How pleasant to bid farewell to this "melancholy" sea
which was supposed to be good for his complaints. He asked:
"Do you know why Florentines, coming home from abroad, always rejoice to
see that wonderful dome of theirs rising up from the plain?"
"Why?"
"Can't you guess?"
"Let me see. It is sure to be something not quite proper. H'm.... The
tower of Giotto, for example, has certain asperities, angularities,
anfractuosities - - "
"You are no Englishman whatever!" he laughed. "Now try that joke on the
next Florentine you meet.... There was a German here," he went on, "who
loved Levanto. The hotel people have told me all about him. He began
writing a book to prove that there was a different walk to be taken in
this neighbourhood for every single day of the year."
"How German. And then?"
"The war came. He cleared out. The natives were sorry. This whole coast
seems to be saturated with Teutons - of a respectable class, apparently.
They made themselves popular, they bought houses, drank wine, and joked
with the countrymen."
"What do you make of them?" I inquired.
"I am a Tuscan," he began (meaning: I am above race-prejudices; I can
view these things with olympic detachment). "I think the German says to
himself: we want a world-empire, like those damned English. How did they
get it? By piracy. Two can play at that game, though it may be a little
more difficult now than formerly.
