I avoided inquiring into the disgrazia till I could ascertain from some one else whether he meant what we should call a misfortune or something more serious and merely said
I was glad it was all over and asked after his brother.
“Carmelo is quite well—he is in private service. He told me to meet you and sent you his salutes and apologies for not coming himself; he will call on you this evening.”
“At the Albergo Belvedere?”
“No, excuse me, the Belvedere is closed; he told me to take you to the Albergo della Madonna, unless you wish to go anywhere else.”
So Rosario drove me with my luggage up the zigzags for an hour and a half through dust and sunshine, past orchards of lemons and oranges, among prickly pears and agave overgrown with pink and red geranium, by rocky slopes of mesembryanthemum, yellow marguerites, broom and sweet peas, between white walls with roses straggling over them and occasional glimpses of the sea dotted with fishing boats and, now and then, of the land covered with olives, almonds, and vines.
We stopped in the corso at the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and were received by a young man who introduced himself as Peppino, the son of the landlord. He also said he remembered me, that he
had been a waiter in a restaurant in Holborn where I used to dine; I did not recognize him, though, of course, I did not say so. There was something in his manner as though he had recently been assured by my banker that the balance to my credit during the last ten years or so had never fallen below a much larger sum than my passbook had been in the habit of recording. He would not hear of my doing anything about my luggage or dinner, he knew my ways and would show me to my room at once. It was a very fine room with two beds, and he promised that no one should be put into the second bed, not even during the festa which in a few days would fill the town with pilgrims. He then departed to bring up my luggage and I went out on to the balcony.
Before me lay one of those stupendous panoramas which are among the glories of Sicily. First a garden of flowers with orange and lemon trees whose blossoms scented the air, then a thicket of almonds full of glittering goldfinches, then a drop of several hundred feet; beyond, to the right, a great mountain with snow on its rocky summit, its lower slopes and the intervening country
highly cultivated; to the left the sea, an illimitable opal gleaming in the sunset. Between the mountain and the sea the coastline went in and out, in and out, in a succession of bays and promontories that receded and receded until sea and land and sky were blended into one distant haze. Across the first bay was the port and, as the dusk deepened, constellations of lights gathered and glowed among the shipping. I took possession, thinking that if, like Peppino’s parents, I might spend my declining days here, the troubles of life, and especially those attendant upon old age, might be easier to bear. And yet, possibly, a stupendous panorama might turn out as deceitful as proficiency at whist, or great riches, or worldly honours, or any of the other adjuncts of age popularly supposed to be desirable; for I suspect that most of these things fail and become as naught in the balance when weighed against a good digestion, a modest competency and a quiet conscience. These are the abiding securities that smooth our passage through life and bring a man peace at the last, and each of us has his own way of going about to win them.