there are few stretches of roadway in italy that wind through finer scenery than that panorama which spreads out along the highway between florence and siena. the pedestrian, however, finds small opportunity to contemplate the landscape, for his progress is beset with strange perils. each peasant of this section possesses a yoke of white oxen, a bovine type indigenous to the apennine region, the distinguishing feature of which is the length of the horns, measuring often six and even seven feet from tip to tip. now meet two such beasts, yoked together, and it is a wide highway that leaves you room to pass. moreover, their drivers being invariably sound asleep, the animals wander at sweet will about the right of way, tossing their heads toward the passer-by. when one considers that every twenty or twenty-five acres through this territory constitutes a farm, that every farmer has his pair of oxen, and that he does his best to lay out his work in such a manner as to give him the greatest possible amount of time on the road, leaving real labor to his wife and daughters, it is easily understood that to make one’s way on foot, requires no mean amount of vigilance, nimbleness, and endurance.
nor is that all. on every highway of europe the wayfarer must be always on the alert for the sound of an automobile horn. continental chauffeurs have small respect for foot-travelers, and the pedestrian who does not heed their imperative honk is quite apt to come into collision with a touring-car moving at its highest rate of speed. now the first note of protest of an over-burdened ass bears a similarity to the toot of an automobile horn that can scarcely be accounted for under the head of coincidences. moreover, the time ensuing between the first and second notes is quite long enough for a car to shoot around a corner, send the unobserving wanderer skyward, and disappear into the gasoline-saturated beyond. in consequence, my journey from florence to siena was no pleasure stroll; for when i was not vaulting roadside hedges before oncoming oxen, i was crouching on the edge 65of the highway, peering anxiously round a turn of the route until a second asinine vocable broke on my ear.
he who would obtain an exact idea of the ensemble of the city of siena has but to dump a spoonful of sugar on a well-heaped dish of rice. some of the grains remain at the very top of the heap, others cling tenaciously to the sides as if fearful of falling to the bottom into the dish itself. for rice, read a rocky hill; for sugar, houses; for dish, a broad, fertile valley in which space is unlimited, and the visualization of siena is complete. except in that small quarter on the flat summit of the hill it is one of those up-and-down towns in which streets should be fitted with ladders; where every householder is in imminent danger, each time he steps out of doors, of falling into the next block, should he inadvertently lose his grip on the fa?ade of his dwelling. i scaled the city without being reduced to the indignity of making the ascent on hands and knees; but more than once i kept my place only by clutching at the flanking buildings.
how little the knowledge of the world among the masses of italy has increased, since the days of columbus, was suggested during my evening in the perennial inn at the summit of the town. engaged in a game of “dama” (checkers) with the innkeeper’s small daughter, i strove at the same time to satisfy the curiosity of the host himself and a band of strolling musicians, of whom a blind youth accompanied both game and conversation on a soft-voiced violin.
“when you go to america,” asked the innkeeper, pointing out a move to my opponent, “you get clear out of sight of land, non è vero?”
i admitted that such experiences were common.
“ah, i once thought of going to america,” he cried, turning to impress upon the attentive audience his fearlessness in having dared to conceive so intrepid a venture, “until they told me that. but you wouldn’t catch me on a boat that went clear out of sight of land. i don’t mind a trip from genoa to naples, or even to bastia, where you always have the coast alongside; but when you leave the land and jump out into the universe, steering by the stars and going—la santissima vergine knows where—ah, not for me! why, suppose the captain loses his way when the stars move? you come to the edge of the world and over you go. ugh!”
the audience shuddered in sympathy, and the blind youth drew forth from his instrument a wail such as might have risen from the victims of so dreadful a fate.
by the time a new topic had been broached the hostess wandered 66in and sat down before the register in which i had written my autobiography. her eyes fell on the figures indicating my age.
“aha!” she cried, jabbing the number with a stubby forefinger and winking good-humoredly, “soldiering is hard work, to be sure. i don’t blame you a bit. officers are hard masters.”
i had too often been accused of running away to escape military service to be at all put out by this familiar accusation.
