“Oh, there’s nothing to tell. He comes to see me sometimes, when he is free. We have tastes in common; for instance, we do not like knock-about brothers at a music-hall—they bore us. And then books; our tastes in literature, however, are less alike; but he is quite a reader. Once he had in his pocket The Beauties of Nature, by Sir John Lubbock—that was to improve his mind—and Little Lord Fauntleroy, which he was reading for pure enjoyment. I told him that I also had written a book and he wanted to read it, so I lent it to him.”
“I hope he appreciated it?” inquired Joe sympathetically.
“He was extremely polite about it. Next time I saw him he said: ‘Well, I’ve been reading your book’; (he spoke with great deliberation) ‘I can get on with it. Yes. It doesn’t drag upon me. I don’t feel it’s time wasted. But, you know, if I ever do anything of that sort, I think it will be more in the style of Charlie Dickens.’“
“I should not call that very polite of him, was it?”
“I am not so sure. We must distinguish. He was not thinking of the Dickens of Pickwick with all his beaux moments, he was thinking of that other Dickens of the Christmas Books with all his mauvais quarts d’heure.”
“But have you two authors named Dickens in England?”
Then I saw that to my audience Dickens was as much a sealed book as Molière and that my literary policeman must be reserved until I can write Diversions in London. So I turned the conversation by telling Joe that Dickens is not an uncommon name in England and is a form of Riccardo, as Jones is a form of Giovanni.
While talking we were on our way to Joe’s house, where he changed from his uniform to his private clothes, and then we took the tram to Cibali. Here we bought provisions and carried them with us to the country house, which was not yet properly open for the summer. We had picked
up our host, Giovanni Bianca, on the way, and he took us round and showed us the garden, which was full of flowers and fruit trees and vines; he showed us also the lava of 1669 which destroyed part of Catania. He gave me a piece of primeval lava from the bottom of the well which his father had dug, about 150 feet down. I inquired how old that lava would be. He was not sure, but it would be older than the Romans, older than the Greeks, older than the Sikels or the Sikans.
“Say ten thousand years old,” said Giovanni, and he said it without being in the least embarrassed, but then he is not a canonico and has not Moses hanging as a dead weight on him. He went on to say that he did not really know. “The memory of man,” he said, “works very imperfectly, and to understand these things one ought to study the science of geology.”