The Hound of Florence (5 page)

He chuckled to himself as though he had cracked a joke.

“And He has made a jumble of men too . . . eh? Now I say ‘water,' don't I? And you say ‘water,' don't you? So you see . . . but there are people who say ‘eau' . . . do you follow? And others who say ‘aqua'—and at home, where I come from, where they all live huddled together cheek by jowl, some say ‘water' like you and me, but others say ‘wodu'. . . . Silly, isn't it? Yes. He wouldn't allow anybody to take liberties with Him!” He wagged his head. “Oh, the idiots, what fools they made of themselves with their old tower! They wanted to build right up to Him, right to His very door . . . and be able to go in and out of His house, without even knocking, as if He were a fellow workman or an old chum. . . .”

The old man spoke emphatically, as though it had all happened only yesterday.

“The fools!” he exclaimed. “Surely they ought to have known from the start that He wouldn't stand that sort of thing! But no—and then all of a sudden, there they were, one saying ‘water,' another ‘aqua,' and a third ‘wodu'—and Heaven knows what else! And then, of course, it was all up with their fine tower. . . .”

He laughed. And lying stretched out on the edge of the road, supporting his head on his hands, he gazed into the distance and fell into silent meditation. Lucas sat beside him without saying a word.

“Yes,” observed the old fellow after a while, wagging his head and speaking with great deliberation, “not only was it all up with the tower that day . . . but also with any idea of men ever working together again. In those days mankind was still an actuality . . . men still understood one another . . . and they tried to produce a great work together . . . a piece of idiocy. . . . They might have thought of something better. . . . But they were at least united. Ever since that day, however, they have never been united . . . they can never be united again. . . . Ever since one said this and t'other said that, so that neither understood the other, all who say ‘water' stick together, and the man who says ‘aqua' sticks to the chap who says ‘aqua' like he does. Yes, and ever since that day there have been only men, but no mankind. . . .”

Lucas listened, but did not understand what the old man was talking about. The one point he grasped was that even this old fellow beside him spoke of mysteries and miracles.

“But no!” ejaculated the old man once more, as if somebody had just contradicted him. “He need not have punished them so severely as all that! What would have happened if they had finished their wretched tower, eh? What then? Just imagine—there stands the tower, just try to picture it in your mind's eye . . . and from its top story you can step straight into His Parlour. . . . Well, what then? Suppose one of them had set out as a child and made up his mind to get up to Him . . . well? He would have climbed and climbed up the tower all his life . . . and done nothing else, done no work, and neither friend nor wife could have held him back. He would have climbed ever higher and higher . . . and the years would have rolled by, and still he would not have got so very far toward his goal. . . . And he would have grown old and weary, but still he would have been nearer to earth than to heaven . . . and then he would have died . . . died on the way, remained lying there, before he had reached the top. Do you see? But He always punishes straight away . . . and punishes severely. . . . Yes. . . . Though perhaps He may be over-hasty when we make Him angry.”

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed again. “As far as I am concerned, the tower might have been standing there forever and a day. . . . I should never have climbed its steps. . . . I have managed to remain all my life rooted to one spot, and I should have stuck there. . . . I should have stuck there quite content . . . for what would have been the good? . . . Things were all right as they were. . . . But then I used to hear people talking about a country where there was no winter, a country of lofty mountains where, even in the hottest summer, the snow never melted . . . and I heard them talking about the sea. . . .”

He turned and looked at Lucas, his curly beard making his wizened face appear aflame with animation, while his sharp, merry eyes twinkled with laughter.

“I waited until my wife grew old and my son was a settled man. What can one do with an old wife? And what is there to do in the nursery when one's son is grown up and settled down in life? Well then! The time had come. And so I left. Now it's for the boy to sit and make clothes; he knows all about it; he learned it all with me. It was no use saying, ‘Father, stay with us!' or weeping and wailing, ‘Don't go away!' That was all nonsense. They could snivel as much as they liked. I turned a deaf ear. When things are done, they're done! Just try telling a burned-out stove to give out more heat, as you want to cook some more soup and stew some more apples on it . . . just you try. . . . The fire is out and the stove is cold and you can go on talking till you're black in the face.”

