Before the door of a white canteen hidden among the thick vines of an old vineyard, in the shade of a canopy of vine branches interspersed with morning glory and small Chinese roses, at a table on which stood a decanter of wine, sat Vincenzo, a painter, with Giovanni, a locksmith. The painter is a small man, thin and dark; his eyes are lit with the soft, musing smile of a dreamer. His upper lip and cheeks have the appearance of having been recently shaved, but his smile makes him look very young, almost childlike. He has a small, pretty mouth like that of a girl; his wrists are slender, and in his nimble fingers he twists a yellow rose, pressing it to his full lips and closing his eyes.
“Perhaps so. I don’t know; perhaps so,” he says quietly, shaking his head, which has hollows at the temples. Dark curls fall over his high forehead.
“Yes, yes, the farther north one goes the more persistent are the people,” asserts Giovanni, a broad-shouldered fellow with a large head and black curls. His face is copper-coloured, his nose sunburnt and covered with white scales of dead skin. His eyes are large and gentle like those of an ox, and there is a finger missing from his left hand. His speech is as slow as the movements of his hands, which are stained with oil and iron dust. Grasping his wineglass in his dark fingers, the nails of which are chipped and broken, he continues in his deep voice:
“Milan, Turin—there are splendid workshops there in which new people are being made, where a new brain is growing. Wait a little while and the world will become honest and wise!”
“Yes,” said the little painter; and he lifted his glass, trying to catch a sunbeam in the wine, and sang:
“When we are young
How high the heart aspires!
How Time hath slaked its fires
When we are old!”
“The farther north one goes, I say, the better is the work. The French, for instance, do not lead such a lazy life as we do. Farther on, there are the Germans, and last of all the Russians: they are men if you like!”
“Quite true.”
“Having no rights and no fear of being deprived of their freedom and life, they have done grand work: it is owing to them that the whole East has awakened to life.”
“The county of heroes,” said the painter, inclining his head. “I should like to live amongst them.”
“Would you?” exclaimed the locksmith, striking his knee with his fist. “You would turn into a piece of ice there in a week!”
They both laughed good humouredly.
Around them there are blue and golden flowers; sunbeams tremble in the air; in the transparent glass of the decanter and the tumblers the wine seems to be on fire. From afar comes the soft murmur of the sea.
“Well, my good Vincenzo,” said the locksmith, with a broad smile. “Tell me in verse how I became a socialist. Do you know how it happened?”
“No,” said the painter, filling the glasses with wine and smiling at the red stream. “You have never told me. This skin fits your bones so well that I thought you were born in it!”
“I was born naked and stupid, like you and everybody else; in my youth I dreamed of a rich wife; when I was a soldier I studied in order to pass the examination for an officer’s rank. I was twenty-three when I felt that all was not as it should be in this world, and that it was a shame to live as if it were, like a fool.”
The painter rested his elbows on the table and, raising his head, gazed at the mountains where, on the very edge of the precipice, moving their large branches, stood huge pine-trees.
“We, our whole regiment, were sent to Bologna. The peasantry there were in revolt, some demanding that the rent of land should be lowered, others shouting about the necessity for raising wages: both parties seemed to be in the wrong. ‘To lower rents and increase wages, what nonsense!’ thought I. ‘That would ruin the landowners.’ To me, who was a town-dweller, it seemed utter foolishness. I was very indignant—the heat helped to make one so, and the constant travelling from place to place and the mounting guard at night. For, you know, these fine fellows were breaking the machinery belonging to the landowners; and it pleased them to burn the corn and to try to spoil everything that did not belong to them. Just think of it!”
He sipped his wine and, becoming more animated, went on:
“They roamed about the fields in droves like sheep, always silently, but threateningly and as if they meant business. We used to scatter them, threatening them with our bayonets sometimes. Now and then we struck them with the butts of our rifles. Without showing much fear, they dispersed in leisurely fashion, but always came together again. It was a tedious business, like mass, and it lasted for days, like an attack of fever. Luoto, our non-commissioned officer, a fine fellow from Abruzzi, himself a peasant, was anxious and troubled: he turned quite yellow and thin, and more than once he said to us:
“‘It’s a bad business, boys; it will probably be necessary to shoot, damn it!’
“His grumbling upset us still more; and then, you know, from every corner, from every hillock and tree we could see peeping the obstinate heads of the peasants; their angry eyes seemed to pierce us. For these people, naturally enough, did not regard us in a very friendly light.”
“Drink,” said little Vincenzo cordially, pushing a full glass towards his friend.
“Thank you. Long live the people who persist!” exclaimed the locksmith in his bass voice. He emptied the glass, wiped his moustache with his hands, and continued:
“Once I stood on a small hillock near an olive grove, guarding some trees which the peasants had been injuring. At the bottom of the hill two men were at work, an old man and a youth. They were digging a ditch. It was very hot, the sun burnt like fire, one felt irritable, longed to be a fish, and I remember I eyed them angrily. At noon they both left off work, and got out some bread and cheese and a jug of wine. ‘Oh, devil take them!’ thought I to myself. Suddenly the old man, who previously had not once looked at me, said something to the youth, who shook his head disapprovingly, but the old man shouted:
‘Go on!’ He said this very sternly.
“The youth came up to me with the jug in his hand, and said, not very willingly, you know:
“‘My father thinks that you would like a drink and offers you some wine.’
“I felt embarrassed, but I was pleased. I refused, nodding at the same time to the old man and thanking him. He responded by looking at the sky.
“‘Drink it, signor, drink it. We offer this to you as a man, not as a soldier. We do not expect a soldier to become kinder because he has drunk our wine!’
