share the Chilosà Christmas dinner — friends of Damiano’s boyhood. He sat there waiting for them, puffing at his cigar.
It was a Corona Corona.
He had taken it from an enormous box which had arrived that morning, free of duty, from America. A photograph had also arrived. It was inscribed:
To my beloved Maestro, with the gratitude and eternal affection of Marco Tale.
There were the gay eyes, the sweet, serious mouth, the classic lines, the hair like a raven’s wing — unchanged. But there were also perfectly cut clothes, discreet collar and tie, and, on the still slim hand that rested on the beautifully creased knee, one handsome signet ring.
‘Ebbene,’ Damiano smiled serenely. ‘We have both learned something. No harm done.’
Little Damiano, having just discovered that the harder you blew the more noise you made, gave a piercing blast.
A delicious aroma was wafted up from the kitchen.