Life with a Capital L Read online

  ‘And I have decided,’ I said, ‘I won’t go to the monastery.’

  ‘You won’t.’ He looked at me. I saw how yellow he was round the eyes, and yellow under his reddish skin.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  And it was final. He knew it. We went some way in silence. I turned in at the garden gate. It was a lovely, lovely morning of hot sun. Butterflies were flapping over the rosemary hedges and over a few little red poppies, the young vines smelt sweet in flower, very sweet, the corn was tall and green, and there were still some wild, rose-red gladiolus flowers among the watery green of the wheat. M— had accepted my refusal. I expected him to be angry. But no, he seemed quieter, wistfuller, and he seemed almost to love me for having refused him. I stood at a bend in the path. The sea was heavenly blue, rising up beyond the vines and olive leaves, lustrous pale lacquer blue, rising up beyond the vines and olive leaves, lustrous pale lacquer blue as only the Ionian sea can be. Away at the brook below the women were washing, and one could hear the chock-chock-chock of linen beaten against the stones. I felt M— then an intolerable weight and like a clot of dirt over everything.

  ‘May I come in?’ he said to me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t come to the house. My wife doesn’t want it.’

  Even that he accepted without any offence, and seemed only to like me better for it. That was a puzzle to me. I told him I would leave a letter and a cheque for him at the bank in the Corso that afternoon.

  I did so, writing a cheque for a few pounds, enough to cover his bill and leave a hundred lire or so over, and a letter to say I could not do any more, and I didn’t want to see him any more.

  So, there was an end of it for a moment. Yet I felt him looming in the village, waiting. I had rashly said I would go to tea with him to the villa of one of the Englishmen resident here, whose acquaintance I had not made. Alas, M— kept me to the promise. As I came home he appealed to me again. He was rather insolent. What good to him, he said, were the few pounds I had given him? He had got a hundred and fifty lire left. What good was that? I realized it really was not a solution, and said nothing. Then he spoke of his plans for getting to Egypt. The fare, he had found out, was thirty-five pounds. And where were thirty-five pounds coming from? Not from me.

  I spent a week avoiding him, wondering what on earth the poor devil was doing, and yet determined he should not be a parasite on me. If I could have given him fifty pounds and sent him to Egypt to be a parasite on somebody else, I would have done so. Which is what we call charity. However, I couldn’t.

  My wife chafed, crying: ‘What have you done! We shall have him on our hands all our life. We can’t let him starve. It is degrading, degrading, to have him hanging on to us.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He must starve or work or something. I am not God who is responsible for him.’

  M— was determined not to lose his status as a gentleman. In a way I sympathized with him. He would never be out at elbows. That is your modern rogue. He will not degenerate outwardly. Certain standards of a gentleman he would keep up: he would be well-dressed, he would be lavish with borrowed money, he would be as far as possible honourable in his small transactions of daily life. Well, very good. I sympathized with him to a certain degree. If he could find his own way out, well and good. Myself, I was not his way out.

  Ten days passed. It was hot and I was going about the terrace in pyjamas and a big old straw hat, when suddenly, a Sicilian, handsome, in the prime of life, and in his best black suit, smiling at me and taking off his hat!

  And could he speak to me. I threw away my straw hat, and we went into the salotta. He handed me a note.

  ‘Il Signor M— mi ha dato questa lettera per Lei!’ he began, and I knew what was coming. Melenga had been a waiter in good hotels, had saved money, built himself a fine house which he let to foreigners. He was a pleasant fellow, and at his best now, because he was in a rage. I must repeat M—’s letter from memory – ‘Dear Lawrence, would you do me another kindness. Land and Water sent a cheque for seven guineas for the article on the monastery, and Don Bernardo forwarded this to me under Melenga’s name. But unfortunately he made a mistake, and put Orazio instead of Pancrazio, so the post office would not deliver the letter, and have returned it to the monastery. This morning Melenga insulted me, and I cannot stay in his house another minute. Will you be so kind as to advance me these seven guineas, and I shall leave Taormina at once, for Malta.’