“‘Damn you, don’t get nasty,’ I thought to myself, and having drunk about three mouthfuls I thanked him. Then they began to eat down below. A little later I was relieved by Ugo from Salertino. I told him quietly that these two peasants were good fellows. The same night, as I stood at the door of a barn where the machinery was kept a slate fell on my head from the roof—it did not do much damage, but another slate, striking my shoulder edgewise, hurt me so severely that my left arm dropped benumbed.”
The locksmith burst into a loud laugh, his mouth wide open, his eyes half-closed.
“Slates, stones, sticks,” said he, through his laughter, “in those days and at that place were alive. This independent action of lifeless things made some pretty big bumps on our heads. Wherever a soldier stood or walked, a stick would suddenly fly at him from the ground, or a stone fall upon him from the sky. It made us savage, as you can guess.”
The eyes of the little painter became sad, his face turned pale and he said quietly:
“One always feels ashamed to hear of such things.”
“What is one to do? People take time to get wise. Then I called for help. I was led into a house where another fellow lay, his face cut by a stone. When I asked him how it happened he said, smiling, but not with mirth:
“‘An old woman, comrade, an old grey witch struck me, and then proposed that I should kill her!’
“‘Was she arrested?’
“‘I said that I had done it myself, that I had fallen and hurt myself. The commander did not believe it, I could see it by his eyes. But, don’t you see, it was awkward to confess that I had been wounded by an old woman. Eh? The devil! Of course they are hard pressed and one can understand that they do not love us!’
“‘H’m!’ thought I. The doctor came and two ladies with him, one of them fair and very pretty, evidently a Venetian. I don’t remember the other. They looked at my wound. It was slight, of course. They applied a poultice and went away.”
The locksmith frowned, became silent and rubbed his hands hard; his companion filled the glasses again with wine; as he lifted the decanter the wine seemed to dance in the air like a live red fire.
“We used both to sit at the window,” continued the locksmith darkly. “We sat in such a way that the light did not fall on us, and there once we heard the charming voice of this fair lady. She and her companion were walking with the doctor in the garden outside the window and talking in French, which I understand very well.
“‘Did you notice the colour of his eyes?’ she asked. ‘He is a peasant of course, and once he has taken off his uniform will no doubt become a socialist, like they all are here. People with eyes like that want to conquer the whole world, to reconstruct the whole of life, to drive us out, to destroy us in order that some blind, tedious justice should triumph!’
“‘Foolish fellows,’ said the doctor—‘half children, half brutes.’
“‘Brutes, that is quite true. But what is there childish about them?’
“‘What about those dreams of universal equality?’
“‘Yes, just imagine it. The fellow with the eyes of an ox and the other with the face of a bird our equals! You, she and I their equals, the equals of these people of inferior blood! People who can be bidden to come and kill their fellows, who are brutes like them.…’
“She spoke much and vehemently. I listened and thought:
“‘Quite right, signora.’ I had seen her more than once, and you know of course that no one dreams more ardently of a woman than a soldier. I imagined her to be kind and clever and warmhearted; and at that time I had an idea that the landed nobility were especially clever, or gifted, or something of the kind. I don’t know why!
“I asked my comrade:
“‘Do you understand this language?’
“No, he did not understand. Then I translated for him the fair lady’s speech. The fellow got as angry as the devil, and started to jump about the room, his one eye glistening—the other was bandaged.
“‘Is that so?’ he murmured. ‘Is that possible? She makes use of me and does not look upon me as a man. For her sake I allow my dignity to be offended and she denies it. For the sake of guarding her property I risk losing my soul.’
“He was not a fool and felt that he had been very much insulted, and so did I. The following day we talked about this lady in a loud voice, not heeding Luoto, who only muttered:
“‘Be more careful, boys; don’t forget that you are soldiers, and that there is such a thing as discipline.’
“No, we did not forget it. But many of us, almost all, to tell you the truth, became deaf and blind, and these young peasants made use of our deafness and blindness to very good purpose. They won. They treated us very well indeed. The fair lady could have learnt from them: for instance, they could have taught her very convincingly how honest people should be valued. When we left the place whither we had come with the idea of shedding blood, many of us were given flowers. As we marched along the streets of the village not stones and slates but flowers were thrown at us, my friend. I think we had deserved it. One may forget a cool reception when one has received such a good send-off!”
He laughed heartily, then said:
“That is what you should turn into verse, Vincenzo.”
The painter replied with a pensive smile:
“Yes, it’s a good subject for a small poem. I think I may be able to do something with it. But when a man is over twenty-five he is a poor lyric poet.”
He threw away the crumpled flower, picked another and, looking round, continued quietly:
“When one has covered the road from mother’s breast to the breast of one’s sweetheart, one must go on to another kind of happiness.”
The locksmith became silent, tilting his wine in the glass.
Below them the sea murmurs softly; in the hot air above the vineyards floats the perfume of flowers.
“It is the sun that makes us so lazy and good-for-nothing,” murmured the locksmith.
“I don’t seem to be able to manage lyric verse satisfactorily now. I am rather sick about it,” said Vincenzo quietly, knitting his thin brows.
“Have you written anything lately?”
The painter did not reply at once.
“Yes, yesterday I wrote something on the roof of the Hotel Como.”
And he read in a low tone and pensive and sing-song manner:
“The autumn sun falls softly, taking leave,
And lights the greyness of the lonely shore.
The greedy waves o’erlip the scattered stones
And lick the sun into the cold blue sea.
The autumn wind goes gleaning yellow leaves,
To toss them idly in the blust’ring air.
Pale is the sky, and wild the angry sea,
The sun still faintly smiles, and sinks, and sets.”
They were both silent for a time. The painter’s head had sunk and his eyes were fixed on the ground. The big, burly locksmith smiled and said at last:
“One can speak in a beautiful way about everything, but what is most beautiful of all is a word about a good man, a song of good people.”