But enough of these idle imaginings; one day (I made a mental note) I would ask Martine’s daughter just how much she remembered of the history of Sicily—the potted history her mother had once given her as they sat in the cool darkness of the great church listening to the cooing of doves in the brilliant sunshine outside.
So bright indeed was it that those of us who had dark glasses must have been glad of them. Mario had gone off with the bus telling us that he would pick us up by the Fountain of Arethusa in an hour or so—leaving us time to loiter away a moment in the museum which stood just opposite the cathedral—or in any other place of our choosing. The Microscopes, for example, recoiled at the very word Museum and retired to a pleasant bar, and I may have well done the same, but as Deeds had marked the place with an “Ought” I thought I would please him by giving it a look over. To be truthful, despite its handsome rooms with their fresh and open views over the harbor it is rather disappointing—a prodigious jumble of bits and pieces of pottery and stone, for the most part without any kind of aesthetic importance but simply preserved as a historical illustration of an epoch or a trend. Yes, there is an elephant’s graveyard of such vestiges and one cannot help feeling a certain sympathy with Martine’s contention that “we are in danger of preserving too much worthless stuff.” However, it gave me pleasure to watch Beddoes staring vacantly at the Paleolithic fossil of a dwarf elephant and then turning to Deeds with a “I can’t see any point, can you?” It was all right, I suppose.
I even did my duty by the famous Venus Anadyomene in Room Nine, which the guide assured me was remarkable for “its anatomical realism” which is a polite way of dealing with the more vulgar aspects of its style. Haunchwise, as they would say in New York, she is anything but kallipygous. She is softer than cellulitis and her languorous pose feels debased in a fruity sort of way. She could have gone back into stock without the world needing to feel too deprived. The fame of this insipid lady is due not to the poets but to the historians.
There were indeed one or two fine smaller pieces but truth to tell it was the cathedral which was nagging at me and I could not resist slipping away for another quick look round in it. The service was over but there were still candles burning in the side chapels with their characteristic odor of waxen soot. A fly flew into the flame of one and was burnt up—it expired with the noise of a match being struck. What was it that was really intriguing me? It was the successful harmonization of so many dissimilar elements into a perfected work of art. It didn’t ought to be a work of art but it was. It is true that the builders of the great cathedrals did not live to see their work completed but they were operating to an agreed ground plan; here the miracle had been achieved by several sheer accidents. And with such unlikely ingredients, too. Start with a Greek temple, embed the whole in a Christian edifice to which you later add a Norman facade which gets knocked down by the great earthquake of 1693. Undaunted by this, you get busy once more and, completely changing direction, replace the old facade with a devilish graceful Baroque composition dated around 1728–1754. And the whole thing, battered as it is, still smiles and breathes and manifests its virtue for all the world as if it had been thought out by a Leonardo or a Michelangelo. I caught them up in a side street wending their desultory way to the point of rendezvous with Mario.
Not many had taken advantage of the pause which we had devoted to culture; the French ladies had bought thousands of postcards, and were clucking with pleasure like hens because they were so cheap. The Bishop—where was the Bishop? I had not noticed him in the museum, and I wondered if he had really stroked the haunches of Venus in passing. Beddoes swore that he had seen him do it, but then he was not really to be trusted. But when we got down to the little square where the fountain stands we found that they were all already there, hanging over the railings. It was here that tragedy was to overtake them. The Bishop, like a sensible man, had brought along a tiny pair of opera glasses with which he examined architectural details with scrupulous attention—”standing off,” as he would put it, from them, and taking up a special stance, as he gazed up at the gargoyles and saints in remote corners of the edifices we visited. It was really sensible; how else, for example, can one really take in places like Chartres? I regretted my own heavy binoculars as being too big and clumsy for this function; they were good on landscape, yes, but too unwieldy for niceties.
His meek wife had already been down to touch the waters of the fountain and proclaim them rather cold; for my part I had lively regrets that the Italians were in danger of turning the place into a rubbish tip—I exaggerate, but there was a Coke bottle and a newspaper floating about in the swirl of the fountain, which had quite a strong central jet and must obviously have been rather pretty when kept in better trim. I leave aside all the nympholeptic legends concerning it for they can be found in all the guidebooks. But there were some large darkish fish with speckles—they looked rather like trout—which sported with the brisk current, turning and twisting and taking it on their flanks with obvious pleasure. There were also clumps of healthy papyrus growing in the fountain. The site was also charming, being as low as a reef at the sea level, which suggested that the slightest wave would bounce into the fountain and disturb the peace of Arethusa, if indeed she still lived there. But leaning over the parapet in a trance of pleasant sunlight the poor wife of the Bishop suddenly let slip the little opera glasses and, stiff with horror, saw them roll down the stairs and tumble into the fountain. No one spoke. She turned pale and the Bishop had a look of uncomprehending rage—as if this injustice had been wished upon him by the Gods, perhaps by Arethusa herself. His wife had simply been a passive instrument of the Nymphs. (Perhaps it was a punishment for stroking the amenities of Anadyomene?)
