The medicines - the ointments - the embrocations: a
perfect pharmacopceia! I can hardly crawl now, and without the help of
these two devoted boys even this harmless little diversion would have
been denied me. My nephews - orphans," he added, observing the direction
of my glance.
They sat on his other side, handsome lads, who spoke neither too much
nor too little. Every now and then they rose with one accord and
strolled among the surging crowd to stretch their legs, returning after
five minutes to their uncle's side. His eyes always followed their
movements.
"My young brother, had he lived, would have made men of them," he once
observed.
The images revive, curiously pertinacious, with dim lapses and gulfs. I
can see them still, the two boys, their grave demeanour belied by mobile
lips and mischievous fair curls of Northern ancestry; the other, leaning
forward intent upon the music, and caressing his moustache with bent
fingers upon which glittered a jewel set in massive gold - some scarab or
intaglio, the spoil of old Magna Graecia. His conversation, during the
intervals, moved among the accepted formulas of cosmopolitanism with
easy flow, quickened at times by the individual emphasis of a man who
can forsake conventional tracks and think for himself. Among other
things, he had contrived an original project for reviving the lemon
industry of his country, which, though it involved a few tariff
modifications - "a mere detail" - struck me as amazingly effective and
ingenious. The local deputy, it seems, shared my view, for he had
undertaken to bring it before the notice of Parliament.
What was it?
I have forgotten!
So we discussed the world, while the music played under the starlit
southern night.
It must have been midnight ere a final frenzied galop on the part of the
indefatigable band announced the close of the entertainment. I walked a
few paces beside the lame "proprietor" who, supported on the arms of his
nephews, made his way to the spot where the cabs were waiting - his
rheumatism, he explained, obliging him to drive. How he had enjoyed
walking as a youth, and what pleasure it would now have given him to
protract, during a promenade to my hotel, our delightful conversation!
But infirmities teach us to curtail our pleasures, and many things that
seem natural to man's bodily configuration are found to be unattainable.
He seldom left his rooms; the stairs - the diabolical stairs! Would I at
least accept his card and rest assured how gladly he would receive me
and do all in his power to make my stay agreeable?
That card has gone the way of numberless others which the traveller in
Southern Europe gathers about him. I have also forgotten the old man's
name. But the palazzo in which he lived bore a certain historical
title which happened to be very familiar to me. I remember wondering how
it came to reach Messina.
In the olden days, of course, the days of splendour.