  I asked Melenga what had happened, and read him the letter. He was handsome in his rage, lifting his brows and suddenly smiling:

  ‘Ma senta, Signore! Signor M— has been in my house for ten days, and lived well, and eaten well, and drunk well, and I have not seen a single penny of his money. I go out in the morning and buy all the things, all he wants, and my wife cooks it, and he is very pleased, very pleased, has never eaten such good food in his life, and everything is splendid, splendid. And he never pays a penny. Not a penny. Says he is waiting for money from England, from America, from India. But the money never comes. And I am a poor man, Signore, I have a wife and child to keep. I have already spent three hundred lire for this Signor M—, and I never see a penny of it back. And he says the money is coming, it is coming – But when? He never says he has got no money. He says he is expecting. Tomorrow – always tomorrow. It will come tonight, it will come tomorrow. This makes me in a rage. Till at last this morning I said to him I would bring nothing in, and he shouldn’t have not so much as a drop of coffee in my house until he paid for it. It displeases me, Signore, to say such a thing. I have known Signor M— for many years, and he has always had money, and always been pleasant, molto bravo, and also generous with his money. Si, lo so! And my wife, poverina, she cries and says if the man has no money he must eat. But he doesn’t say he has no money. He says always it is coming, it is coming, today, tomorrow, today, tomorrow. E non viene mai niente. And this enrages me, Signore. So I said that to him this morning. And he said he wouldn’t stay in my house, and that I had insulted him, and he sends me this letter to you, Signore, and says you will send him the money. Ecco come!’

  Between his rage he smiled at me. One thing however I could see: he was not going to lose his money, M— or no M—.

  ‘Is it true that a letter came which the post would not deliver?’ I asked him.

  ‘Si signore, e vero. It came yesterday, addressed to me. And why, signore, why do his letters come addressed in my name? Why? Unless he has done something –?’

  He looked at me enquiringly. I felt already mixed up in shady affairs.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there is something. But I don’t know exactly what. I don’t ask, because I don’t want to know in these affairs. It is better not to know.’

  ‘Gia! Gia! Molto meglio, signore. There will be something. There will be something happened that he had to escape from that monastery. And it will be some affair of the police.’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said I. ‘Money and the police. Probably debts. I don’t ask. He is only an acquaintance of mine, not a friend.’

  ‘Sure it will be an affair of the police,’ he said with a grimace. ‘If not, why does he use my name! Why don’t his letters come in his own name? Do you believe, signore, that he has any money? Do you think this money will come?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s got no money,’ I said. ‘Whether anybody will send him any I don’t know.’

  The man watched me attentively.

  ‘He’s got nothing?’ he said.

  ‘No. At the present he’s got nothing.’

  Then Pancrazio exploded on the sofa.

  ‘Allora! Well then! Well then, why does he come to my house, why does he come and take a room in my house, and ask me to buy food, good food as for a gentleman who can pay, and a flask of wine, and everything, if he has no money? If he has no money, why does he come to Taormina? It is many years that he has been in Italy – ten years, fifteen years. And he has no money. Where has he had his money from before? Where?’

  ‘From his writi
ng, I suppose.’

  ‘Well then why doesn’t he get money for his writing now? He writes. He writes, he works, he says it is for the big newspapers.’

  ‘It is difficult to sell things.’

  ‘Heh! then why doesn’t he live on what he made before? He hasn’t a soldo. He hasn’t a penny – But how! How did he pay his bill at the San Domenico?’

  ‘I had to lend him the money for that. He really hadn’t a penny.’

  ‘You! You! Well then, he has been in Italy all these years. How is it he has nobody that he can ask for a hundred lire or two? Why does he come to you? Why? Why has he nobody in Rome, in Florence, anywhere?’

  ‘I wonder that myself.’

