drugs rather than of grape juice.
But men must eat, and the Concordia, being the only restaurant, daily
entertained several citizens, besides guests staying in the house. One
of these visitants excited my curiosity; he was a middle-aged man of
austere countenance; shabby in attire, but with the bearing of one
accustomed to command. Arriving always at exactly the same moment, he
seated himself in his accustomed place, drew his hat over his brows,
and began to munch bread. No word did I hear him speak. As soon as he
appeared in the doorway, the waiter called out, with respectful hurry,
“Don Ferdinando!” and in a minute his first course was served. Bent
like a hunchback over the table, his hat dropping ever lower, until it
almost hid his eyes, the Don ate voraciously. His dishes seemed to be
always the same, and as soon as he had finished the last mouthful, he
rose and strode from the room.
Don is a common title of respect in Southern Italy; it dates of course
from the time of Spanish rule. At a favourable moment I ventured to
inquire of the waiter who Don Ferdinando might be; the only answer,
given with extreme discretion, was “A proprietor.” If in easy
circumstances, the Don must have been miserly, his diet was wretched
beyond description. And in the manner of his feeding he differed
strangely from the ordinary Italian who frequents restaurants.
Wonderful to observe, the representative diner. He always seems to know
exactly what his appetite demands; he addresses the waiter in a
preliminary discourse, sketching out his meal, and then proceeds to
fill in the minutiae. If he orders a common dish, he describes with
exquisite detail how it is to be prepared; in demanding something out
of the way he glows with culinary enthusiasm. An ordinary bill of fare
never satisfies him; he plays variations upon the theme suggested,
divides or combines, introduces novelties of the most unexpected kind.
As a rule, he eats enormously (I speak only of dinner), a piled dish of
macaroni is but the prelude to his meal, a whetting of his appetite.
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