Meanwhile, staring across the dusty bled on my left I saw the sunbeams lengthen and sink, like stage lights being lowered for a play, while suddenly from the beaches behind the silhouette came a stream of grinding laboring lorries, like a string of ants upon a leaf. I suppose they were doing nothing more sinister than bringing up sea sand from the beaches, but the clouds of whiteness they sent swirling heavenwards contained so many tones of pearl, yellow, amber that the whole display, with the sunlight shining through it, was worthy of a nervous breakdown by Turner. It made my heart beat faster, it was memorable and at the same time a little ominous — as if by it we were warned not to take the famous city we were about to visit too lightly. To bring to it our real selves. Yet it was all over in a matter of half a minute, but it had a sort of finalizing effect on our decision, for we turned our backs upon this vision and set about climbing into the sky, towards the town whose shabby outlines and haphazard building became slowly more and more evident as we advanced. Roberto uttered its name with a small sigh of fatigue.
I had not conveyed my impressions to Deeds believing him to be otherwise occupied, but the all-seeing eye had taken in the headland and he said now: “Pity about Pirandello. The little museum is very touching. But what a strange light. And the small scale is striking — like the humbleness of Anne Hathaway’s cottage.” It was an apt comment on the origins of greatness.
But by now the cloud had mysteriously vanished backstage and all was serene, a transparent, cloudless dusk with no trace of wind; and as we followed the curves and slants of the road up to the town it became slowly obvious that what was being unfolded before us and below us was a most remarkable site. Successive roundels led in a slow spiral up to the top of the steep hillock upon which once an Acropolis had perched, and where now two parvenu skyscrapers stood and an ignoble huddle of unwarranted housing did duty for the old city’s center. We had reached by now the commercial nexus of the new town which lies a bit below the city, makeshift and ugly. But the light was of pure opalescent honey, and the setting (I am sorry to labor the point) was Hymettus at evening with the violet city of Athens sinking into the cocoon of night. I tremble also to insist on the fact that from the point of view of natural beauty and elegance of site Agrigento is easily a match for Athens on its hills. Just as the ocean throws up roundels of sand to form pools, so the successive ages of geological time had thrown up successive rounds of limestone, rising in tiers like a wedding cake to the Acropolis. From the top one looks down as if into a pie dish with two levels, inner and outer ridges. It is down there, at the entrance to the city, that all the Temples are situated, like a protective screen, tricked out with fruit orchards, with sweeps of silver olives, and with ubiquitous almond trees whose spring flowering has become as famous as the legendary town itself.
We climbed down into the twilight with a strange feeling of indecision, not knowing exactly what was in store for us. It was only after a brief walk across a square, when we found ourselves looking down into the tenebrous mauve bowl where the Temples awaited us that we realized that our arrival at that precise time was an act of thoughtful good sense on the part of Roberto. “Before the city lights go on you may see more or less how the classical city looked at sunset.” The air was so still up here that one could catch the distant sounds of someone singing and the noise perhaps of a mattock on the dry clay a mile below us. At our back the streets were beginning to fill up for the evening Corso, the tiny coffee shops to brim over with lights which seemed, by contagion, to set fire at last to the street lamps behind our backs and set off the snarling radios and jukeboxes and traffic noise. Ahead of us the darkness rose slowly to engulf us, like ink being poured into a well; but it was a light darkness, slightly rosy, as if from a hidden harvest moon. But we belonged to the scattered disoriented city now with its stridulations of juke.
We were about to turn away from this slowly overwhelming darkness and back into the raucous streets when Roberto, who still peered keenly down the valley, implored a moment’s patience of us, for what reason I could not tell. He seemed as keyed up as if we were to expect something like a firework display. But it was better than that; presently there came the swift wing beats of a church bell which sounded like a signal and soundlessly the temples sprang to floodlit life all together, as if by a miracle. This was aerial geography with a vengeance, for they were to be our after-dinner treat tonight! But there were signs of raggedness and fatigue in the party and I could see that some of us might prefer to stay in the hotel and sleep. The Count’s wife looked really ill with weariness and I wondered why they had embarked her on such a journey. Mrs. Microscope too looked crusty though we had had no more news of her spleen. But there was to be a bit of delay as yet for our schedule called for half an hour’s shopping halt in the town, to enable us to buy curios and generally take a look round. Not all set off for this treat; many stayed in the bus. While, rather cowardly, I took myself off with Deeds to a bistro where I anticipated dinner and the fatigues of temple haunting by a couple of touches of grappa which was like drinking fumed oak in liquid form. Heartening stuff. Deeds fell into conversation with a eunuchoid youth who brought us coffee with a kindly but disenchanted air.
In the far corner, however, there was a small group of middle-aged to elderly men who attracted my instant attention by their hunched-up look and their black clothes and battered boots. They were gnarled and leathered by their avocation — could they have been coal miners, I wondered? Dressed awkwardly in their Sunday best with heavy dark suits and improbable felt hats which looked as if very seldom worn. Or perhaps they were mourners attending the funeral of some local dignitary? They spoke in low gruff tones and in a dialect Italian. The sister of the eunuch served them exclusively and with such obvious nervousness that I finally concluded that they must be a group of Mafia leaders on a Sunday outing. Their little circle exuded a kind of horrid Protestant gloom, and most of their faces were baneful, ugly. They were drinking Strega as far as I could make out, but the massive sugar content was not making them any sweeter. It was a strange little group and all the other customers of the place beside ourselves shot curious glances at them, wondering I suppose like ourselves, what and from where.… The mystery was only cleared up when Roberto appeared in search of a quick coffee and caught sight of us. He seemed not unprepared for the question, and it was clear from his way of looking at them when Deeds pointed them out that they did seem singular, almost like another race. But no, that was not the case. They were simply sulphur miners on a night out in town.