  ‘Siccuro! He’s been all these years here. And why doesn’t he speak proper Italian? After all these years, and speaks all upside-down, it isn’t Italian, an ugly confusion. Why? Why? He passes for a signore, for a man of education. And he comes to take the bread out of my mouth. And I have a wife and child, I am a poor man, I have nothing to eat myself if everything goes to a mezzo-signore like him. Nothing! He owes me now three hundred lire. But he will not leave my house, he will not leave Taormina till he has paid. I will go to the Prefettura, I will go to the Questura, to the police. I will not be swindled by such a mezzo-signore. What does he want to do? If he has no money, what does he want to do?’

  ‘To go to Egypt where he says he can earn some,’ I replied briefly. But I was feeling bitter in the mouth. When the man called M— a mezzo-signore, a half-gentleman, it was so true. And at the same time it was so cruel, and so rude. And Melenga – there I sat in my pyjamas and sandals – probably he would be calling me also a mezzo-signore, or a quarto-signore even. He was a Sicilian who feels he is being done out of his money – and that is saying everything.

  ‘To Egypt! And who will pay for him to go? Who will give him money? But he must pay me first. He must pay me first.’

  ‘He says,’ I said, ‘that in the letter which went back to the monastery there was a cheque for seven pounds – some six hundred lire – and he asks me to send him this money, and when the letter is returned again I shall have the cheque that is in it.’

  Melenga watched me.

  ‘Six hundred lire –’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh well then. If he pays me, he can stay –’ he said; he almost added: ‘till the six hundred is finished.’ But he left it unspoken.

  ‘But am I going to send the money? Am I sure that what he says is true?’

  ‘I think it is true. I think it is true,’ said he. ‘The letter did come.’

  I thought for a while.

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘I will write and ask him if it is quite true, and to give me a guarantee.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Melenga.

  I wrote to M—, saying that if he could assure me that what he said about the seven guineas was quite correct, and if he would give me a note to the editor of Land and Water, saying that the cheque was to be paid to me, I would send the seven guineas.

  Melenga was back in another half-hour. He brought a note which began:

  ‘Dear Lawrence, I seem to be living in an atmosphere of suspicion. First Melenga this morning, and now you –’ Those are the exact opening words. He went on to say that of course his word was true, and he enclosed a note to the editor, saying the seven guineas were to be transferred to me. He asked me please to send the money, as he could not stay another night at Melenga’s house, but would leave for Catania, where, by the sale of some trinkets, he hoped to make some money and to see once more about a passage to Egypt. He had been to Catania once already – travelling third class! – but had failed to find any cargo boat that would take him to Alexandria. He would get away now to Malta. His things were being sent down to Syracuse from the monastery.

  I wrote and said I hoped he would get safely away, and enclosed the cheque.

  ‘This will be for six hundred lire,’ said Melenga.

  ‘Yes,’ said I.

  ‘Eh, va bene! If he pays the three hundred lire, he can stop in my house for thirty lire a day.’

  ‘He says he won’t sleep in your house again.’

  ‘Ma! Let us see. If he likes to stay. He has always been a bravo signore. I have always liked him quite well. If he wishes to stay and pay me thirty lire a day –’

  The man smiled at me rather greenly.

  ‘I’m afraid he is offended,’ said I.

  ‘Eh, va bene! Ma senta, Signore. When he was here before – you know I have this house of mine to let. And you know the English signorina goes away in the summer. Oh, very well. Says M—, he writes for a newspaper, he owns a newspaper, I don’t know what, in Rome. He will put in an advertisement advertising my villa. And so I shall get somebody to take it. Very well. And he put in the advertisement. He sent me the paper and I saw it there. But no one came to take my villa. Va bene! But after a year, in the January, that is, came a bill for me for twenty-two lire to pay for it. Yes, I had to pay the twenty-two lire, for nothing – for the advertisement which Signore M— put in the paper.’

  ‘Bah!’ said I.

  He shook hands with me and left. The next day he came after me in the street and said that M— had departed the previous evening for Catania. As a matter of fact the post brought me a note of thanks from Catania. M— was never indecent, and one could never dismiss him just as a scoundrel. He was not. He was one of these modern parasites who just assume their right to live and live well, leaving the payment to anybody who can, will, or must pay. The end is inevitably swindling.

