I
Martin leaned across the dusty parapet, ridden by that singular depression which one may know in strange cities. The fervour of the August sun, giving an intolerable vividness of outline and detail to the curving perspective, did not serve to cozen his mood. The ragged gully of the Arno, sunken between the ordered stone embankments, the wider curve of parallel façades with their indefinable touch of dignity and age, the dainty miniature of Santa Maria della Spina, the crenelated pile of the old citadel behind the Ponte a Mare, gave him the sense of something known and wearied of long ago. He looked down as from an infinite height upon a group of boys shouting below. They were splashing in a shallow pool or chasing each other naked on the sands, with an abandon enviable alike for its disregard of nature and of man. Beyond, where a rivulet of the shrunken stream made some pretence of motion, a row of women knelt above their wash-boards. They beat their hapless linen with a vehemence which at such a temperature would have been preternatural had their chatter not made it miraculous. The theatrical vivacity of the people, their unaccustomed faces, their foreign speech, weighed again on Martin’s humour. He rose impatiently and turned his back to the river.
The quay was hardly more engaging in the pitiless morning glare. White pavement and stucco façades danced together in the quivering silence. Scarcely a living creature was visible. A man passed with a panier-laden donkey, uttering a harsh unintelligible cry. The straw hat on the beast’s head, through which two long ears protruded comically, provided a fleeting object of interest. In the distance a woman approached. She was dressed in white, and Martin felt a personal resentment against her for not affording some contrast to the intolerable monotony of light. Had she come forth in sky-blue or bottle-green, she would have been a public benefactress, worthy the freedom of the city.
Wondering miserably what he should do with himself, Martin cast an indifferent glance at the building in front of him. It was one of the high dark-browed Tuscan palazzi, broad-eaved and strong-barred like the great houses of Florence. The entrance was open, giving a glimpse of a shady courtyard within. Above the massive archway was a device that attracted the young man’s attention. A fragment of chain hung there, from a bolt projecting above the keystone; and between the chain and a high stone escutcheon ran the legend, in letters of tarnished brass let into the weathered marble:
ALLA GIORNATA
Martin’s interest was caught. The three links of chain, the heraldic lion, the enigmatic inscription—what did they signify? He studied the open gate, the marble benches beside it, the forbidding windows, the iron torch-sconces, as if for a clue. As he did so the sound of steps intruded lightly upon his survey. Glancing about he remarked the offensive person in white. He noted, furthermore, that her offence extended to and included her shoes, but not her hair—which was dark; that she twirled a white parasol over her shoulder in the most obvious and irritating satisfaction; and that her eyes were upon him, with an expression which closely resembled amusement. At his look she turned them to the palace gate.
A moment later his resumed inspection of the writing in the stone was interrupted by the transit of the parasol. Something of the butterfly assurance with which that cloud of lace and chiffon blotted out the dusty inscription prompted Martin to wonder whether it had a secret which was denied himself. From a sudden whimsical impulse he demanded aloud:
“What does it mean?”
To his intense astonishment and no small dismay the parasol slowly turned, revealing a pair of eyes which no longer dissembled amusement. Yet it was not the parasol nor the eyes, but the owner of them who answered:
“It means everything. It means the whole of life.”
Then the parasol resumed its rotatory orbit up the Lungarno Regio.
Martin stared after it, not knowing whether to be more astounded at his own temerity or at the sound of his native tongue. But everything in him cried out against the solitude of that sun-smitten quay; and he called, desperately:
“Thank you, but I wish you would be a little more explicit—considering that I have been after that formula a good many years, and don’t happen to have my phrase-book about me.”
The parasol hesitated, came gradually to a stand-still, and once more performed an axial revolution of forty-five degrees. This time—had Martin not been too eager to perceive it—the amusement in the eyes was mingled with curiosity:
“They don’t put it in phrase-books. People have to translate it for themselves.”
“But I don’t know Italian!” protested Martin, hastily, taking off his hat: “Giornata—Is it like journée? The day? That which happens between dark and dark?”
The lady still faced the river, looking back at him over her shoulder:
“Yes.”
“And the chain!” pursued Martin: “Is it a whole chain or a broken one?”
“That depends!”
“‘To the day’—and a chain! Why is that the whole of life?”
“Why is it not the whole of life?”
“Because it’s only a part. And it’s not the best part: the part that gets things done, the part that one likes to remember.”
The parasol eddied lightly in the scorching sun:
“You have been reading phrase-books too much. That is exactly what it is: the best part, the part that gets things done—if things ever are done—the only part that one likes to remember. The rest is merely padding.”
“But that chops things up so!” objected Martin, polemically: “And it makes too much of the chain.”
“O! I beg your pardon,” responded the lady bowing slightly: “I thought it was information you wanted.” She turned a little toward the Ponte di Mezzo.
“I suppose you are right,” admitted Martin precipitately, “in a way. But would you really have people live just for the day?” As he stood there with his back against the baking stone of the parapet, his head uncovered to the sun, he became aware that the point of his interest had somehow shifted from the writing above the gate to its interpreter with the parasol. She was not so young, he observed, but neither—on the other hand—was she so old. He felt that he would gladly suffer a sunstroke if he could succeed in prolonging the interpretation.
The lady laughed outright:
“They do! I’m not responsible for it! But what have you against me? An inoffensive person walks down the street, at peace with all the world, when she is suddenly waylaid by a defiant young man whom she has never seen and is forced into the heat of argument—as if the sun were not bad enough already!”
Martin laughed too, albeit not so lightly, for he perceived that the interpretation was at an end:
“I beg pardon for waylaying you. I can only offer you my word that it is not my habit to go about distressing and destroying all ladies, like Sir Breuse Saunce Pitie. I suppose I fancied myself the sole person cognizant of the English language in this town, which I have never seen and which I already hate.”
To his relief the lady did not take instant departure, but laughed again:
“If it comes to apologies we shall be quits. I can only beg you to believe that it is not my habit to stop and chaffer with strange gentlemen. I suppose it was the novelty of your attack that undid me. If you had begun with so harmless a remark as ‘Good morning’ I would have known you at once for an objectionable character; but since you immediately engaged me in the ultimate problems of existence you surprised me out of my conventions!”
“I will offer you any reparation in my power—even to the point of a card!” eagerly rejoined Martin, who detected signs of unrest in the parasol.
“I will not exact that proof of you,” said the lady: “Names are necessary in complex societies only—of three or more.” Although she said it lightly, she said it in a way that made Martin put back his card-case and hastily button his coat. “But you mustn’t hate Pisa,” she went on: “There are charming river curves in it, and narrow streets with overhanging eaves. And, if you don’t mind my mentioning things which are so ordinary as to be starred by Baedeker, I know a cloister in a quiet corner of the city wall where the Middle Ages are buried. Or I could even show you the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them from the top of a tower.”
“I wish you would!” burst out Martin, before he knew what he was about. The next instant, remembering the card-case, he damned himself.
But after looking across her shoulder at him for a moment she gave her parasol a jerk of decision.
“I will!” she smiled, facing him at last: “Now that I have hopelessly compromised myself it is too late to assume a forgotten dignity and sweep away with an outraged stare! Why should I not practise what I preach? Alla giornata! I was just wondering what to do with this long hot morning. And do put your hat on. I am already smouldering, even under my parasol.”