HARRY strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He was less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that seemed to be going on around him—sharp, varied, high-pitched, incomprehensible—gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards a profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence here, the learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of which he could not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must elapse before he could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and how was he to seek for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very A B C of the life about him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar streets, looking with wistful eyes at every passer-by who had the look of an Englishman, and asking himself what he was to do. He did not seem to have any spirit left for the uphill work of learning a language. There rose up before him a vision of the exercises which he had once laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of the verbs which he had got by heart overnight only to forget them in the morning. To think that he could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed he looked at the people helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously examined all the street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or lay himself open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have been expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, and the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark sala which looked into it, and in which the guests were already gathering. The house had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. Harry, who had never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people take their places, each appropriating his own turned down chair, and half finished bottle of wine, and looked for his own place with a curious sense of the everyday character to the others of all these proceedings, which to him were so unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, no doubt they had all been here, and last year, and as long as anybody could recollect, munching a slice from the long Italian loaf, the yard of bread which of itself astonished his simple-minded ignorance. To think that with such an air of routine and long establishment this dinner should have been happening methodically every day while he was pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at home. At home! The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man, who had no home—who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but had begun to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table, with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this time!
“’Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking waiter, his black eyes rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his gift of languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been carefully turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an enormous depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry recognised at once as that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. “De gentelman speak English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability and pleasure. Harry, it is to be feared, did not appreciate the exertions made in his behalf. The little stranger, on his side, was as smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to make himself agreeable. They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the world to surprise the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to whom he could talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,” said his friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the strangers, what we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will find himself very comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the chambers—the chambers!” here the little man spread out his hands with ecstatic admiration, “so clean, so comfortable; everything an Englishman desire.”
Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably between the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the Englishman, who was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his initiation into foreign ways. But he had no intention of being made to pay if he could possibly help it. He had not the slightest understanding of the waiter’s benevolent wish to make him comfortable, or the innocent satisfaction of the other, at once in showing off himself and his acquirements and showing kindness to a stranger. Harry did not realize the national character in both, which made them pleased to serve him, and anxiously on the watch for the look of pleasure which they anticipated as their reward. An English servant would have looked on with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched to see the stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no doubt Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry refused to pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, settled down into a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table roughly, losing part of his companion’s address: and he did not look at the young man who was talking to him, or give him any recompense for the effort he was making. After a while he made a remark, but it was not a very civil one. “Why do you call me Mister?” was what he said.
The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle abashed—“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his eyes upon Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know the gentleman’s name.”
“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it isn’t English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the horrified look of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s used alone without the name. Low people sometimes use it so—but nobody who speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed, uncomfortable little laugh.
“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The gentleman will pardon my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said, with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself.
“You would like to know my name,” said Harry.
The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but with a smiling bow.
“My name is——” he made a pause. He looked at the interested countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter what he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a laugh. He almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, must see the incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of Oliver with such a person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a practical joke to him, a masquerade which everyone must see through.
“O—— livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister O—lvr.”
“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the nuance of sound which divides the Mr. of English use and wont from the two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends over this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted himself to grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little foreigner could do him—a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in one hand. As he laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the difference of sound, his friendly feeling increased. He felt his superiority more and more, and in that superiority his suspicions melted away. As for little Paolo he took everything amiably. He had no objection to be laughed at.
“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry. Laugh, it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never know him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin. It is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in Italian. I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to both,” said the little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when Harry laughed with genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from his past despondency which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little bravado of a stranger feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a crowd of people alien to him. He attracted the eyes of all the guests at the table-d’hôte especially of some Americans who had come in late, and one other Englishman who regarded him gloomily from the other end of the table, and concluded that his countryman was having too much to drink, but that it was not his business. Harry was not taking too much to drink; he was making wry faces at the sour Nostrali, which was the only wine provided without a special order. Harry did not understand any wine except Port and Sherry, and he despised the sour stuff of which he took one big gulp and no more; he did not know what else to order, and he did not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as to ask his advice on this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his wine in a tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the eau rougie should go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name of Thompson, of which there was a Lord and many Sirs, he informed Harry with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do so—such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson—he was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he had no other room to sit in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so unlike anything he had ever seen.
