He repeated those instructions, and added one word of almost paternal counsel in a very confidential tone.
" You'll excuse me, I know; I'm not suggesting for a moment you're not perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but you haven't been in these parts before, and you must never forget the quick, violent tempers of these Southern Italians. It's like one of these sudden gusts that the fishermen are so afraid of. It doesn't mean anything in particular; but it's often ugly enough at the moment, and what you have to do is to keep out of any kind of a row. There may be a lot of drunken ruffians in the Fauno Ebbrio. Sit near the door ; and if anybody starts scrapping, slip out quietly and walk up and down till it's over. You don't want to get mixed up with a fuss."
I could see the wisdom of his remarks, although, on the other hand, I was personally spoiling for a fight. The one fly in the apothecary's ointment of the honeymoon, though I didn't notice it, was that something in me missed the excitement of the daily gambling with death to which the war had accustomed me.
The slightest reminder of the wilder passions-a couple of boatmen quarrelling, or even a tourist protesting about some trifle, sent the blood to my head.
I only wanted a legitimate excuse for killing a few hundred people.
But nature is wise and kind, and I was always able to take it out of Lou. The passions of murder and love are inseparably connected in our ancestry. All civilisation has done is to teach us to pretend to idealise them.
The programme went off without the slightest hitch. Our room opened on to a terrace in deep shadow. At this time of year there was hardly any one in the hotel, of course. A little flight of steps at the side of the terrace took us under an arch of twisted vines into the barely more than mule-path that does duty for a road in Capri.
No one took any notice of us. There were only strolling lovers, parties of peasants singing as they walked to the guitar, and two or three tired happy fishermen strolling home from the wine-shop.
We found the motor-boat at the quay, and lay lapsed in delight. It seemed hardly a minute later when we found ourselves in Sorrento couched in a huge roadster. Without a word spoken, we were off at top speed. The beauty of the drive is notorious; and yet
"We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea."
The world had been created afresh for our sakes. It was an ever-changing phantasmagoria of rapturous sounds and sights and scents ; and it all seemed a mere ornamentation for our love, the setting for the jewel of our sparkling passion.
Even the last few miles into Naples, where the road runs through tedious commercialised suburbs, took on a new aspect. The houses were a mere irregular skyline. Somehow they suggested the jagged contour of a score of Debussy.
But all this, exquisite as it was, gripping as it was, was in a way superficial. At the bottom of our hearts there seethed and surged a white hot volcanic lake of molten, of infernal, metal.
We did not know what hideous, what monstrous abominations were in store for us at the Gatto Fritto.
I have set down how the action of the drugs had partially stripped off the recent layers of memory. It had achieved a parallel result much more efficiently on the moral plane. The toil of countless generations of evolution had been undone in a month. We still preserved, to a certain extent, the conventions of decency; but we knew that we did so only from ape-like cunning.
We had reverted to the gorilla. No action of violence and lust but seemed a necessary outlet for our energies !
We said nothing to each other about this. It was, in fact, deeper and darker than could be conveyed by articulate speech.
Man differs from the lower animals indeed, first of all, in this matter of language. The use of language compels one to measure one's thoughts. That is why the great philosophers and mystics, who are dealing with ideas that cannot be expressed in such terms, are constantly compelled to use negative adjectives, or to rebuke the mind by formulating their thoughts in a series of contradictory statements. That is the explanation of the Athanasian Creed. Its clauses puzzle the plain man.
One must oneself be divine to comprehend divinity,
The converse proposition is equally true. The passions of the pit find outlet only in bestial noises.
The automobile stopped at the end of the dirty little street where the Fauno Ebbrio lurks. The motorman pointed to the zig-zag streak of light that issued from it, and cast a sinister gleam on the opposite wall.
A bold, black-haired, short-skirted girl with a gaudy shawl and huge gold ear-rings was standing in the door. What with the long journey and the drugs and other things, we were a little drunk-just enough to realise that it was part of our policy to pretend to be a little more drunk than we were.
We let our heads roll from side to side as we staggered to the door. We sat down at a little table and called for drink. They served us one of those foul Italian imitations of liqueurs that taste like hair-wash.
But instead of nauseating us, it exalted us; we enjoyed it as part of the game. Dressed as low-class Neapolitans, we threw ourselves heartily into the part.
We threw the fiery filth down our throats as if it had been Courvoisier '65. The drink took effect on us with surprising alacrity. It seemed to let loose those swarming caravans of driver ants that eat their way through the jungle of life like a splash of sulphuric acid flung in a woman's face.
There was no clock in the den, and of course we had left our watches at home. We got a little impatient. We couldn't remember whether Feccles had or had not told us how long he was likely to be. The air of the room was stifling. The lowest vagabonds of Naples crowded the place. Some were jabbering like apes; some singing drunkenly to themselves; some shamelessly caressing; some sunk in bestial stupor.
Among the last was a burly brute who somehow fascinated our attention.
We thought ourselves quite safe in speaking English; and for all I know we were talking at the top of our voices. Lou maintained that this particular man was English himself.
He was apparently asleep; but presently he lifted his head from the table, stretched his great arms, and called for a drink, in Italian.
He drained his glass at a gulp, and then came suddenly over to our table and addressed us in English.
We could tell at once from his accent that the man had originally been more or less of a gentleman, but his face and his tone told their own story. He must have been going downhill for many years-reached the bottom long ago, and found it the easiest place to live.
He was aggressively friendly in a brutal way, and warned us that our disguises might be a source of danger; any one could see through them, and the fact of our having adopted them might arouse the quick suspicion of the Neapolitan mind.
He called for drinks, and toasted King and Country with a sort of surly pride in his origin. He reminded me of Kipling's broken-down Englishman.
" Don't you be afraid," he said to Lou. " I won't let you come to any harm. A little peach like you ? No blooming feir! "
I resented the remark with almost insane intensity, To hell with the fellow!
He noticed it at once, and leered with a horrible chuckle.
" All right, mister," he said. " No offence meant," and he threw an arm round Lou's neck, and made a movement to kiss her.
I was on my feet in a second, and swung my right to his jaw. It knocked him off the bench, and he lay flat.
In a moment the uproar began. All my old fighting instincts flashed to the surface. I realised instantly that we were in for the very row that Feccles had so wisely warned us to avoid.
The whole crowd-men and women-were on their feet. They were rushing at us like stampeding cattle. I whipped out my revolver.