I Answered, Of Course, That I
Knew Nothing About It, But This Reply Was Taken As Merely Evasive;
In A Minute Or Two The Lad Again Questioned Me.
Was the rebuilding
to be next year?
Then I began to understand; having seen me
examining the ruins, the boy took it for granted that I was an
architect here on business, and I don't think I succeeded in setting
him right. When he had said good-bye he turned to look after me with
a mischievous smile, as much as to say that I had naturally refused
to talk to him about so important a matter as the building of a
church, but he was not to be deceived.
The common type of face at Cotrone is coarse and bumpkinish; ruder,
it seemed to me, than faces seen at any point of my journey
hitherto. A photographer had hung out a lot of portraits, and it was
a hideous exhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible
degree of vulgar ugliness. This in the town which still bears the
name of Croton. The people are all more or less unhealthy; one meets
peasants horribly disfigured with life-long malaria. There is an
agreeable cordiality in the middle classes; business men from whom I
sought casual information, even if we only exchanged a few words in
the street, shook hands with me at parting. I found no one who had
much good to say of his native place; every one complained of a lack
of water.
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