Throughout He
Grumbles, Nothing Is Quite As It Should Be, And When The Bill Is
Presented He Grumbles Still More Vigorously, Seldom Paying The Sum
As It Stands.
He rarely appears content with his entertainment, and
often indulges in unbounded abuse of those who serve him.
These
characteristics, which I have noted more or less in every part of
Italy, were strongly illustrated at the Concordia. In general,
they consist with a fundamental good humour, but at Cotrone the tone
of the dining-room was decidedly morose. One man - he seemed to be
a sort of clerk - came only to quarrel. I am convinced that he
ordered things which he knew the people could not cook just for the
sake of reviling their handiwork when it was presented. Therewith he
spent incredibly small sums; after growling and remonstrating and
eating for more than an hour, his bill would amount to seventy or
eighty centesimi, wine included. Every day he threatened to withdraw
his custom; every day he sent for the landlady, pointed out to her
how vilely he was treated, and asked how she could expect him to
recommend the Concordia to his acquaintances. On one occasion I
saw him push away a plate of something, plant his elbows on the
table, and hide his face in his hands; thus he sat for ten minutes,
an image of indignant misery, and when at last his countenance was
again visible, it showed traces of tears.
I dwell upon the question of food because it was on this day that I
began to feel a loss of appetite and found myself disgusted with the
dishes set before me. In ordinary health I have the happiest
qualification of the traveller, an ability to eat and enjoy the
familiar dishes of any quasi-civilized country; it was a bad sign
when I grew fastidious. After a mere pretence of dinner, I lay down
in my room to rest and read. But I could do neither; it grew plain
to me that I was feverish. Through a sleepless night, the fever
manifestly increasing, I wished that illness had fallen on me
anywhere rather than at Cotrone.
CHAPTER IX
MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR
In the morning I arose as usual, though with difficulty. I tried to
persuade myself that I was merely suffering from a violent attack of
dyspepsia, the natural result of Concordia diet. When the waiter
brought my breakfast I regarded it with resentful eye, feeling for
the moment very much like my grumbling acquaintance of the dinner
hour. It may be as well to explain that the breakfast consisted of
very bad coffee, with goat's milk, hard, coarse bread, and goat's
butter, which tasted exactly like indifferent lard. The so-called
butter, by a strange custom of Cotrone, was served in the emptied
rind of a spherical cheese - the small caccio cavallo, horse
cheese, which one sees everywhere in the South. I should not have
liked to inquire where, how, when, or by whom the substance of the
cheese had been consumed. Possibly this receptacle is supposed to
communicate a subtle flavour to the butter; I only know that, even
to a healthy palate, the stuff was rather horrible. Cow's milk could
be obtained in very small quantities, but it was of evil flavour;
butter, in the septentrional sense of the word, did not exist.
It surprises me to remember that I went out, walked down to the
shore, and watched the great waves breaking over the harbour mole.
There was a lull in the storm, but as yet no sign of improving
weather; clouds drove swiftly across a lowering sky. My eyes turned
to the Lacinian promontory, dark upon the turbid sea. Should I ever
stand by the sacred column? It seemed to me hopelessly remote; the
voyage an impossible effort.
I talked with a man, of whom I remember nothing but his piercing
eyes steadily fixed upon me; he said there had been a wreck in the
night, a ship carrying live pigs had gone to pieces, and the shore
was sprinkled with porcine corpses.
Presently I found myself back at the Concordia, not knowing
exactly how I had returned. The dyspepsia - I clung to this
hypothesis - was growing so violent that I had difficulty in
breathing: before long I found it impossible to stand.
My hostess was summoned, and she told me that Cotrone had "a great
physician," by name "Dr. Scurco." Translating this name from dialect
into Italian, I presumed that the physician's real name was Sculco,
and this proved to be the case. Dr. Riccardo Sculco was a youngish
man, with an open, friendly countenance. At once I liked him. After
an examination, of which I quite understood the result, he remarked
in his amiable, airy manner that I had "a touch of rheumatism"; as a
simple matter of precaution, I had better go to bed for the rest of
the day, and, just for the form of the thing, he would send some
medicine. Having listened to this with as pleasant a smile as I
could command, I caught the Doctor's eye, and asked quietly, "Is
there much congestion?" His manner at once changed; he became
businesslike and confidential. The right lung; yes, the right lung.
Mustn't worry; get to bed and take my quinine in dosi forti, and
he would look in again at night.
The second visit I but dimly recollect. There was a colloquy between
the Doctor and my hostess, and the word cataplasma sounded
repeatedly; also I heard again "dosi forti." The night that
followed was perhaps the most horrible I ever passed. Crushed with a
sense of uttermost fatigue, I could get no rest. From time to time a
sort of doze crept upon me, and I said to myself, "Now I shall
sleep"; but on the very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was
falling into oblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into
consciousness. In the same instant there gleamed before my eyes a
little circle of fire, which blazed and expanded into immensity,
until its many-coloured glare beat upon my brain and thrilled me
with torture.
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