Wine that
is already beginning, you greatly fear, to injure your sensitive spleen
(an important organ, in Calabria), inducing a hypochondriacal tendency
to see all the beauties of this fair land in an odious and sombre
light - turning your day into night, as it were - it must be an odd
priest, indeed, who is not compassionately moved to impart the desired
information regarding the whereabouts of the best vino di famiglia at
that moment obtainable. After all, it costs him nothing to do a double
favour - one to yourself and another to the proprietor of the wine,
doubtless an old friend of his, who will be able to sell his stuff to a
foreigner 20 per cent dearer than to a native.
And failing the priests, I go to an elderly individual of that tribe of
red-nosed connaisseurs, the coachmen, ever thirsty and mercenary souls,
who for a small consideration may be able to disclose not only this
secret, but others far more mysterious.
As to your host at the inn - he raises not the least objection to
your importing alien liquor into his house. His own wine, he tells you,
is last year's vintage and somewhat harsh (slightly watered, he might
add) - and why not? The ordinary customers are gentlemen of commerce who
don't care a fig what they eat and drink, so long as there is enough of
it. No horrible suggestions are proffered concerning corkage; on the
contrary, he tests your wine, smacks his lips, and thanks you for
communicating a valuable discovery. He thinks he will buy a bottle or
two for the use of himself and a few particular friends. . . .
Midnight has come and gone. The street is emptying; the footsteps of
passengers begin to ring hollow. I arise, for my customary stroll in the
direction of the cemetery, to attune myself to repose by shaking off
those restlessly trivial images of humanity which might otherwise haunt
my slumbers.
Town visions are soon left behind; it is very quiet here under the hot,
starlit heavens; nothing speaks of man save the lighthouse flashing in
ghostly activity - no, it is a fixed light - on the distant Cape of the
Column. And nothing breaks the stillness save the rhythmic breathing of
the waves, and a solitary cricket that has yet to finish his daily task
of instrumental music, far away, in some warm crevice of the hills.
A suave odour rises up from the narrow patch of olives, and figs loaded
with fruit, and ripening vines, that skirts the path by the beach. The
fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender
grape give a good smell.
And so I plough my way through the sand, in the darkness, encompassed by
tepid exhalations of earth and sea. Another spirit has fallen upon me - a
spirit of biblical calm. Here, then, stood the rejoicing city that
dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside
me: how is she become a desolation! It is indeed hard to realize that a
town thronged with citizens covered all this area. Yet so it is. Every
footstep is a memory. Along this very track walked the sumptuous ladies
of Croton on their way to deposit their vain jewels before the goddess
Hera, at the bidding of Pythagoras. On this spot, maybe, stood that
public hall which was specially built for the delivery of his lectures.
No doubt the townsfolk had been sunk in apathetic luxury; the time was
ripe for a Messiah.
And lo! he appeared.
XXXVIII
THE SAGE OF CROTON
The popularity of this sage at Croton offers no problem: the inhabitants
had become sufficiently civilized to appreciate the charm of being
regenerated. We all do. Renunciation has always exercised an
irresistible attraction for good society; it makes us feel so
comfortable, to be told we are going to hell - and Pythagoras was very
eloquent on the subject of Tartarus as a punishment. The Crotoniates
discovered in repentance of sins a new and subtle form of pleasure;
exactly as did the Florentines, when Savonarola appeared on the scene.
Next: his doctrines found a ready soil in Magna Graecia which was
already impregnated with certain vague notions akin to those he
introduced. And then - he permitted and even encouraged the emotional sex
to participate in the mysteries; the same tactics that later on
materially helped the triumph of Christianity over the more exclusive
and rational cult of Mithra. Lastly, he came with a "message," like the
Apostle of the Gentiles; and in those times a preaching reformer was a
novelty. That added a zest. We know them a little better, nowadays.
He enjoyed the specious and short-lived success that has attended,
elsewhere, such efforts to cultivate the ego at the expense of its
environment. "A type of aspiring humanity," says Gissing, echoing the
sentiments of many of us, "a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim
radiance through legendary Hellas." I fancy that the mist of centuries
of undiscriminating admiration has magnified this figure out of all
proportion and contrived, furthermore, to fix an iridescent nimbus of
sanctity about its head. Such things have been known to happen, in foggy
weather.
Was Greece so very legendary, in those times? Why, on the contrary, it
was full of real personages, of true sages to whom it seemed as if no
secrets of heaven or earth were past fathoming; far from being
legendary, the countryhad never attained a higher plane of intellectual
curiosity than when Pythagoras made his appearance. And it cannot be
gainsaid that he and his disciples gave the impetus away from these wise
and beneficial researches into the arid regions of metaphysics. It is so
much more gentlemanly (and so much easier) to talk bland balderdash
about soul-migrations than to calculate an eclipse of the moon or bother
about the circulation of the blood.