The silence of doom fell over us. It was clear that here was a matter for at least a divorce. The poor lady, her face worked, as they say in the popular press: she opened her mouth to speak but nothing came save a terrified smile of pure fright and idiocy.
Our hearts went out to her as we turned our gaze upon the Bishop and saw his own grim expression. All this, which takes so long to describe, passed in a second. Then came Mario to the rescue with a whoop of joy—as if he had waited for a half-century for the event. He clattered down the steps and, tucking up his trousers, shed shoes and socks and waded into the place, wincing with cold but grinning with pleasure. He restored the glasses to the Bishop who thanked him warmly and declared that they would have to be dried out, and even then one could not be sure (a glare at his wife) whether they would ever work again without being completely taken down and cleaned. It remained to be seen.
And on that note Mario whiffled and we straggled back to the bus which was drawn up in a shady corner—the heat had really begun. We made a slow circuit of the little island, which reminded me a little of the circuit one can make round the town and battlements of Corfu. The sea glittered and winked and here and there in a shady nook there was a sudden blaze of bougainvillea or oleander to temper the stone. But everything seemed deserted—all the raffish lower life of the town centered upon the Apollo square; up here the buildings opened inwards; they were full of the inner reserve which is expressed in courtyards and patios. The answer of course is the sea with its salt which rots everything. I am thinking among other things of the huge Castello Maniace which offered a total contrast in epoch and style to all the Greek remains we had been concentrating upon. It was, according to Roberto, only one of many such features on the island, and if people were not so damned obstinate about Greek remains they would really profit by having a good look at the palazzi of Ortygia. We only got a glimpse of two of them but they certainly bore out his contention by their reserved nobility. And so through a network of narrow streets which Mario navigated with an effortless skill which was quite astonishing: in places his outside mirror passed within a couple of centimeters of the street wall without ever grazing it. Presumably long practice was responsible for this. I wondered how many carousels a season fell to his lot. We rolled back ac
ross the causeway into fairly dense traffic and bore steadily right, gradually emerging from the press of buildings until we reached the sea, and a pleasant-looking fish restaurant placed right on the beach; with its own little jetty too, and wooden diving pontoons floating off shore. A swim in that blueness would cure all rumples, I felt, and indeed most of the party must have felt the same to judge by the alacrity with which they alighted and sought the terrace where, while sorting out where to change, we all profited by a shrewdly aimed aperitif which the good Roberto paid for out of his own pocket, though he swore, without much conviction, that he would get it back from the Company. He was so happy; our behavior had been decorous; there had been no scenes and no bad blood. Lunch stretched before us, and it was one of the better and more characteristic Italian meals—mixed grilled fish of every variety with fresh lemon followed by an eggplant pie which reminded me more of Greece and Anatolia than Italy. And then the wine was potable red with a slight “nose”—it avoided fruitiness, that besetting sin in lands where people seem to adore drinking pure diluted sugar with just a sniff of alcohol in it. We hailed the wine and behaved like masterful Sileni, smacking lips, holding it up to the light. Vino! Not all of us bathed, so that we had to wait for the general assembly of all before the hot food could be served; amuse-gueules of cucumber and radish staved off that caving-in feeling. The light was prodigious, the light wind off the lustrous sea made everything throb with importance. Whatever we might forget about Sicily we would remember this newly minted day.
The caverns and the quarries called the Latomie are nowadays one of the sights of the city; once they quarried stone from them for their temples and palaces. But since they were abandoned for this use they metamorphosed to underground grottoes thick with a luxuriant vegetation so dense that it needed the skilled services of landscape gardeners to control—and indeed the work of engineers to cut paths and asphalt them securely down so that the public could take extensive strolls through this underground jungle. But this excursion was planned for the cool of the evening, and the general idea was that we should have a siesta after lunch back at the hotel. Nothing more pleasant to think of—that seemed to be the generally accredited view. The French Count was pleased when I said how much I regretted that we did not have a quirky guide of Sicily by Stendhal to match his Walks in Rome. Indeed he would have been the ideal companion for the trip—perhaps with Goethe as well.
There would probably have been a good Sicilian candidate also, but our ignorance of the island’s letters was abysmal. Yes, Pirandello and Lampedusa, and someone that Lawrence translated successfully; I had heard of others whose renown was also widespread but could not recall their names. Roberto was impatient too and ate in a boneless exhausted sort of way. He had had a long morning march and was not disposed for any more casual gossip before his nap.
