Lawrence Durrell: Sicilian Carousel: Adventures on an Italian Island

Beddoes made some opprobrious comment about demagogues which earned him a glare from the sensitive Roberto. At the site of the no longer extant Greek theater the guide uttered some wise words about Alcibiades, a name which made the Bishop frown. “A dreadful homo,” said Beddoes audibly. Deeds looked rather shocked and moved three points east, as if to dissociate himself from this troublesome commentator. I hoped he wasn’t going to go on like this throughout the journey. But he was. “Dreadful feller,” said Deeds under his breath. Beddoes proved unquenchable and totally snub proof. Moreover, he had very irritating conversational mannerisms like laying his forefinger along his nose when he was about to say something which he thought very knowing; or sticking his tongue out briefly before launching what he considered a witticism. Now he stuck it out to say, apropos Aeschylus, that his play Women of Etna was based on reality. “The women of Etna,” he went on with a winning air of frankness, “were known in antiquity for their enormous arses. The whole play, or rather the chorus, revolves around them, if I may put it like that. The women …” But Roberto was wearing a little thin, at least his superb patience was markedly strained. “The play is lost,” he hissed, and repeated the observation in French and German, lest there should be any mistake about it. But this remark of Beddoes was not lost on the German girl who was, I later discovered, called Renata and came from Heidelberg. She turned hot and cold. Beddoes winked at her and she turned her back.

The parent Microscopes held hands and yawned deeply. I wasn’t shocked by this, though Roberto looked downcast. The reaction was at least honest and simple. The proconsulars had the air of having read up the stuff before coming on the trip, as of course anyone with any sense would have done. But I prefer to experience the thing first without trimmings and read it up when I get back home. I know that it is not the right way round, for inevitably one finds that one has missed a great deal; but it gives me the illusion of keeping my first impressions fresh and pristine. Besides, in the case of Sicily, I had my guide in Martine whose tastes, as I knew from long ago, coincided very closely with mine. Consequently I was not unprepared for the mixture of styles which she found so delightful. The little hint of austerity from the north housed the profuse and exuberant Sicilian mode, which itself glittered with variegated foreign influences — Moorish, Spanish, Roman.… But even Catanian baroque managed to convey a kind of dialect version of the Sicilian one; though its elements, fused as they were into several successive bouts of building after natural catastrophes, gave off a touching warmth of line and proportion which argued well for the rest. We paid our respects to Saint Agatha, the patron saint, in the cathedral dedicated to her, which wasn’t, however, quite as thrilling as Roberto tried to make it sound — there seemed little about it except the good proportions which we might appreciate. As for Agatha.… “I had an aunt called Agatha,” said Deeds, “who was all vinegar. Consequently the name gives me a fearfully uneasy feeling.”

But St. Nicolo was a different kettle of fish on its queer hill; it had a very strange atmosphere, apparently having been abandoned in the middle of its life to wear out in the sunshine, fronting one of the most elegant and sophisticated piazzas bearing the name of Dante. Apparently they ran out of funds to finish it off in the traditional elated style — and in a way it is all the better for it. The largest church in Sicily according to Roberto, it needs a lot of space clearance to show off its admirable proportions; just like a large but beautifully proportioned girl might. We draggled dutifully round it, with a vast expenditure of color film by the German girl and the Microscopes. Beddoes, too, seemed to admire it for he forbore to comment, but walked about and thoughtfully smoked his dreadful shag. Roberto tactfully sat in a stall for a good ten minutes to let us admire, and then launched into a succinct little vignette about the church and the site which, I am ashamed to say, interested nobody. It is not that culture and sunlight are mutually exclusive, far from it; but the day was fine, the voyage was only beginning, and the whole of the undiscovered island lay ahead of us. The little red coach whiffled its horn to mark its position and we climbed aboard with a pleasant sense of familiarity, as if we had been traveling in it for weeks. I was sure that among our party there would be someone who would prove an anthropomorphic soul (like my brother with his animals) and end by christening it Fido the Faithful. I was equally sure that when the time came to part from it Deeds would recite verses from “The Arab’s Farewell to His Steed.” These sentiments I was rash enough to confide to him, whereupon he looked amused but ever so slightly pained.

But by now we had bisected the town and nosed about the older parts, a journey which involved nothing very spectacular except perhaps a closer look at the little Catanian emblem — the Elephant Fountain with its pretty animal obelisk motif. And now it was time to turn the little bus towards the coastal roads which might bear us away in the direction of Syracuse where we would spend a night and a day in search of the past. But first we had to drag our slow way across the network of dispiriting suburbs which smother Catania as a liana smothers a tree. The sudden appearance of Etna at the end of one vista after another — she seems to provide a backcloth for all the main boulevards — reminded one how often the town had been overwhelmed by the volcano, which made its present size and affluence rather a mystery; for Etna is far from finished yet and Catania lies in its field of fire. But the suburbs … one might have been anywhere; the squalor was not even picturesquely Middle Eastern, just Middle Class. With the same problems as any other urbanized town in the world — devoured like them by the petrol engine, that scourge of our age.

But Roberto was well pleased with us for people had begun to unlimber; the Bishop chatted to the two smart ladies from Paris, who spoke English with the delightful accent of the capital which makes the English heart miss a beat. The proconsul made notes in the margin of his Guide Bleu . The Americans became more talkative after a long period of shyness, and the lady remarked loudly, “Yes, Judy is flexible, but not that flexible.” The rest of her discourse was lost in the whiffle of the horn and the clash of changing gears — Mario was scowling and muttering under his breath at some traffic problem; he was the only one of us who seemed out of sorts. Roberto performed his task dutifully, describing everything through the loudspeaker with elegance. A distinct thaw had set in, however, and our voices rose; we spoke naturally to one another instead of whispering. This is how I came to overhear those tantalizing fragments of talk, a phrase here or there, which, divorced from context, were to haunt my sleep. I was to wonder and wonder about the flexibility of Judy, mysterious as a Japanese Koan, until a merciful sleep liberated me from the appalling problem. Then one of the French ladies remarked on a clear note, “ Pour moi les Italiens du nord sont des hommes décaféinés ,” a sentiment which made the Sicilian blood of Roberto throb with joy. But at last the coast road came in sight and we opened throttle and started to hare along upon winding roads above a fine blue sea. Never have I felt safer than when Mario drove; his timing was perfect, his speeds nicely calculated not to awaken his drowsing or even sleeping charges, should they have been snoozing by any chance.

The opening stages of our journey were sensibly enough planned; this first day was an easy one in terms of time and distance. We wove across the vast and verdant Catanian Plain eagerly watching the skyline for the appearance of a stray Laestrygonian — the terrible ogres of the Homeric legend; I had a feeling that Ulysses had a brush with them but wasn’t sure and made a note in my little schoolchild’s calpin to look them up in more detail. I did not dare to ask the Bishop or Roberto. The Simeto, a sturdy little river, together with two smaller tributaries waters the plain, and it is celebrated for an occasional piece of choice amber floating in it, which it has quarried somewhere on its journey. But where? Nobody knows.