Yes, “questo” was always the desired article!
At first they did make efforts at articulate speech, and with many turnings over of dictionary and phrase-book attempted to translate their meaning. But that was fatal. Compilers of phrase-books may be able to converse with each other, but theirs is a language apart—of their own, apparently—known to no other living Italians. They soar in cloudy regions of politeness, those phrase-books, all flourishes and unnecessary compliments; but when it comes to the solid substantials of existence they are nowhere! Towels are not towels to them, nor butter, butter.
At first two trusting forestieri loyally believed in them, and book in hand read out confidently to Maria their yearnings for a clean table cloth, or a spoon. But a dictionary spoon never was a spoon to Maria—dazed for once she would look at them blankly until meaning dawned on her from their eyes; then “ah!” and she would exclaim an entirely different word from the dictionary’s, and produce the article at last.
But then according to Maria’s vocabulary “questo?” “qui!” were the only really vital and necessary words in all the Italian language. It merely depended upon how you inflected these to make them express any human need or emotion. “Questo” meant everything from mosquito-bars to vegetables; and the combination of the two words with a sprinkling of “si’s” and “non’s” were all one needed to define any shade of feeling—pride, surprise, delight, regret, apology, sadness. From the time Maria brought in the breakfast trays in the mornings to the hot-water bottles at night it rang through the villa all day long; for the intricacies of her duties, the demands of the lodgers, scoldings from the Fraulein, chatter with other maids, “questo! qui!” sounded near and echoed from the distance like a repeated birdnote.
No nurse ever showed more pride in a precocious infant’s lispings than did Maria when they caught up her phrases and repeated them to her—when the right words to express the arrangement of tub and dinner table were remembered and stammered out. She seemed to feel that there might be hope of her charges eventually developing into rational articulate beings, and “questo-ed” every article about to them, with all the enthusiasm of a kindergartner.
Next morning the sun had come out, and so had Ætna. There it suddenly was, towering over the terrace, a great looming presence dominating everything; incredibly high and white, its glittering cone clear cut as steel against the blue morning sky, rising far above the clouds which still clung in tatters of drapery about the immense purple flanks. Enceladus for once lay quiet upon his fiery bed; no tortured breathings of steam floated about the icy clearness of the summit. It was a vision all of frozen majestic peace, yet awesomely full of menace, of the times when the prisoned Titan turned and groaned and shook the earth with his struggles, and poured out tears of blood in floods of burning destruction over all the smiling orchards and vineyards and soft green valleys.
Suddenly, Germans armed with easels and palettes sprang up fully equipped at every vantage viewpoint. The terrace produced a fertile crop of them, solemnly reducing the wonderful vision to mathematical dabs of purple and mauve and grey upon yellow canvas. One felt it comforting to know that even if Ætna never pierced the clouds again all Germany might feast its eyes on the colored snap shots then being made of that morning’s aspect of the Great Presence amid a patronising chorus of “Kolossals” and “achs reizends.” But once seen, it remained impressed on sense and spirit, that vision—whether visible or not. It was always with one, dominating all imaginings as it did every actual circumstance of life at Taormina, the weather, the temperature, the colour of every prospect. Though the sky behind San Domenico might be a blank and empty grey, one knew it was there, that mysterious and wonderful presence. And when it stood out, a Pillar of Heaven indeed, all clear and fair in white garment of fresh-fallen snow, it was still a menace to the blossoming land below, whether from its summit were sent down icy winds and grey mists or shrivelling fire and black pall of lava.
“A Place Where the Past Reveals Itself”