  There came also a letter from Rome, addressed to me. I opened it unthinking. It was for M—, from an Italian lawyer, stating that enquiry had been made about the writ against M—, and that it was for qualche affaro di truffa, some affair of swindling: that the lawyer had seen this, that and the other person, but nothing could be done. He regretted, etc., etc. I forwarded this letter to M— at Syracuse, and hoped to God it was ended. Ah, I breathed free now he had gone.

  But no. A friend who was with us dearly wanted to go to Malta. It is only about eighteen hours’ journey from Taormina – easier than going to Naples. So our friend invited us to take the trip with her, as her guests. This was rather jolly. I calculated that M—, who had been gone a week or so, would easily have got to Malta. I had had a friendly letter from him from Syracuse, thanking me for the one I had forwarded, and enclosing an I.O.U. for the various sums of money he had had.

  So, on a hot, hot Thursday, we were sitting in the train again running south, the four and a half hours’ journey to Syracuse. And M— dwindled now into the past. If we should see him! But no, it was impossible. After all the wretchedness of that affair we were in holiday spirits.

  The train ran into Syracuse station. We sat on, to go the few yards further into the port. A tout climbed on the foot-board: were we going to Malta? Well, we couldn’t. There was a strike of the steamers, we couldn’t go. When would the steamer go? Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow.

  We got down crestfallen. What should we do? There stood the express train about to start off back northwards. We could be home again that evening. But no, it would be too much of a fiasco. We let the train go, and trailed off into the town, to the Grand Hotel, which is an old Italian place just opposite the port. It is rather a dreary hotel – and many bloodstains of squashed mosquitoes on the bedroom walls. Ah, vile mosquitoes!

  However, nothing to be done. Syracuse port is fascinating too, a tiny port with the little Sicilian ships having the slanting eyes painted on the prow, to see the way, and a coal boat from Cardiff, and one American and two Scandinavian steamers – no more. But there were two torpedo boats in the harbour, and it was like a festa, a strange, lousy festa.

  Beautiful the round harbour where the Athenian ships came. And wonderful, beyond, the long sinuous sky-line of the long flat-topped table-land hills which run along the southern coast, so different from the peaky, pointed, bunched effect of many-tipped Sicily in the north. The sun went down behind th
at lovely, sinuous sky-line, the harbour water was gold and red, the people promenaded in thick streams under the pomegranate trees and hibiscus trees. Arabs in white burnouses and fat Turks in red and black alpaca long coats strolled also – waiting for the steamer.

  Next day it was very hot. We went to the consul and the steamer agency. There was real hope that the brute of a steamer might actually sail that night. So we stayed on, and wandered round the town on the island, the old solid town, and sat in the church looking at the grand Greek columns embedded there in the walls.

  When I came in to lunch the porter said there was a letter for me. Impossible! said I. But he brought me a note. Yes. M—! He was staying at the other hotel along the front. ‘Dear Lawrence, I saw you this morning, all three of you walking down the Via Nazionale, but you would not look at me. I have got my visés and everything ready. The strike of the steamboats has delayed me here. I am sweating blood. I have a last request to make of you. Can you let me have ninety lire, to make up what I need for my hotel bill? If I cannot have this I am lost. I hoped to find you at the hotel but the porter said you were out. I am at the Casa Politi, passing every half-hour in agony. If you can be so kind as to stretch your generosity to this last loan, of course I shall be eternally grateful. I can pay you back once I get to Malta –’

  Well, here was a blow! The worst was that he thought I had cut him – a thing I wouldn’t have done. So after luncheon behold me going through the terrific sun of that harbour front of Syracuse, an enormous and powerful sun, to the Casa Politi. The porter recognized me and looked enquiringly. M— was out, and I said I would call again at four o’clock.

  It happened we were in the town eating ices at four, so I didn’t get to his hotel till half-past. He was out – gone to look for me. So I left a note saying I had not seen him in the Via Nazionale, that I had called twice, and that I should be in the Grand Hotel in the evening.