A sinister aimlessness pervades the actions of those that move at all.
The shadow of death is upon these creatures in the scorching sunshine.
They stare at columns of polished granite, at a piece of weed, at one
another, as though they had never seen such things before. They totter
about on tip-toe; they yawn and forget to shut their mouths. Here is
one, stretching out a hind leg in a sustained cramp; another is
convulsed with nervous twitchings; another scratches the earth in a kind
of mechanical trance. One would say she was preparing a grave for
herself. The saddest of all is an old warrior with mighty jowl and a
face that bears the scars of a hundred fights. One eye has been lost in
some long-forgotten encounter. Now they walk over him, kittens and all,
and tread about his head, as if he were a hillock of earth, while his
claws twitch resentfully with rage or pain. Too ill to rise!
Most of them are thus stretched out blankly, in a faint. Are they
suffering? Hungry or thirsty? [23] I believe they are past troubling
about such things. It is time to die. They know it....
"L'albergo dei gatti," says a cheery voice at my side - some countryman,
who has also discovered Trajan's Forum to be one of the sights of Rome.
"The cats' hotel. But," he adds, "I see no restaurant attached to it."
That reminds me: luncheon-time.
Via Flaminia - what a place for luncheon! True; but this is one of the
few restaurants in Rome where, nowadays, a man is not in danger of being
simultaneously robbed, starved, and poisoned. Things have come to a
pretty pass. This starvation-fare may suit a saint and turn his thoughts
heavenwards. Mine it turns in the other direction. Here, at all events,
the food is straightforward. Our hostess, a slow elderly woman, is
omnipresent; one realises that every dish has been submitted to her
personal inspection. A primeval creature; heaviness personified. She
moves in fateful fashion, like the hand of a clock. The crack of doom
will not avail to accelerate that relentless deliberation. She reminds
me of a cousin of mine famous for his imperturbable calm who, when his
long curls once caught fire from being too near a candle, sleepily
remarked to a terrified wife: "I think you might try to blow it out."
But where shall a man still find those edible maccheroni - those that
were made in the Golden Age out of pre-war-time flour?
Such things are called trifles.... Give me the trifles of life, and keep
the rest. A man's health depends on trifles; and happiness on health.
Moreover, I have been yearning for them for the last five months. Hope
deferred maketh the heart sick.... There are none in Rome. Can they be
found anywhere else?
Mrs. Nichol: she might know. She has the gift of knowing about things
one would never expect her to know.
