“Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side.”
“Go on, go on reading. Don’t let anything stop you. Go on. It will make things come right. Go on reading. Don’t let anything stop you. After all percussion or something only broke all the upstairs windows last time. . they may do better this time. .”
“Pomegranates were chapping and splitting
In halves on the tree. . straight out of the rock side
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower. . great
butterflies fighting, some five for one cup. .”
“Butterflies fighting makes me forget. Funny my being alone. And it was gone, all Italy was gone. Amalfi was gone. . Amalfi’s gone with that crash. They’re trying for Euston station but they’ve got Amalfi. . the things one didn’t know were real, until shattered by unreality. . guns, guns, guns, guns. Our own gun makes more noise but it rattles nicely, just over us that anti-aircraft. . Amalfi. They’ve got Amalfi this time. The zeppelins and the anti-aircraft guns are both shattering Amalfi. Butterflies fighting, some five for one cup. . did you say some five for one cup? Somewhere butterflies are fighting. . but what butterfly can fight against this thing any longer? I should never have dreamed five butterflies could fight some five for one cup. And why did we come here? Because that plaster Flora was spilling her plaster basket of plaster rose rosette roses like the one (almost) on the long road to Ana-Capri. Do you remember why we took these rooms? That was why. No. Don’t speak. Hold me closer. They always try for Euston. It was because that plaster Flora spilled her plaster flowers and we remembered she was just a little like the one in the Signorina’s garden. Oranges were in flowers. . winter blossom and winter Hebridean apples, gold winter oranges above Mediterranean water. My grandfather said of all the things he wanted to see in Europe (we always spoke of Europe in those days, not France, not England, not Germany, just Europe) was the Bay of Naples. The Bay of Naples. . . that was near enough. I can’t get any exaltation out of bombs bursting. God knows I’ve conscientiously tried to do it. Perhaps it’s because I’m not English, not European. I feel Europe is splitting like that pomegranate in halves on the tree, Europe, all of it that I so love. . how long have we been married?”
“Why do you ask that? It’s almost three years now.” “One year before the war. Italy and coming back just in time and everything broken, everyone scattered. . everything different. Italy. . is Italy different? But it can’t be. Italy would be the same if all the Huns of all the universe (who exactly are Huns?) should over-run it. Things now are like Gibbon. The decline and Fall. This is history, I suppose. Go on reading.”
“. . about noon from Amalfi. . his basket before us
All trembling alive
With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit. .”
“Yes. And lizards everywhere. Flowers burnt out of rocks, like volcanic embers. Those red anemones. O yes. Everything will come right. Everything has come right. Open my heart and you will see engraved inside of it Italy. But I love France too. But Italy is to France what a red ember is to a polished gem. Yes France is a gem polished and cold and flawless and beautiful I can’t think of men dying, only of France, la patrie a polished amethyst or some eighteenth century cameo. No, no Hun (what is a Hun anyway?) should break and steal and plunder. A pity though it’s happened. That’s because I’m not English I suppose. We always spoke of Europe. I love Europe.”
“Meantime, see the grape-bunch they’ve brought you,
The rain-water slips
O’er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
Which the wasp to your lips, still follows
Still follows with fretful persistence:
Nay taste, while awake. .”
“I did taste. . but it’s gone. They’ve broken it. .”
“Next, sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper
A leaf of the vine.”
“It was you who taught me to love those things, Capri Nero, Capri Bianco, cigarettes, the pear trees against Solaro were a mass of blossom and there were prickly pear and cactus. The small goats scampered before us and there was that singular goat-herd (for a long time we thought we’d dreamed it) piping under that one clump of cool willows. Cool willows and below, so far below that one could for a breath have flung oneself down, the sea. The sea. Thalassa. Yes, it was Greece, not like Tuscany. We had Greece, having Italy.”
“The wild fruit trees bend. .
All is silent and grave;
’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty,
How fair but a slave.
So I turned to the sea. .”
“So I turned to the sea. Do you remember? I went first. You were heavier. You were surprised and I loved plaguing you. You had only seen me in London and in Paris and you had no idea what I was like really. You found what I was like really. I think it frightened you. Open my heart and you will see engraved inside of it Italy. How could I have known, loving France, loving England that I would love so much better, Italy? France is a polished gem, a priceless intaglio, England is a great wide rose spread just before its falling, Italy is a live ember burning the hearts of men.”
Now why must he do this? Why must he do this? She might have known he would do this, clutching her in his arms, the moment she was happy with him. Everything had come clear talking of Italy. Images smudged, as it were, on a square of thick glass were smudged out by this Sirocco rain they read of. Italy and the talk of Italy had washed out the black, dark grey and khaki-coloured images. Khaki images were splashed like mud across the clear window of her mind and now the clear images of beauty, the gaudy melon flower, the rock islets showed clear. She looked through her mind into a far country. Pays lointain. . pro patria. She looked through a clear glass far and far and just before her as if the wall of the room had parted, she was looking through between columns (the two sides of the enormous book-case) into a fair country, rocks, the silver lentisk, the white plaques of sea-rosemary, a flute in the distance and the lines of Theocritus. Why must Darrington now spoil it? Hadn’t she had enough? Months and months of waiting and now this. Now this, this curious weakness and this reward of weakness; the mind clarified past all recognition, herself gazing through her mind into a fair country. There was no wind. The sea so far below gave no sound. A boy far and far and far was pulling a boat and colours familiar through cheap water colours all their lives took vivid form, were prismatic colours seen through crystal. The walls of cone-shaped Vesuvius and the jagged edge of Capri, the wall that was Capri was rising out of the sea, an island, a Greek island, the island where Odysseus heard the Syren voices. Little plots of earth set like bright rugs on the vertical island mountain, were bright marigolds, and clumps of early winter flowering irises. Irises, white, yellow, blue and lavender. Marguerites growing in enormous balls of white flower made the immaculate white walls a shade more subtle — shell grey. Oranges were flowering and against citron flowers great globes of ripe fruit, rocks and the crevices and the slopes of trees and flax flowers laid like rugs, true gardens of the Hesperides. A church bell (a cathedral bell) was ringing and it was Easter. “Do you remember that odd poor Christ we said looked like Adonis?” Darrington remembered, but he didn’t really care as she cared. He was living in the present and its terror.