The Position Of My Room, Which Looked Upon The Piazza, Enabled Me To
Hear A Great Deal Of What Went On In The Town.
The life of Cotrone
began about three in the morning; at that hour I heard the first
voices, upon which there soon followed the bleating of goats and the
tinkling of ox-bells.
No doubt the greater part of the poor people
were in bed by eight o'clock every evening; only those who had
dealings in the outer world were stirring when the diligenza
arrived about ten, and I suspect that some of these snatched a nap
before that late hour. Throughout the day there sounded from the
piazza a ceaseless clamour of voices, such a noise as in England
would only rise from some excited crowd on a rare occasion; it was
increased by reverberations from the colonnade which runs all round
in front of the shops. When the north-east gale had passed over,
there ensued a few days of sullen calm, permitting the people to
lead their ordinary life in open air. I grew to recognize certain
voices, those of men who seemingly had nothing to do but to talk all
day long. Only the sound reached me; I wish I could have gathered
the sense of these interminable harangues and dialogues. In every
country and every age those talk most who have least to say that is
worth saying. These tonguesters of Cotrone had their predecessors in
the public place of Croton, who began to gossip before dawn, and
gabbled unceasingly till after nightfall; with their voices must
often have mingled the bleating of goats or the lowing of oxen, just
as I heard the sounds to-day.
One day came a street organ, accompanied by singing, and how glad I
was! The first note of music, this, that I had heard at Cotrone. The
instrument played only two or three airs, and one of them became a
great favourite with the populace; very soon, numerous voices joined
with that of the singer, and all this and the following day the
melody sounded, near or far. It had the true characteristics of
southern song; rising tremolos, and cadences that swept upon a wail
of passion; high falsetto notes, and deep tum-tum of infinite
melancholy. Scorned by the musician, yet how expressive of a
people's temper, how suggestive of its history! At the moment when
this strain broke upon my ear, I was thinking ill of Cotrone and its
inhabitants; in the first pause of the music I reproached myself
bitterly for narrowness and ingratitude. All the faults of the
Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as soon as their music
sounds under the Italian sky. One remembers all they have suffered,
all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute races have flung
themselves, one after another, upon this sweet and glorious land;
conquest and slavery, from age to age, have been the people's lot.
Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with blood.
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