This Chill Attitude
Repels Us; And Our Effusive Expressions Of Thankfulness Astonish These
People And The Orientals.
A further difference is that the actual gift is viewed quite
extrinsically, intellectually, either in regard to what it would fetch
if bartered or sold, or, if to be kept, as to how far its possession may
raise the recipient in the eyes of other men.
This is purely Homeric,
once more - Homeric or primordial, if you prefer. Odysseus told his kind
host Alkinoos, whom he was never to see again, that he would be glad to
receive farewell presents from him - to cherish as a friendly memory?
No, but "because they would make him look a finer fellow when he got
home." The idea of a keepsake, of an emotional value attaching to some
trifle, is a northern one. Here life is give and take, and lucky he who
takes more than he gives; it is what Professor Mahaffy calls the
"ingrained selfishness of the Greek character." Speaking of all below
the upper classes, I should say that disinterested benevolence is apt to
surpass their comprehension, a good-natured person being regarded as
weak in the head.
Has this man, then, no family, that he should benefit strangers? Or is
he one of nature's unfortunates - soft-witted? Thus they argue. They will
do acts of spontaneous kindness towards their family, far oftener than
is customary with us. But outside that narrow sphere, interesse
(Odyssean self-advantage) is the mainspring of their actions. Whence
their smooth and glozing manners towards the stranger, and those
protestations of undying affection which beguile the unwary - they wish
to be forever in your good graces, for sooner or later you may be of
use; and if perchance you do content them, they will marvel
(philosophically) at your grotesque generosity, your lack of
discrimination and restraint. Such malizia (cleverness) is none the
more respectable for being childishly transparent. The profound and
unscrupulous northerner quickly familiarizes himself with its technique,
and turns it to his own profit. Lowering his moral notions, he soon - so
one of them expressed it to me - "walks round them without getting off
his chair" and, on the strength of his undeserved reputation for
simplicity and fair dealing, keeps them dangling a lifetime in a tremble
of obsequious amiability, cheered on by the hope of ultimately
over-reaching him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is
pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the
success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business,
and the devil take the hindmost! By all means; but they who are not
rooted to the spot by commercial exigencies nor ready to adopt debased
standards of conduct will find that a prolonged residence in a centre
like Naples - the daily attrition of its ape-and-tiger elements - sullies
their homely candour and self-respect.
For a tigerish flavour does exist in most of these southern towns.
Camorra, the law of intimidation, rules the city. This is what Stendhal
meant when, speaking of the "simple and inoffensive" personages in the
Vicar of Wakefield, he remarked that "in the sombre Italy, a simple
and inoffensive creature would be quickly destroyed." It is not easy to
be inoffensive and yet respected in a land of teeth and claws, where a
man is reverenced in proportion as he can browbeat his fellows. So much
ferocity tinctures civic life, that had they not dwelt in towns while we
were still shivering in bogs, one would deem them not yet ripe for
herding together in large numbers; one would say that post-patriarchal
conditions evoked the worst qualities of the race. And we must revise
our conceptions of fat and lean men; we must pity Cassius, and dread
Falstaff.
"What has happened" - you ask some enormous individual - "to your
adversary at law?"
"To which one of them?"
"Oh, Signor M - - , the timber merchant."
"L'abbiamo mangiato!" (I have eaten him.)
Beware of the fat Neapolitan. He is fat from prosperity, from, dining
off his leaner brothers.
Which reminds me of a supremely important subject, eating.
The feeding here is saner than ours with its all-pervading animal grease
(even a boiled egg tastes of mutton fat in England), its stock-pot,
suet, and those other inventions of the devil whose awful effects we
only survive because we are continually counteracting or eliminating
them by the help of (1) pills, (2) athletics, and (3) alcohol. Saner as
regards material, but hopelessly irrational in method. Your ordinary
employe begins his day with a thimbleful of black coffee, nothing more.
What work shall be got out of him under such anti-hygienic conditions?
Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten
of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of
their luncheon. Then indeed - then they make up for lost time; those few
favoured ones, at least, who can afford it.
I once watched a young fellow, a clerk of some kind, in a restaurant at
midday. He began by informing the waiter that he had no appetite that
morning - sangue di Dio! no appetite whatever; but at last allowed
himself to be persuaded into consuming a hors d' oeuvres of anchovies
and olives. Then he was induced to try the maccheroni, because they were
"particularly good that morning"; he ate, or rather drank, an immense
plateful. After that came some slices of meat and a dish of green stuff
sufficient to satisfy a starving bullock. A little fish? asked the
waiter. Well, perhaps yes, just for form's sake - two fried mullets and
some nondescript fragments. Next, he devoured a couple of raw eggs "on
account of his miserably weak stomach," a bowl of salad and a goodly
lump of fresh cheese. Not without a secret feeling of envy I left him at
work upon his dessert, of which he had already consumed some six
peaches. Add to this (quite an ordinary repast) half a bottle of heavy
wine, a cup of black coffee and three glasses of water - what work shall
be got out of a man after such a boa-constrictor collation?
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