Spring hesitates to smile
upon these chill uplands; we are still in the grip of winter -
Aut aquilonibus
Querceti Gargani laborent
Et foliis viduantur orni -
so sang old Horace, of Garganian winds. I scanned the horizon, seeking
for his Mount Vulture, but all that region was enshrouded in a grey
curtain of vapour; only the Stagno Salso - a salt mere wherein Candelaro
forgets his mephitic waters - shone with a steady glow, like a sheet of
polished lead.
Soon the rain fell once more and drove me to seek refuge among the
houses, where I glimpsed the familiar figure of my coachman, sitting
disconsolately under a porch. He looked up and remarked (for want of
something better to say) that he had been searching for me all over the
town, fearing that some mischief might have happened to me. I was
touched by these words; touched, that is, by his child-like simplicity
in imagining that he could bring me to believe a statement of such
radiant improbability; so touched, that I pressed a franc into his
reluctant palm and bade him buy with it something to eat. A whole franc.
. . . Aha! he doubtless thought, my theory of the gentleman: it
begins to work.
It was barely midday. Yet I was already surfeited with the angelic
metropolis, and my thoughts began to turn in the direction of
Manfredonia once more. At a corner of the street, however, certain
fluent vociferations in English and Italian, which nothing would induce
me to set down here, assailed my ears, coming up - apparently - out of the
bowels of the earth. I stopped to listen, shocked to hear ribald
language in a holy town like this; then, impelled by curiosity,
descended a long flight of steps and found myself in a subterranean
wine-cellar. There was drinking and card-playing going on here among a
party of emigrants - merry souls; a good half of them spoke English and,
despite certain irreverent phrases, they quickly won my heart with a
"Here! You drink this, mister."
This dim recess was an instructive pendant to the archangel's cavern. A
new type of pilgrim has been evolved; pilgrims who think no more of
crossing to Pittsburg than of a drive to Manfredonia. But their cave was
permeated with an odour of spilt wine and tobacco-smoke instead of the
subtle Essence des pelerins aes Abruzzes fleuris, and alas, the
object of their worship was not the Chaldean angel, but another and
equally ancient eastern shape: Mammon. They talked much of dollars; and
I also heard several unorthodox allusions to the "angel-business," which
was described as "played out," as well as a remark to the effect that
"only damn-fools stay in this country." In short, these men were at the
other end of the human scale; they were the strong, the energetic; the
ruthless, perhaps; but certainly - the intelligent.