“many a boy i know,” went on the woman, “has run away to america just before he reached his majority and the beginning of his three years in the army. how strange you americans should fly over here to italy for the same reason!”
“you bet i don’t blame them,” growled the innkeeper.
“but military service is not required in america,” i protested.
“eh!” cried my hearers, in chorus.
“we don’t have to be soldiers in america,” i repeated.
“what!” shouted the host, “you have no army?”
“yes; but the soldiers are hired, as for any other trade.”
“but who makes them go?” demanded the blind musician.
“no one. they are paid to go.”
the audience puzzled for several moments over this strange arrangement. suddenly the landlady burst out laughing.
“you think to fool us!” she cried. “how, if nobody makes them go, can there be soldiers to pay?”
“aye! that’s it!” roared the host.
“they want to go,” i explained.
“want to be soldiers!” bellowed the innkeeper. “what nonsense! who wants to be a soldier and work three years for nothing?”
“but you don’t understand. those who want to be soldiers are paid wages.”
“ah!” cried the musician, with a sudden burst of inspiration, “when your name is drawn, you pay a man to go for you?”
“no; the government pays him. our names are not drawn.”
“how much money the king must spend, paying all the soldiers,” mused my opponent.
“ah! they are a strange people, the americans,” sighed the host, and he cast upon me a glance that seemed to say, “and liars, too, very often.”
selling the famous long-horned cattle of siena outside the walls
italian peasants returning from market-day in the communal village
weeks before, i had given up all hope of making clear to italians our military system. the institution of compulsory service has been so woven into their picture of life since infancy that barely a man of them 67has the power of imagining an existence without this omnipresent fate hanging over his head. whatever may be the attitude of the educated italian towards it, military service is regarded by the laboring class as a curse from which there is no escape. we are accustomed to say that nothing is sure but death and taxes. the italian would include conscription.
two days after leaving siena, i turned out in the early morning from viterbo, just fifty miles north of rome. strange to say, in measure as i approached the capital the less inhabited became the countryside. for hours beyond viterbo the highway wound over low mountains between whispering forests, in utter solitude. where the woods ended, stretched many another weary mile with never a hut by the wayside. only an occasional shepherd, clad in sheepskins, sat among his flocks on a hillside, and gave life to a landscape that suggested the wilds of wyoming or the vast steppes of siberia.
the sun was touching the western horizon as i traversed a rugged village, but with rome so close at hand i pressed on. the hamlet, however, appeared to be the last habitation of man along the highway. the sun sank in an endless morass, amid the whispering of great fields of reeds and grasses, and the dismal croaking of frogs. twilight faded to black night. far off, ahead, the reflection of the eternal city lighted up the sky; yet hours of tramping seemed to bring the glow not a yard nearer.
forty-one miles i had covered when three hovels rose up by the wayside. one was an inn, but the keeper growled out some protest and slammed the door in my face. i took refuge and broke an all-day fast in a wine-shop patronized by traveling teamsters, one of whom offered me a bed on his load of straw in the adjoining stable.
he rose at daybreak, and for the first few miles the dawdling pace of his mules was fully fast enough for my maltreated legs. little by little i forged ahead. the deserted highway led across a bleak moorland, rounded a slight eminence, and brought me face to face with the once center of the civilized world.
to the right and left, on low hills, stood large modern buildings, from which the mass of houses sloped down and covered the intervening plains, broken only by the tiber winding its way through the dull, grey stretch of habitations. here and there a dome or steeple reflected the morning sun, but towering high above the mass, dwarfing all else by comparison, stood the vast dome of st. peter’s. close before me began an unbroken suburb on both sides of the route; suggesting that 68the modern roman builds only as far from the center of the city as his view of it remains unimpaired. countless multitudes have caught their first glimpse of rome from this low hilltop. before the days of railways, pilgrims journeyed from civita vecchia, on the coast, by this same road—millions of them on foot, and entered the city by this massive western gateway. through the portal poured a steady stream of peasants, on wagons, carts, donkeys, and afoot, checked by officers of the octroi, who ran long lances through bales and baskets of farm produce. i joined the surging bedlam and was swept within the walls.