He gave a loud merry laugh. “But I must be up and off, on and on until I reach the country where there is no winter . . . for I want to convince myself once and for all of its existence. I want to go on and on until I reach the sea. You know . . . you stand on the beach like this . . . and over yonder there's nothing but sky and sea. . . . The sea . . . I want to look on that with my own eyes now . . . I must see that . . . !”

And rising hurriedly to his feet, he threw his knapsack over his shoulder. Lucas went with him. The old man went uphill along the road. After a while he began to sing.

And thus they went on together, Lucas feeling happy in the old man's company. He tried to remember how long he had been alone, because hitherto he had kept out of the way of men when he was allowed to wander about in his own human form. And he recollected that recently he had always been a dog when in the presence of men.

The old man talked, sang, or whistled all the time. “Always snow,” he observed, “always cold, so cold that your fingers grow stiff. How long have I been on the road now? . . . It's just possible that it's all a hoax. But we shall see. . . . I am curious, and I shall walk and walk as long as there's a road for me to walk on. They won't catch me getting tired . . . so they needn't think it . . . not me!” And he laughed and began to whistle again.

Lucas trudged along in silence by his side; the old fellow expected no reply nor did he ask for one. But that evening as they were sitting together on the edge of a wood, and saw the houses of a little town nestling deep in the snow before them, Lucas began to talk. The whole mystery which had, as it were, cut his life in two, and cast it out into the world in two halves, the strangeness of it, which took his breath away and frightened him out of his wits—he poured it all out, shy and stammering at first, but gradually with greater vehemence and emphasis, as though he were crying aloud for help.

The old man listened calmly; the tale did not seem to surprise him in the least. “But what does it matter?” he exclaimed, when Lucas's voice at last died away in sobs. “What does it matter? Why cry about it? Nonsense! Look on and marvel—that's the thing! Look on and wait—that's all! What are you grizzling about? Have you had an accident? Have they cut off your head or amputated one of your legs? Well then! And aren't you making your way to the place you want to get to? Why lose heart? Just look on, my dear child, just look on! Today you must wonder what is going to happen tomorrow, and tomorrow what is going to happen the day after . . . and so the time flies. If a man isn't inquisi­tive, there's no interest left in life.”

And he sang softly to himself.

It began to get dark; one or two lights twinkled at them from the windows of the houses in the distance. He stood up and walked forward in the direction of the town.

Lucas was left alone.

• • •

From that day on Lucas bore his fate with ever-­increasing fortitude. He began casting his thoughts ahead into the future; he sent them forward, across hill and dale, into the country he was approaching.

And he felt himself drawing ever closer to that country. All the roads now ran downhill; they presented no difficulties and were pleasant to walk along. A ­gentle zephyr filled the air with the breath of good tidings. Green meadows stretched out for miles around, fruit trees in blossom adorned the gentle slopes of the hills, while the box and laurel with their festoons of drooping wistaria stood out dark green about the white garden walls. A fragrance, strong yet subtle, such as he had never known before, seemed to exhale from the very earth itself, or to be wafted down from heaven on the passing breeze. Even the sky seemed to be further above his head, a sheet of unbroken azure. All the heavy low-hanging clouds had almost imperceptibly vanished, while every day the sun grew brighter.

Lucas saw lizards, green as emeralds, glide swiftly away on the gleaming garden walls. They flashed across his path and burrowed into the white dust like colored darts of light. And a childhood memory that had long lain dormant suddenly leaped to life. Yes, he had seen these beautiful, nimble little creatures before, long, long ago. Gorgeous and gleaming they had darted past him then, too fast for him to catch. The whole picture came back to him; the white walls and the warm white dust of the roads, almost blinding in the sunlight. He felt certain that, as a child, he must have come this way. And lo and behold! he was returning, while above him stretched the blue canopy of the sky after which his heart had yearned so long.

