Читать книгу W. Somerset Maugham: Novels, Short Stories, Plays & Travel Sketches (33 Titles In One Edition) - Уильям Сомерсет Моэм - Страница 40

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My sleep was troubled, and when I woke the next morning the sun had only just risen.

It was Saturday, the 14th of April 1488.

I went to my window and saw a cloudless sky, brilliantly yellow over in the east, and elsewhere liquid and white, hardening gradually into blue. The rays came dancing into my room, and in them incessantly whirled countless atoms of dust. Through the open window blew the spring wind, laden with the scents of the country, the blossoms of the fruit trees, the primroses and violets. I had never felt so young and strong and healthy. What could one not do on such a day as this! I went into Matteo's room, and found him sleeping as calmly as if this were an ordinary day like any other.

'Rise, thou sluggard!' I cried.

In a few minutes we were both ready, and we went to Checco. We found him seated at a table polishing a dagger.

'Do you remember in Tacitus,' he said, smiling pleasantly, 'how the plot against Nero was discovered by one of the conspirators giving his dagger to his freedman to sharpen? Whereupon the freedman became suspicious, and warned the Emperor.'

'The philosophers tell us to rise on the mistakes of others,' I remarked in the same tone.

'One reason for my affection towards you, Filippo,' he answered, 'is that you have nice moral sentiments, and a pleasant moral way of looking at things.'

He held out his dagger and looked at it. The blade was beautifully damaskeened, the hilt bejewelled.

'Look,' he said, showing me the excellence of the steel, and pointing out the maker's name. Then, meditatively, 'I have been wondering what sort of blow would be most effective if one wanted to kill a man.'

'You can get most force,' said Matteo, 'by bringing the dagger down from above your head—thus.'

'Yes; but then you may strike the ribs, in which case you would not seriously injure your friend.'

'You can hit him in the neck.'

'The space is too small, and the chin may get in the way. On the other hand, a wound in the large vessels of that region is almost immediately fatal.'

'It is an interesting subject,' I said. 'My opinion is that the best of all blows is an underhand one, ripping up the stomach.'

I took the dagger and showed him what I meant.

'There are no hindrances in the way of bones; it is simple and certainly fatal.'

'Yes,' said Checco, 'but not immediately! My impression is that the best way is between the shoulders. Then you strike from the back, and your victim can see no uplifted hand to warn him, and, if he is very quick, enable him to ward the blow.'

'It is largely a matter of taste,' I answered, shrugging my shoulders. 'In these things a man has to judge for himself according to his own idiosyncrasies.'

After a little more conversation I proposed to Matteo that we should go out to the market-place and see the people.

'Yes, do!' said Checco, 'and I will go and see my father.'

As we walked along, Matteo told me that Checco had tried to persuade his father to go away for a while, but that he had refused, as also had his wife. I had seen old Orso d'Orsi once or twice; he was very weak and decrepit; he never came downstairs, but stayed in his own rooms all day by the fireside, playing with his grand-children. Checco was in the habit of going to see him every day, morning and evening, but to the rest of us it was as if he did not exist. Checco was complete master of everything.

The market-place was full of people. Booths were erected in rows, and on the tables the peasant women had displayed their wares: vegetables and flowers, chickens, ducks and all kinds of domestic fowls, milk, butter, eggs; and other booths with meat and oil and candles. And the sellers were a joyful crew, decked out with red and yellow handkerchiefs, great chains of gold around their necks, and spotless headdresses; they were standing behind their tables, with a scale on one hand and a little basin full of coppers on the other, crying out to one another, bargaining, shouting and joking, laughing, quarrelling. Then there were the purchasers, who walked along looking at the goods, picking up things and pinching them, smelling them, tasting them, examining them from every point of view. And the sellers of tokens and amulets and charms passed through the crowd crying out their wares, elbowing, cursing when someone knocked against them. Gliding in and out, between people's legs, under the barrow wheels, behind the booths, were countless urchins, chasing one another through the crowd unmindful of kicks and cuffs, pouncing on any booth of which the proprietor had turned his back, seizing the first thing they could lay hands on, and scampering off with all their might. And there was a conjurer with a gaping crowd, a quack extracting teeth, a ballad singer. Everywhere was noise, and bustle, and life.

