This is in accordance with that
mutilomania of the south: that love of torturing trees which causes
them to prune pines till they look like paint-brushes that had been out
all night, and which explains their infatuation for the much-enduring
robinia that allows itself to be teased into any pattern suggested by
their unhealthy phantasy. It is really as if there were something
offensive to the Latin mind in the sight of a well-grown tree, as if man
alone had the right of expanding normally. But I must not do the City
Fathers an injustice. They have planted two rows of cryp-tomerias. Will
people never learn that cryptomerias cannot flourish in south Italy?
Instead of this amateurish gardening, why not consult some competent
professional, who with bougain-villeas, hibiscus and fifty other such
plants would soon transform this favoured spot into a miniature paradise?
The Villa Beaumont and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the
citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso
Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old
town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a
short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines
took the air. It must have been like Manfredonia at the present day.
This Corso, which has a most awkward pavement and is otherwise
disagreeable as looking due south, becomes interesting after sunset.
Here you may see the young bloods of Taranto leaning in rows against the
railing with their backs to the sea - they are looking across the road
whence, from balconies and windows, the fair sex are displaying their
charms. Never a word is spoken. They merely gaze at each other like
lovesick puppies; and after watching the performance for several
evenings, I decided in favour of robuster methods - I decided that
courtship, under conditions such as the Corso supplies, can only be
pursued by the very young or the hopelessly infatuated. But in the
south, this gazing is only part of a huge game. They are not really in
love at all, these excellent young men - not at all, at all; they know
better. They are only pretending, because it looks manly.
We must revise our conceptions as to the love-passions of these
southerners; no people are more fundamentally sane in matters of the
heart; they have none of our obfuscated sentimentality; they are seldom
naively enamoured, save in early stages of life. It is then that small
girls of eight or ten may be seen furtively recording their feelings on
the white walls of their would-be lovers' houses; these archaic scrawls
go straight to the point, and are models of what love-letters may
ultimately become, in the time-saving communities of the future. But
when the adolescent and perfumed-pink-paper stage is reached, the
missives relapse into barbarous ambiguity; they grow allegorical and
wilfully exuberant as a Persian carpet, the effigy of a pierced heart at
the end, with enormous blood-drops oozing from it, alone furnishing a
key to the document.
So far they are in earnest, and it is the girl who takes the lead; her
youthful innamorato ties these letters into bundles and returns them
conscientiously, in due course, to their respective senders. Seldom does
a boy make overtures in love; he gets more of it than he knows what to
do with; he is still torpid, and slightly bored by all these attentions.
But presently he wakes up to the fact that he is a man among men, and
the obsession of "looking manly" becomes a part of his future artificial
and rhetorical life-scheme. From henceforth he plays to the gallery.
Reading the city papers, one would think that south Italian youths are
the most broken-hearted creatures in the world; they are always trying
to poison themselves for love. Sometimes they succeed, of course; but
sometimes - dear me, no! Suicides look manly, that is all. They are part
of the game. The more sensible youngsters know exactly how much
corrosive sublimate to take without immediate fatal consequences,
allowing for time to reach the nearest hospital. There, the kindly
physician and his stomach-pump will perform their duty, and the patient
wears a feather in his cap for the rest of his life. The majority of
these suicides are on a par with French duels - a harmless institution
whereby the protagonists honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a
patent of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the
citizens, but they rarely indulge in suicides because - well, there are
no hospitals handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too
risky by half.
And a good proportion of these suicides are only simulated. The wily
victim buys some innocuous preparation which sends him into convulsions
with ghastly symptoms of poisoning, and, after treatment, remains the
enviable hero of a mysterious masculine passion. Ask any town
apothecary. A doctor friend of mine lately analysed the results of his
benevolent exertions upon a young man who had been seen to drink some
dreadful liquid out of a bottle, and was carried to his surgery,
writhing in most artistic agonies. He found not only no poison, but not
the slightest trace of any irritant whatever.
The true courtship of these Don Giovannis of Tarante will be quite
another affair - a cash transaction, and no credit allowed. They will
select a life partner, upon the advice of ma mere and a strong
committee of uncles and aunts, but not until the military service is
terminated. Everything in its proper time and place.
Meanwhile they gaze and perhaps even serenade. This looks as if they
were furiously in love, and has therefore been included among the rules
of the game.
