Is it a ripple on the surface of things, or will it truly stir the
spirits of the city? So many arsenals have come and gone, at Taranto!
This arsenal quarter is a fine example of the Italian mania of fare
figura - everything for effect. It is an agglomeration of dreary
streets, haunted by legions of clamorous black swifts, and constructed
on the rectangular principle dear to the Latin mind. Modern, and
surpassingly monotonous. Are such interminable rows of stuccoed barracks
artistic to look upon, are they really pleasant to inhabit? Is it
reasonable or even sanitary, in a climate of eight months' sunshine, to
build these enormous roadways and squares filled with glaring limestone
dust that blows into one's eyes and almost suffocates one; these Saharas
that even at the present season of the year (early June) cannot be
traversed comfortably unless one wears brown spectacles and goes veiled
like a Tuareg? This arsenal quarter must be a hell during the really not
season, which continues into October.
For no trees whatever are planted to shade the walking population, as in
Paris or Cairo or any other sunlit city.
And who could guess the reason? An Englishman, at least, would never
bring himself to believe what is nevertheless a fact, namely, that if
the streets are converted into shady boulevards, the rents of the houses
immediately fall.