early that afternoon i made my way across the tiber and through the narrow streets of the borgo to the square before st. peter’s. about the papal residence the carriages of le beau monde kept up continual procession. i threaded my way towards the entrance to the vatican galleries, though with little hope that one who had been taken for a beggar in the miserable villages of the apennines could get beyond the door. at the base of the stairway a swiss guard, resplendent in that red and yellow uniform which michael angelo is accused of having perpetrated, raised his javelin and accosted me in german:—
“sorry, landsmann, but the galleries are just closing; it is one o’clock.”
taking the speech as a polite way of saying that tramps were not admitted, i turned away. another glance, however, showed that visitors really were leaving, and a “hist” from behind called me back. the guard, glancing around to see if he were observed by the other servants of the holy father, leaned on his lance and inquired in a low voice:—
“how’s business on the road these days?”
he had, it turned out, once been a penniless wanderer in nearly every corner of the continent. for some time we chatted in the jargon of “the road,” that language made up of a mixture of slang and gestures that one can learn only by tramping the highways of europe. the guard smiled reminiscently at each mention of the rendezvous of vagrants to the north, and, having heard such bits of news from the field of action as i could give him, carefully outlined for me the various “grafts” of the roman fraternity. a companion in office called to him from the top of the steps and he hurried away with the parting injunction:—
“come to-morrow, mein lieber, early, if you want to see the galleries.”
when i had inspected the interior of st. peter’s i sought out the 69rendezvous to which the guard had directed me. a dozen birds of passage around the wine-tables greeted my entrance in several languages:—
“ha! en voilà un de plus!”
“woher, landsmann? was gibt’s neues?”
“y que tal la carretera, hombre?”
“madre di dio, amico, che fa caldo! vuoi bere?”
i sipped the glass of wine offered by the italian—to have drunk it all would have been “bad form”—and sat down to give an account of myself.
“aber du bist kein deutscher?” cried a grizzled vagabond, when i had finished.
“amerikaner,” i replied.
“american!” shouted the band, in a chorus in which european tongues ran riot, “why, there is another american knocking about town. he’ll drop in before long; meanwhile, have a drink.”
i waited impatiently, for months had passed since i had spoken with a fellow countryman. in the course of a half-hour there strolled in a swarthy specimen of the genus vagabundus, attired in a ragged misfit.
“ach! du amerikaner!” cried the chorus. “here is a countryman of yours.”
i accosted the newcomer. “how are you, jack?”
he took place on a bench, stared at me a moment, and demanded, in italian:—
“what country are you from?”
“dei stati uniti,” i replied. “but they told me you were an american, too.”
“certainly i am an american!” he shouted, indignantly. “i come from buenos ayres.”
it had been my custom to ramble at random through the cities of europe, visiting the points of special interest as i chanced upon them. the topography of rome, however, is not of the simplest, and, having picked up a guidebook for a few soldi in a second-hand stall, i set out dutifully to follow its lead through the city. it was a work in italian, published for the use of roman catholic pilgrims. for two days it led me a merry chase among the churches and chapels of rome, calling attention here to the statue of a saint, the bronze foot of which had been kissed into a shapeless mass by devout pellegrini; there to a shrine in which was enclosed the second bone of the third finger of the right hand of some martyr or pope, or a splinter of the true cross 70that had miraculously found its way to rome. but as i hurried from chapel to church and from church to chapel i became suspicious of the profound silence of the book’s author, a father guiseppe somebody, on the subject of the monuments of ancient rome. having therein more interest than in martyrs’ bones and kissed statues, i sat down on the steps of the forty-ninth church, and turned over the leaves in search of reference to the old-time edifices. page after page the nomenclature of churches and chapels continued, interspersed with descriptions of more finger-bones and splinters; but, up to the last leaf, not a word of ante-christian rome and its ruins. on the final page, in a footnote, the devout author expressed himself as follows:—
“there are in rome, besides all the blessed relics and holy places we have pointed out to the pilgrim, certain ruins and monuments of the days previous to the coming of our holy saviour. the faithful, however, will take care not to defile themselves by visiting these remnants of unholy pagan and heathen rome.”