He did not avoid his fellow-men now. In the little villages and towns which nestled in the bosom of the valleys, he would sit by the fountains, stroking the smooth white marble, basking in the sun, talking to the people. They spoke his father's language, and he felt that he knew every one of them. Often he would stop at some threshold, wanting nothing, anxious only to give the women and children a friendly greeting. If they looked mistrustfully at him, he would laugh or chaff them, and would get in return a laugh or a greeting which was more precious to him than gold. He strolled through the vineyards and lay on the edge of flower-strewn meadows, listening to the ceaseless buzzing of the bees.

Early one morning, when men and houses were still sunk in slumber, he was strolling along a wide open road through a village, when he caught sight of a girl walking some distance ahead of him. He could not help following because there was no other road through the village, and he was obliged to look at her as she was the only creature in the place who was up and about. She looked attractive; her gait was light and easy. She had caught the sound of his footsteps, but had cast only one swift glance back at him, and continued on her way. It was only when they were out on the main road at the end of the village that she stopped and began fumbling with a little bundle she was carrying.

Apparently she had done what she wanted by the time Lucas caught up with her. They smiled at each other, and continued on their way together in silence. Lucas was happy in her company. He did not notice that the girl's clothes were in rags, nor that her disheveled hair fell in a tangle about her brow and cheeks; all he knew was that her fresh little face, with its delicate mouth and soft dark-brown eyes, was made all the more fascinating by her wealth of curly locks and was agreeably complimented by the rosy skin of her dainty limbs and chest.

Silent and smiling they ascended the road to the woods side by side.

“Where do you come from?” Lucas enquired at last.

She shook her head, smiled, but said nothing.

He smiled back. “Where are you going?” he asked after a pause.

She shook her head as before.

Again Lucas waited. “Don't you wish to speak?” he asked, “or can't you? . . . Tell me, what do they call you?”

She looked kindly at him. “They call me Angelica . . . that's all.”

As soon as they were in the wood, her eyes searched for a suitable resting-place, and she ran forward to an old, decayed tree-trunk on the ground, and perched herself upon it. Lucas sat down beside her. She was holding her little bundle in her lap; unfastening it, she produced some dried figs and some bread and cheese, rummaging about for them among a tangle of bright-colored bits of cloth, hair-combs, coins, and broken necklaces, and producing them as if by magic. In the medley there was even a rosary of juniper berries which had to be disentangled.

Lucas watched her closely. “Is all this yours?”

“This is all mine,” she replied, changing the order and emphasis of the words, as though trying to improve on them, and gazing calmly at him the while.

He suppressed a smile. “Where did you get it all?” he asked, feigning surprise.

“Well, I've got it,” was the reply, which sounded like a hint to ask no questions.

“I have nothing at all,” observed Lucas, as if to himself.

She quietly offered him a piece of cheese and some figs, and they ate together.

When they had finished, she got up and they went on their way. The road led out of the wood and struck across fields and meadows, already bathed in warm sunshine. Angelica began to sing. Lucas listened in silence. He thought he had heard the song before sung by the Italian workmen in Vienna.

“Join in, won't you?” she exclaimed, suddenly breaking off.

And so they sang together as they walked along side by side. After a while Lucas took her hand. It reminded him that since his father had led him along like this he had never walked hand in hand with anyone. He felt the girl's warm fingers clinging to his, and he sang more lustily than ever.

When they were tired they rested; sometimes they talked, but often they said nothing for long stretches at a time. Then they would jump up and walk on until they wanted to rest again. Once, as they were walking silently on in their sunlit desert solitude, they stopped, gazed into each other's eyes and kissed. Then they covered another long stretch of road, and stopped again. This time Lucas clasped her to his breast. He had never kissed a girl before. Gently releasing herself from his embrace, she shook her head, as if in remonstrance.