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.
