"Gentlemen," said the Shepherd, "if you have designs of Trading, you
must go another way; but if you're of the admired sort of Men, that have
the thriving qualifications of Lying and Cheating, you're in the direct
Path to Business; for in this City no Learning flourisheth; Eloquence
finds no room here; nor can Temperance, Good Manners, or any Vertue meet
with a Reward; assure yourselves of finding but two sorts of Men, and
those are the Cheated, and those that Cheat."
If gossip at Naples and elsewhere is to be trusted, old Petronius seems
to have had a prophetic glimpse of the dessus du panier of modern
Cotrone.
XXXVII
COTRONE
The sun has entered the Lion. But the temperature at Cotrone is not
excessive - five degrees lower than Taranto or Milan or London. One grows
weary, none the less, of the deluge of implacable light that descends,
day after day, from the aether. The glistering streets are all but
deserted after the early hours of the morning. A few busy folks move
about till midday on the pavements; and so do I - in the water. But the
long hours following luncheon are consecrated to meditation and repose.
A bundle of Italian newspapers has preceded me hither; upon these I
browse dispersedly, while awaiting the soft call to slumber. Here are
some provincial sheets - the "Movement" of Castro-villari - the "New
Rossano" - the "Bruttian" of Corigliano, with strong literary flavour.
Astonishing how decentralized Italy still is, how brimful of purely
local patriotism: what conception have these men of Rome as their
capital? These articles often reflect a lively turmoil of ideas,
well-expressed. Who pays for such journalistic ventures? Typography is
cheap, and contributors naturally content themselves with the ample
remuneration of appearing in print before their fellow-citizens; a
considerable number of copies are exported to America. Yet I question
whether the circulation of the "New Rossano," a fortnightly in its sixth
year, can exceed five hundred copies.
But these venial and vapid Neapolitan dailies are my pet aversion. We
know them, nous autres, with their odious personalities and playful
blackmailing tactics; many "distinguished foreigners," myself included,
could tell a tale anent that subject. Instead of descending to such
matters, let me copy - it is too good to translate - a thrilling item of
news from the chiefest of them, the Mattino, which touches,
furthermore, upon the all-important subject of Calabrian progress.
"CETRARO. Per le continuate premure ed insistenze di questo egregio
uffiziale postale Signor Rocca Francesco - che nulla lascia
pel bene avviamento del nostro uffizio - presso 1' on. Dirczione delle
poste di Cosenza, si e ottenuta una cassetta postale, che affissa lungo
il Corso Carlo Pancaso, ci da la bella commodita di imbucare le nostre
corrispondenze per essere rilevate tre volte al giorno non solo, quanto
ci evita persino la dolorosa e lunga via crucis che dovevamo percorrere
qualvolta si era costretti d' imbuccare una lettera, essendo il nostro
uffizio situato ali' estremita del paese.
"Tributiamo percio sincera lode al nostro caro uffiziale postale Sig.
Rocca, e ci auguriamo che egli continui ancora al miglioramento deli'
uffizio istesso, e merce 1' opera sua costante ed indefessa siamo sicuri
che 1' uffizio postale di Cetraro assurgera fra non molto ad un'
importanza maggiore di quella che attualmente."
The erection of a letter-box in the Street of a small place of which 80
per cent of the readers have never so much as heard. ... I begin to
understand why the cultured Tarentines do not read these journals.
By far the best part of all such papers is the richly-tinted personal
column, wherein lovers communicate with each other, or endeavour to do
so. I read it conscientiously from beginning to end, admiring, in my
physical capacity, the throbbing passion that prompts such public
outbursts of confidence and, from a literary point of view, their
lapidary style, model of condensation, impossible to render in English
and conditioned by the hard fact that every word costs two sous. Under
this painful material stress, indeed, the messages are sometimes crushed
into a conciseness which the females concerned must have some difficulty
in unperplexing: what on earth does the parsimonious Flower mean by
his Delphic fourpenny worth, thus punctuated -
"(You have) not received. How. Safety."
One cannot help smiling at this circuitous and unromantic method of
touching the hearts of ladies who take one's fancy; at the same time, it
testifies to a resourceful vitality, striving to break through the
barriers of Hispano-Arabic convention which surround the fair sex in
this country. They are nothing if not poetic, these love-sick swains.
Arrow murmurs: "My soul lies on your pillow, caressing you softly";
Strawberry laments that "as bird outside nest, I am alone and lost.
What sadness," and Star finds the "Days eternal, till Thursday." And
yet they often choose rather prosaic pseudonyms. Here is Sahara who
"suffers from your silence," while Asthma is "anticipating one endless
kiss," and Old England observing, more ir sorrow than in anger, that
he "waited vainly one whole hour."
But the sagacious Cooked Lobster desires, before commiting himself
further, "a personal interview." He has perhaps been cooked once before.
Letters and numbers are best, after all. So thinks F. N. 13, who is
utterly disgusted with his flame -
"Your silence speaks. Useless saying anything. Ca ira." And likewise
7776 - B, a designing rogue and plainly a spendthrift, who wastes
ninepence in making it clear that he "wishes to marry rich young lady,
forgiving youthful errors." If I were the girl, I would prefer to take
my chances with "Cooked Lobster."
"Will much-admired young-lady cherries-in-black-hat indicate method
possible correspondence 10211, Post-Office?"
How many of these arrows, I wonder, reach their mark?