i sold the “pilgrims’ guide” for the price of a bottle of wine and set out to explore the city after my own fashion.
c?sar, for some reason, has not seen fit to inform posterity whether he patronized the “colosseum tonsorial parlors,” or carried his own razor. if he sallied forth for his daily scrape, times were different then; for, had the conqueror of the gauls had at hand such barbers as modern rome harbors he would certainly have turned vercingetorix over to their tender mercies instead of subjecting him to the mild punishment of an underground dungeon.
there was a shop not far from the wayfarers’ retreat in the borgo. recalling painful experiences elsewhere in the peninsula, i avoided it as long as possible, but there came a day when i must sneak inside and take a seat. that, to begin with, was a mere chair, a decidedly rickety one that squeaked and writhed under me as if afraid, like myself, of the scowling proprietor, who stropped his razor in the far corner. by and by he laid the weapon aside, and picking up a small milk-pan, retreated to the back of the room. the only mirror in the establishment being some five inches square, there was no means of knowing what game he indulged in during a prolonged absence.
i had all but fallen asleep, stretched like a suspension bridge between the chair and the wooden box that did duty as foot-rest, when the barber, approaching stealthily, slapped me suddenly and emphatically on the point of the chin with the brush of a defunct or bankrupt billposter. the blow was nothing compared with the temperature of the 71splash of lather that accompanied it. the cold chills set the ends of my toes tingling. there ensued a lathering of which no american so fortunate as to have spent all his days in the land of his first milk-bottle can form a conception. from ear to ear, from adam’s apple well up my nostrils, that icy lather was slapped and rubbed in with the paste-brush and the rasp-like palm of the manipulator, until my first notion that this thorough soaping was to lighten the work with the razor was succeeded by the fear that my torturer had decided to dispense with that instrument entirely. when he had covered all my face but one eye, the barber laid aside his brush, strolled to the door, and stood with his arms akimbo, evidently to give his biceps time to recover from their strenuous exertions.
a fellow-townsman sauntered by, and the two fell into a discussion that involved, not the batting averages of the major league, but the advance of a half-cent a liter in the price of wine. the lye on my face began to draw and tingle, the chair groaned under me, and still the dispute raged at the door. fortunately, the townsman was called away before it was settled. the barber gazed after his retreating form, hummed an opera air in sotto voce, and glanced at the sky for signs of a storm. then he turned slowly around, stared frowningly at me for several moments in an effort to recall how a man all soaped and ready for the razor had gotten into his establishment, and, with a sigh of regret at the task before him, hunted up the razor, stropped it again as if it had lain unused for six months, and fell to. a hack at one side of my face razed at least a dozen hairs. the torturer changed his mind concerning the point of attack and transferred his efforts to the other side—with no gratifying success, however. he began once more, this time at the point of the chin, worked his way upward by a series of cuts and slashes, and, having removed from my face most of the skin, a fair share of the lather, and even some of the stubble, stepped back to survey his handiwork.
“here, you’re not finished!” i cried, pointing to my upper lip.
“what! shave your lip?”
“certainly.”
“but why?”
“because i want it shaved.”
