Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

‘I wish to goodness you wouldn’t keep wriggling about,’ he muttered, sprawling laxly in the depths of the more comfortable seat. ‘You make me feel seasick.’

‘All right, old chap,’ said Philip, soothingly. ‘You go to sleep.’

Dickie hauled himself up by the silk rope which was supported by the brass silhouette of a horse at one end and by a small but solid brass lion at the other.

He said combatively: ‘I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to know what we’re to say to this sugar-refining friend of yours. Supposing he doesn’t talk English? Shall we sit silent through the meal?’

‘Oh, I think all foreigners do.’ Philip spoke lightly; his reply was directed to the first of Dickie’s questions; it would have been obviously untrue as an answer to the second. ‘Jackson didn’t tell me; he only gave me that letter and said he was a nice fellow and could get us into palaces and so on that ordinary people don’t see.’

‘There are too many that ordinary people do see, as it is, if you ask me,’ groaned Dickie. ‘For God’s sake don’t let him show us any more sights.’

‘He seems to be a well-known character,’ said Philip. ‘He’ll count as a sight himself.’

‘If you call a limping dago a sight, I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Dickie took him up crossly.

But Philip was unruffled.

‘I’m sorry, Dickie, but I had to do it—couldn’t ignore the letter, you know. We shall get through the evening somehow. Now, sit up and look at the lovely scenery. Cosa è questa isola ?’ he asked the gondolier, indicating an island to the right that looked if it might be a monastery.

‘ Il manicomio ,’ said the gondolier, with a grin. Then, as Philip looked uncomprehending, he tapped his forehead and smiled still more broadly.

‘Oh,’ said Philip, ‘it’s the lunatic asylum.’

‘I do wish,’ said Dickie, plaintively, ‘if you must show me things, you’d direct my attention to something more cheerful.’

‘Well, then,’ said Philip, ‘look at these jolly old boats. They’re more in your line.’

A couple of tramp-steamers, moored stern to stern, and, even in the fading twilight, visibly out of repair—great gangrenous patches of rust extending over their flanks—hove up on the left. Under the shadow of their steep sides the water looked oily and almost black.

Dickie suddenly became animated. ‘This reminds me of Hull,’ he exclaimed. ‘Good old Hull! Civilization at last! Nothing picturesque and old-world. Two ugly useful old ships, nice oily water and lots of foreign bodies floating about in it. At least,’ he said, rising unsteadily to his feet, ‘I take that to be a foreign body.’

‘ Signore, signore !’ cried the first gondolier, warningly.

A slight swell, caused perhaps by some distant motor-boat, made the gondola rock alarmingly. Dickie subsided—fortunately, into his seat; but his hand was still stretched out, pointing, and as the water was suddenly scooped into a hollow, they all saw what he meant: a dark object showed up for an instant in the trough of the wave.

‘Looks like an old boot,’ said Philip, straining his eyes. ‘ Cosa è, Angelino ?’

The gondolier shrugged his shoulders.

‘ Io non so . Forse qualche gatto ,’ he said, with the light-heartedness with which Italians are wont to treat the death of animals.

‘Good God, does the fellow think I don’t know a cat when I see one?’ cried Dickie, who had tumbled to the gondolier’s meaning. ‘Unless it’s a cat that has been in the water a damned long time. No, it’s—it’s . . .’

The gondoliers exchanged glances and, as though by mutual consent, straightened themselves to row. ‘ E meglio andare, signori ,’ said Angelino firmly.

‘What does he say?’

‘He says we’d better be going.’

‘I’m not going till I’ve found out what that is,’ said Dickie obstinately. ‘Tell him to row up to it, Phil.’

Philip gave the order, but Angelino seemed not to understand.

‘ Non e niente interesssante, niente interessante ,’ he kept repeating stubbornly.

‘But it is interesting to me,’ said Dickie, who like many people could understand a foreign language directly his own wishes were involved. ‘Go to it! There!’ he commanded.

Reluctantly the men set themselves to row. As the boat drew up alongside, the black patch slid under the water and there appeared in its place a gleam of whiteness, then features—a forehead, a nose, a mouth. . . . They constituted a face, but not a recognizable one.

‘Ah, povero annegato ,’ murmured Angelino, and crossed himself.

The two friends looked at each other blankly.

‘Well, this has torn it,’ said Dickie, at last. ‘What are we going to do now?’

The gondoliers had already decided. They were moving on.

‘Stop! Stop!’ cried Philip. ‘We can’t leave him like this.’ He appealed to the men. ‘ Non si può lasciarlo cosi .’

Angelino spread his hands in protest. The drowned man would be found by those whose business it was to patrol the waters. Who knew what he had died of? Perhaps some dreadful disease which the signori would catch. There would be difficulties with the police; official visits. Finally, as the Englishmen still seemed unconvinced, he added, ‘ Anche fa sporca la gondola . Questo tappeto, signori, m’ha costato più che mille duecento lire .’

Somewhat grimly Philip explained to Dickie this last, unanswerable reason for not taking the drowned man on board. ‘He will dirty the gondola and spoil the carpet, which cost twelve hundred lire.’

‘Carpet be damned!’ exclaimed Dickie. ‘I always told you dagoes were no good. Here, catch hold of him.’

Together they pulled the dead man into the boat, though not before Angelino had rolled back his precious carpet. And when the dead man was lying in the bottom of the boat, decently covered with a piece of brown water-proof sheeting, he went round with sponge and wash-leather and carefully wiped away every drop of water from the gunwale and its brass fittings.

Ten minutes sufficed to take them to the Lido. The little passeggiata that had started so pleasantly had become a funeral cortege. The friends hardly spoke. Then, when they were nearing the landing-stage and the ugly white hotel, an eyesore all the way across the lagoon, impended over them with its blazing lights and its distressing symmetry, Dickie said:

‘By Jove, we shall be late for that fellow.’

‘He’ll understand,’ said Philip. ‘It’ll be something to talk to him about.’

He regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth: they sounded so heartless.

The landing-stage was almost deserted when the gondola drew up at the steps, but the aged, tottering and dirty rampino who hooked it in and held out his skinny hand for soldi , soon spread the news. While Philip was conferring with the gondoliers upon the proper course to be taken, a small crowd collected and gazed, expressionlessly but persistently, at the shapeless mound in the gondola. The rampino professed himself capable of keeping watch; the gondoliers declared they could not find a vigile unless they went together; they hinted that it might take some time. At last Dickie and Philip were free. They walked along the avenue under acacia trees stridently lighted by arc-lamps, towards the sea and the Hotel Splendide. As they looked back they saw that the little knot of spectators was already dispersing.

No, they were told: Count Giacomelli had not yet arrived. But that is nothing, smiled the maître d’hôtel; the signore Conte is often late. Would the gentlemen take a cocktail while they waited?