'One would not say on the first glance that these people were miserably oppressed slaves,' I said maliciously.

'You must look beneath the surface,' replied Matteo, who had begun to take a very serious view of things in general. I used to tell him that he would have a call some day and end up as a shaven monk.

'Let us amuse ourselves,' I said, taking Matteo by the arm, and dragging him along in search of prey. We fixed on a seller of cheap jewellery—a huge woman, with a treble chin and a red face dripping with perspiration. We felt quite sorry for her, and went to console her.

'It is a very cold day,' I remarked to her, whereupon she bulged out her cheeks and blew a blast that nearly carried me away.

She took up a necklace of beads and offered it to Matteo for his lady love. We began to bargain, offering her just a little lower than she asked, and then, as she showed signs of coming down, made her a final offer a little lower still. At last she seized a broom and attacked us, so that we had to fly precipitately.

I had never felt in such high spirits. I offered to race Matteo in every way he liked—riding, running and walking—but he refused, brutally telling me that I was frivolous. Then we went home. I found that Checco had just been hearing mass, and he was as solemn and silent as a hangman. I went about lamenting that I could get no one to talk to me, and at last took refuge with the children, who permitted me to join in their games, so that, at 'hide-and-seek' and 'blind man's buff,' I thoroughly amused myself till dinner-time. We ate together, and I tried not to be silenced, talking the greatest nonsense I could think of; but the others sat like owls and did not listen, so that I too began to feel depressed....

The frowns of the others infected me, and the dark pictures that were before their eyes appeared to mine; my words failed me and we all three sat gloomily. I had started with an excellent appetite, but again the others influenced me, and I could not eat. We toyed with our food, wishing the dinner over. I moved about restlessly, but Checco was quite still, leaning his face on his hand, occasionally raising his eyes and fixing them on Matteo or me. One of the servants dropped some plates; we all started at the sound, and Checco uttered an oath; I had never heard him swear before. He was so pale I wondered if he were nervous. I asked the time: still two hours before we could start. How long would they take to pass! I had been longing to finish dinner, so that I might get up and go away. I felt an urgent need for walking, but when the meal was over a heaviness came to my legs and I could do nothing but sit and look at the other two. Matteo filled his tankard and emptied it several times, but after awhile, as he reached over for the wine, he saw Checco's eyes fixed on the flagon, with a frown on his forehead, and the curious raising of one corner of the mouth, which was a sign he was displeased. Matteo withdrew his hand and pushed his mug away; it rolled over and fell on the floor. We heard the church bell strike the hour; it was three o'clock. Would it never be time! We sat on and on. At last Checco rose and began walking up and down the room. He called for his children. They came, and he began talking to them in a husky voice, so that they could scarcely understand him. Then, as if frightened of himself, he took them in his arms, one after the other, and kissed them convulsively, passionately, as one kisses a woman; and he told them to go. He stifled a sob. We sat on and on. I counted the minutes. I had never lived so long before. It was awful....

At last!

It was half-past three; we got up and took our hats.

'Now, my friends!' said Checco, drawing a breath of relief, 'our worst troubles are over.'

We followed him out of the house. I noticed the jewelled hilt of his dagger, and every now and then I saw him put his hand to it to see that it was really there. We passed along the streets, saluted by the people. A beggar stopped us, and Checco threw him a piece of gold.

'God bless you!' said the man.

And Checco thanked him fervently.

We walked along the narrow streets in the shade, but as we turned a corner the sun came full on our faces. Checco stopped a moment and opened his arms, as if to receive the sunbeams in his embrace, and, turning to us, with a smile, he said,—

'A good omen!'

A few more steps brought us to the piazza.