“santissima madonna!” he gasped, making several passes before a chromo print of the virgin on the back wall. “here is a man who wants the upper lip of a woman!”
however, having called the lady’s attention to his innocence, he 72shaved the lip and relieved an anxiety under which i had labored since entering the shop. for, many a barber of italy had refused point-blank to undertake any such unprecedented defilement of the human face, and driven me forth with a nascent moustache in spite of my protests.
nearly a week after my arrival in the capital i turned southward again, on the highway to naples. for three days the route led through a territory packed with ragged, half-starved people, who toiled incessantly from the first peep of the sun to the last waver of twilight, and crawled away into some foul hole during the hours of darkness. the inhabitants of this famished section bore little resemblance to the people of the north. shopkeepers snarled at their customers, the “shortchange racket” was always in evidence, false coins of the smallest denomination abounded—fancy “shoving the queer” with nickels—and, had not my appearance been quite in keeping with that of the natives, i should certainly have won the attention of those who live by violence.
there were other difficulties unknown in the north. the language changed rapidly. the literary tongue, spoken in florence and siena, was almost foreign here. a word learned in one hamlet was incomprehensible in another a half-day distant. the villages, almost without exception, were perched at the summits of the most inaccessible hills, up which each day’s walk ended with a weary climb by steep paths of rubble that rolled underfoot.
i found lodging at the wayside only on my fourth day out of rome, in a building that was one-fourth inn and three-fourths stable. the keeper, his wife, and a litter of children had scarcely enough wardrobe between them to have completely clothed the smallest urchin. all were barefooted, their feet spread out nearly as wide as they were long, the thick callous of the soles split and cracked up the sides like the hoofs of horses that had long gone unshod. the wife and several of her brood lay on a heap of chaff in a corner of the room reserved for humans. the father sat on a stool, bouncing the bambino up and down on his unspeakable feet; another child squatted on the top of the four-legged board that served as table and, in awe of the new arrival, alternately handled his toes and thrust his fingers in his mouth.
“you have lodgings for travelers?” i inquired.
“yes,” growled the proprietor.
“how much for a bed?”
73“two cents.”
i was skeptical and demanded to see the lodging that could be had at such a price.
“giovanni!” bawled the head of the charming band, “bring in the bed!”
a moth-eaten youth threw open the back door and fired at my feet a dirty grain-sack, filled with crumpled straw that peeped out here and there.
when i had smoked a final pipe, the father bawled once more to his first-born and motioned to me to take up my bed and walk. i followed the youth across a stable yard towards a wing of the building, picking my way between the heaps of offal by the light of the feeble torch he carried. giovanni waded inside, pointed out to me a long, narrow manger of slats, and fled, leaving me alone with the problem of how to repose nearly six feet of body on three feet of stuffed grain-sack. i tried every combination that ingenuity and some not entirely different experiences could suggest, but concluded at last to sleep on the bare slats and use the sack as a pillow.
i had just begun to doze, when an outer door opened and let in a great draught of night air, closely followed by a flock of sheep that quickly filled the stable to overflowing. some of the animals attempted to overflow into the manger, sprang back when they found it already occupied, and made known their discovery to their companions by a long series of “baas.” the information awakened a truly italian curiosity. the sheep organized a procession and the whole band filed by the manger, every animal poking its nose through the slats for a sniff. this formality over, each of the flock expressed a personal opinion of my presence in trembling, nerve-racking bleats, which discussion had by no means ended, when the youth came to inform me that it was morning and carried off my bed, fearful, no doubt, of my absconding with that valuable ameublement.
in spite of the bruises on the salient points of my anatomy, i plodded on at a good pace, hoping, with this early start, to reach naples before the day was done. two pairs of gendarmes, who halted me for long interviews, made the attempt useless, however; and i was still in the country when the gloom, settling down like fog, drove into the highway bands of fatigued humans and four-footed beasts, toiling homeward. the route descended, the intervening fields between squalid villages grew shorter and shorter, finally giving way entirely to an unbroken 74row of stone houses that shut in the highway. the bands of homing peasants increased to a stream of humanity against which i struggled to make my way.
swept into the backwater of the human current, i cornered a workman and inquired for naples.