“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself delighted. He knew he was well-dressed.
“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one is only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were going on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have such devout habits. It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it happened there was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light as day. And as soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which Italians dread, was over, the streets filled with a crowd which still more surprised Harry. Before all the cafés the pavements were crowded—not only men, but women, seated at the little tables enjoying the freshness of the lovely evening, and making such a hum and babble of talk as nothing but an unknown tongue can produce. A language which is familiar to us never sounds so like an uproar and tumult as one that is unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that the people about him were all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was the riotous and boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to “foreigners;” but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and by and by a degree of toleration which years at home could not have conveyed to him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only the different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and address his friends, gesticulating wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready to strike in if any harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the violent person took it quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were full of smiling placidity, and evidently fearing nothing. In the same way when two men were threading their way along the street together, one would suddenly drop the other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with every mark of excitement for a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and go on again as if there had been no interruption. An Englishman would have knocked down his adversary with much less demonstration. Harry felt himself obliged to pause too, and give an eye to these personages; and when he also sat down with his companion at one of the little tables, his attention to Paolo’s doubtful English was constantly interrupted by the same supposed need of watchfulness in case the party next to them should come to blows. But all the other people took it quite quietly, to Harry’s great surprise.
“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were going to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last.
“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily; and then, for he was a young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, clapping his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a little conversation, what you call talk,—these beggares;” and he burst forth once more into a genial peal.
Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I thought they were going to fly at each other’s throats.”
“No, no, no—never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An English is what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his mout,” and Paolo beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the spot out of which Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means pleased with this familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was his only friend among all these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. He did not know very well what to do with the pink syrup that was furnished him to drink: that, and the sour wine, and the black coffee, were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that he could have had but one mighty draught of English beer to clear all these cobwebs out of his throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others, to be hoped for no more.
After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had been doubting an hour or two before. It was not a very magnificent prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side—which filled him with a vague, superficial sense of superiority—all about the new language to be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine and the rosolio, to make them so convivial? They were singing rude choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry had heard near the port of Liverpool—when there suddenly crossed the moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified as those of an elder and younger woman—a sedate and ample personage, with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was small and not valorous, did his best to hold him back.
“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his voice.
“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination.
“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter.
“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young Englishman.
Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness and remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The other one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, and her companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with all her might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up his clenched fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted in good English, with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did not know a word he said; but they understood him, which was more to the purpose. They let go their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the intruder as sheepishly as any Englishmen could have done, and perhaps also with a touch of shame. Little Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept close to the champion, while he stood and faced them, ready for whatever might happen. It was not for nothing that Harry was a Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye and a ready arm. The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected interposition from their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had got upon their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this lout said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my fine fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and promptly knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from you,” he said.
It was the affair of a moment—no more. The women flew along the street, disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with his blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to stand him,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he was in the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and admiration, he was at his wit’s end. He danced along, now hurrying Harry on, now facing the other way, walking backwards to keep the other party in sight, and uttering alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you ’ave kill him?” he cried. “Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave done it now, you ’ave done it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he goes as if it were a festa. Run, Mister, run!”
“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. “Perhaps you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my English—at such a moment——”
“Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune. “Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.” Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but the noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no attempt to follow. They were too much startled by the summary proceedings of the stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice which seldom fails in such an affray. The little Italian kept close to Harry like a dog, rushing about him, now a little in advance, now a little behind. “He ’ave pick himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! how the English understand each other! He is not kill.”
“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill an Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your own kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where have those women gone?”
Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street by which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the moonlight. “You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.”
“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late at night.”
At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in the street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man when he is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You are strange, very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an English too.”
After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger long on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given him the new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for familiarising the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he had thought of nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had something else to think of. He got back to his inn unmolested and uninterrupted, and he found his dreary little room not so dreary when it became a shelter for his fatigue, and a refuge in which to think over the strange excitement of this first new day.