It would
be difficult to conceive her saying anything equivocal or vulgar. Yet
she must have been a naughty little girl not long ago. She never dreams
that I know what I do know: that she is mistress of a high police
functionary and greatly in favour with his set - a most useful landlady,
in short, for a virtuous young bachelor like myself.
On learning this fact, I made it my business to study her weaknesses and
soon discovered that she was fond of a particular brand of Chianti. A
flask of this vintage was promptly secured; then, dissatisfied with its
materialistic aspect, I caused it to be garlanded with a wreath of
violets and despatched it to her private apartment by the prettiest
child I could pick up in the street. That is the way to touch their
hearts. The offering was repeated at convenient intervals.
A little item in the newspaper led to some talk, one morning, about the
war. I found she shared the view common to many others, that this is an
"interested" war. Society has organized itself on new lines, lines which
work against peace. There are so many persons "interested" in keeping up
the present state of affairs, people who now make more money than they
ever made before. Everybody has a finger in the pie. The soldier in the
field, the chief person concerned, is voiceless and of no account when
compared with this army of civilians, every one of whom would lose, if
the war came to an end. They will fight like demons, to keep the fun
going. What else should they do? Their income is at stake. A man's heart
is in his purse.
I asked:
"Supposing, Madame, you desired to end the war, how would you set about
it?"
Whereupon a delightfully Tuscan idea occurred to her.
"I think I would abolish this Red-Cross nonsense. It makes things too
pleasant. It would bring the troops to their senses and cause them to
march home and say: Basta! We have had enough."
"Don't you find the Germans a little prepotenti?" "Prepotenti: yes. By
all means let us break their heads. And then, caro Lei, let us learn to
imitate them...."
That afternoon, I remember, being wondrously fine and myself in such
mellow mood that I would have shared my last crust with some shipwrecked
archduchess and almost forgiven mine enemies, though not until I had hit
them back - I strolled about the Cascine. They have done something to
make this place attractive; just then, at all events, the shortcomings
were unobserved amid the burst of green things overhead and underfoot.
Originally it must have been an unpromising stretch of land, running, as
it does, in a dead level along the Arno. Yet there is earth and water;
and a good deal can be done with such materials to diversify the
surface. More might have been accomplished here. For in the matter of
hill and dale and lake, and variety of vegetation, the Cascine are not
remarkable. One calls to mind what has been attained at Kew Gardens in
an identical situation, and with far less sunshine for the landscape
gardener to play with. One thinks of a certain town in Germany where, on
a plain as flat as a billiard table, they actually reared a mountain,
now covered with houses and timber, for the disport of the citizens. To
think that I used to skate over the meadows where that mountain now
stands!
There was no horse-racing in the Cascine that afternoon; nothing but the
usual football. The pastime is well worth a glance, if only for the sake
of sympathizing with the poor referee. Several hundred opprobrious
epithets are hurled at his head in the course of a single game, and play
is often suspended while somebody or other hotly disputes his decision
and refuses to be guided any longer by his perverse interpretation of
the rules. And whoever wishes to know whence those plastic artists of
old Florence drew their inspiration need only come here. Figures of
consummate grace and strength, and clothed, moreover, in a costume which
leaves little to the imagination. Those shorts fully deserve their name.
They are shortness itself, and their brevity is only equalled by their
tightness. One wonders how they can squeeze themselves into such an
outfit or, that feat accomplished, play in it with any sense of comfort.
Play they do, and furiously, despite the heat.
Watching the game and mindful of that morning's discourse with Madame de
Maintenon, a sudden wave of Anglo-Saxon feeling swept over me. I grew
strangely warlike, and began to snort with indignation. What were all
these young fellows doing here? Big chaps of eighteen and twenty! Half
of them ought to be in the trenches, damn it, instead of fooling about
with a ball.
It would have been instructive to learn the true ideas of the rising
generation in regard to the political outlook; to single out one of the
younger spectators and make him talk. But these better-class lads
cluster together at the approach of a stranger, and one does not want to
start a public discussion with half a dozen of them. My chance came from
another direction. It was half-time and a certain player limped out of
the field and sat down on the grass. I was beside him before his friends
had time to come up. A superb specimen, all dewy with perspiration.
"Any damage?"
Nothing much, he gasped. A man on the other side had just caught him
with the full swing of his fist under the ribs. It hurt confoundedly.