So we returned, well fed and rested by a bracing cold swim in the sea. By contrast with the sea coast the hotel which was a little way inland was somewhat hot. I opened my shutters and stepped out on to my balcony to judge what siesta conditions were to be like. To my left a thoughtful Deeds was hanging up a bathing costume; to my immediate right the Bishop’s opera glasses had been placed on the balustrade to dry out; they indicated his presence next door. Beyond the Bishop stood the figure of Beddoes engaged in some domestic pursuit—he seemed to be darning a sock. I set out these dispositions in some detail because a small incident took place which lent depth and perspective to the portraits of the ecclesiastical pair—putting them in a somewhat intriguing light. Neither was on the balcony but their shutters stood open. Beddoes was about to address some cheerful remark to me across the gap when I shut him up by pointing to the Bishop’s balcony and miming people asleep. He duly broke off and it was at that minute that we heard the voice of the lady lifted in plangent rebuke. She said: “O yes, you are and you know it, you are against the whole universe!“ This sublime accusation, searing enough to become the foundation of a new Council of Nicea, reverberated on the silence and hung there, so to speak, unqualified by further noise or gesture. Beddoes and I gazed at one another. Deeds discreetly withdrew. I was about to do the same when a slap rang out, a distinct and unmistakable slap, followed once more by a wave of silence. We hovered there for a moment, Beddoes and I, like figures hastily improvised with the airbrush, or graven images reflected shimmering in a sunbeam. Nothing further happened after this and we both beat a tactful retreat into our rooms where in a matter of moments I was asleep, having set my little alarm for four. I wondered for a moment which of the two had slapped the other—had she swiped him? It was hardly conceivable that he had landed her one for such an impudent remark. And anyway what did it mean? Have women no innate respect for the Cloth? But sleep came to dispel these useless questions, and it came on bare feet, noiseless on the tiled floors. The alarm set me by the ears with a shock of surprise—it was like being hit by a thunderbolt.
When I got down to the terrace we were nearly all present tucking into an excellent tea with several kinds of cake. The transformation in the Bishop was marvelous to behold; he was expansive and smiling and relaxed. He caressed his wife’s arm like a clumsy but affectionate gundog. She too had a touch of red in her pale cheeks—had she made up? At any rate she was less pale than usual. Beddoes caught my eye from a neighboring table and gave us a wink of complicity which Deeds did not acknowledge; but undaunted he came over to us and whispered hoarsely: “After the slap they made love all afternoon in a disembodied way—perhaps for the first time since their marriage fifty years before; but I couldn’t make out who hit who, could you? At any rate that humble slap uncorked an unearthly lust….” Deeds got angry and said, “I wish you would go away and take your rumors with you.” Beddoes looked hurt. “It’s not rumors,” he said, “I watched them through the keyhole.”
The man was incorrigible and Deeds told him as much with a vehemence controlled only by good breeding; but undaunted by this the fellow followed us still and took a seat near us in the bus. The ride was not a long one, though my sense of direction was fazed and I could not tell if we went east or west. But today was to be a great treat for we were decanted upon a shady walk where another guide awaited us—to the relief of Roberto. This was an elderly man in dark glasses who looked like a policeman or a spy in a story of detection or espionage. Dark glasses—but so dark you could not see his eyes. He wore a bow tie and a Homburg hat with his well-cut but rather weary suit. Cufflinks, also. He was rather hard to place at first for his manners were somewhat seigniorial; was he an aristocrat down on his luck, and doing this job for the tips? But I think that Deeds had the right idea when he insisted that he was a university professor in classics who had become bored with retirement and was glad to use his knowledge in this way. He was certainly a most instructed and knowledgeable man, and his English and French were extremely good despite a bit of an accent. Moreover, he was mad about his subject and knew how to convey his enthusiasm. We were in good hands for a visit to the Roman and Greek treasures—the Roman amphitheater and the Greek theater which lay there, so fortunately rump to rump although belonging to different epochs of time. To have them both under our noses for comparison was a bit of luck—and the old guide told us as much….
But I am going too fast, for our attention was first directed to the huge altar to Zeus built by Hieron of which nothing remains save the stone emplacement with a few shattered stone suggestions as to its erstwhile function when it was used for the giant sacrifices to the god. There was still the ramp up which the animals were driven to the place where the priests waited to dispatch them. This gave our guide the chance of a little disquisition upon the nature and function of the Greek sacrifice—and of course here one could see all the difference between him and Roberto. He knew his Ancient Greece and had extensively visited the modern one—so he had a yardstick with which to compare Sicily. (Diodorus records a sample sacrifice here as counting 450 oxen, a prodigious number.) But our guide made haste to point out that there was nothing gloomy, or cruel
or depressing about such a custom—for the whole town ate the sacrifice after it had been consecrated by the priests. It was a Bank Holiday celebration with everything on the house. “Greek writers of the fifth century have a way of speaking of, an attitude towards, religion which is wholly a thing of joyful confidence, a friendly fellowship with the Gods whose service is but a high festival for man.” He was quoting, of course, and Deeds, who had already been on this tour once before whispered to me that it was from Jane Harrison (peace be to her shade!). But the guide was in full spate now and we got a chunk of Xenophon thrown at us which later I noted down from his little black notebook. It was very much to the point, running: “As to sacrifices and sanctuaries and festivals and precincts, the People, knowing that it is impossible for each poor man individually to sacrifice and feast and have sanctuaries in a beautiful and ample city, has discovered by what means he may enjoy these privileges. The whole state accordingly, at the common cost, sacrifices many victims, while it is the People who feast on them and divide them among themselves by lot.” The old guide made no bones about the fact that he was reciting, for he beat time with his fingers to the English text; and added in English and French: “It was a great fiesta, religion, then. Nowadays, we Sicilians still keep quite a shadow of the sentiment—unlike the Italians.” O dear, another fanatic nationalist!