But If
There Exists A Man-Cook, He Is Generally An Importation And Should Be
Periodically And Liberally Bribed, Without Knowledge Of The Family, From
The Earliest Moment.
Wonderful, what a cook can do!
It is customary here not to live en pension or to pay a fixed price
for any meal, the smallest item, down to a piece of bread, being
conscientiously marked against you. My system, elaborated after
considerable experimentation, is to call for this bill every morning
and, for the first day or two after arrival, dispute in friendly fashion
every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that they
overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made in
this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of
principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in
the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a
brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are not
scemo - witless, soft-headed - the unforgivable sin in the south. You
may be a forger or cut-throat - why not? It is a vocation like any other,
a vocation for men. But whoever cannot take care of him-self - i.e. of
his money - is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no
account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these
proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their
bills; and should I ever wish to marry one or their daughters, the
surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this
method of amiable but unsmiling contestation.
Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping
accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do
not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they
think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember
complaining, in one of my fastidious moments, of a napkin, plainly not
my own, which had been laid at my seat. There was literally not a clean
spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a new one. I got it; but not
before hearing the proprietor mutter something about "the caprices of
pregnant women." . . .
The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers
other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth
decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining
in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of
white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there lies
the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has thrust a
long spit of fand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by
the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even
now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the
morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in
an amethystine haze. A restful prospect.
But great was my amazement, on looking out of the window during the
night after my arrival, to observe the Polar star placed directly over
the Ionian Sea - the south, as I surely deemed it. A week has passed
since then, and in spite of the map I have not quite familiarized myself
with this spectacle, nor yet with that other one of the sun setting
apparently due east, over Monte Pollino.
The glory of Rossano is the image of the Madonna Achiropita.
Bartholomaeus tells us, in his life of Saint Nilus, that in olden days
she was wont to appear, clothed in purple, and drive away with a divine
torch the Saracen invaders of this town. In more recent times, too, she
has often saved the citizens from locusts, cholera, and other calamitous
visitations. Unlike most of her kind, she was not painted by Saint Luke.
She is acheiropoeta - not painted by any human hands whatever, and in
so far resembles a certain old image of the Magna Mater, her prototype,
which was also of divine origin. It is generally supposed that this
picture is painted on wood. Not so, says Diehl; it is a fragment of a
fresco on stone.
Hard by, in the clock-tower of the square, is a marble tablet erected to
the memory of the deputy Felice Cavalotti. We all remember Cavalotti,
the last - with Imbriani - of the republican giants, a blustering
rhetorician-journalist, annihilator of monarchs and popes; a fire-eating
duellist, who deserved his uncommon and unlovely fate. He provoked a
colleague to an encounter and, during a frenzied attack, received into
his open mouth the point of his adversary's sword, which sealed up for
ever that fountain of eloquence and vituperation.
Cavalotti and the Virgin Achiropita - the new and the old. Really, with
such extreme ideals before his eyes, the burghers of Rossano must
sometimes wonder where righteousness lies.
They call themselves Calabrians. Noi siamo calabresi! they proudly
say, meaning that they are above suspicion of unfair dealing. As a
matter of fact, they are a muddled brood, and considerably given to
cheating when there is any prospect of success. You must watch the
peasants coming home at night from their field-work if you wish to see
the true Calabrian type - whiskered, short and wiry, and of dark
complexion. There is that indescribable mark of race in these
countrymen; they are different in features and character from the
Italians; it is an ascetic, a Spanish type. Your Calabrian is strangely
scornful of luxury and even comfort; a creature of few but well-chosen
words, straightforward, indifferent to pain and suffering, and dwelling
by preference, when religiously minded, on the harsher aspects of his
faith. A note of unworldliness is discoverable in his outlook upon life.
Dealing with such men, one feels that they are well disposed not from
impulse, but from some dark sense of preordained obligation.
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