“napoli! ma! this is napoli!” he bellowed, shoving me aside.
i plunged on, certain that a descending road must lead to the harbor and its sailors’ lodgings. ragged, sullen-visaged laborers, now and then an unsoaped female, swept against me. donkeys laden and unladen protested against the goads of their cursing masters. heavy ox-carts, massive wagons, an occasional horseman, fought their way up the acclivity, amid a bedlam of shrill shouts, roaring oaths, the strident yee-hawing of asses, the rumble of wheels on cobblestones, the snap of whips, the resounding whack of cudgels; and before and behind a bawling multitude filled the scene that resembled nothing more nearly than the hurried flight of its diabolical inhabitants from that inferno which the florentine has pictured. it was long after my first inquiry for “napoli” that i reached level streets and was dragged into a dismal hovel by a boarding-house runner. fifty-five days had passed since my departure from paris, thirty-four of which had been spent in walking.
if there is a spot of similar size in the civilized world that houses more rascals, knaves, and degenerates than naples, it has successfully hidden its iniquities. the struggle for existence in this densely packed section of the peninsula has driven its lower classes in one of two directions: they have become stolid, unthinking brutes or incorrigible rogues. even those who, by day, are employed at professions considered honorable and remunerative among us, spend their nights and idle hours as agents of every species of business and deception to be found in congested centers. every steamship office, every restaurant, every hotel, shop, gambling den, or house of prostitution has its scores of “runners” to entice the stranger or unwary citizen within its doors. we have “runners” in america, but these procurers that fight for a meager percentage in naples are not merely the dregs of city life; even the man who has left his telegraph instrument or bookkeeper’s stool during the afternoon prowls through the dark streets in quest of a stray soldo. the barber roams at large to drag into his shop those whose faces show need of his services; the merchant stands before his door and bawls and beckons to the passing throng like a side-show barker; the ticket-agent tramps up and down the wharves striving to sell passage, at regular price if necessary; at an exorbitant one if possible. 75to cheat is second nature to the neapolitan of the masses. he cheats his playmates as a boy, cheats the shopkeeper at every opportunity, enters business as a man intending to cheat, and sticks to that intention with a persistence worthy a better cause to the end of his days—to be cheated by the undertaker and the priest at the finale of his life of deception and fraud. yet this same naples, corrupt, machiavelian, is, with its environs, the breeding-ground of the vast majority of italians who emigrate to america.
as is usual among poverty-stricken people, gambling is the principal vice of the southern italian. cards and dice are not unknown, but the game that is dearest to the heart of the neapolitan is mora, the counting of fingers. the sharp call of “cinque! tre! otto! tre! dieci!” raised a never-ending hubbub in my lodging house. the sums of money hazarded were not fabulous; but had there been fortunes at stake the game could not have been more fiercely contended. each player, at the beginning of the contest, jabbed his sheath-knife into the bottom of the table within easy reach of his hand, and at every dispute waved it threateningly above his head. a quarrel, one evening, went beyond the point of vociferations. one player emerged from the contest with a slash from nose to chin, and another with an ugly cut in the abdomen. but so ordinary an occurrence was this in the house that a half-hour later the game was raging as loudly as before.
one fine morning, soon after my arrival in naples, i awoke to find myself the possessor of just twenty francs. thus far i had been a tourist; for, if i had spent sparingly, i had given my attention to sightseeing rather than to searching for employment. having squandered in un-riotous living the money intended for photographing, the time had come when i must earn both the living and the photographs.
it had been my intention to ship as a sailor from naples to some point of the near east. the cosmopolitan dock loafers assured me, however, that there was but one port on the mediterranean in which i might hope to sign on, and that was marseilles. the information had come too late, for the fare to marseilles as a deck passenger—and that included no food en route—was twenty-five francs. to be left stranded in naples, however, was a fate to be dreaded. i determined to take passage as far as possible, namely, to genoa, and to make my way as best i could from there to the great french port.
by playing rival runners against each other, i reduced the regular fare of twelve francs to nine francs and a cigar, the stogie being the commission of the runner. with a day left at my disposal i ruined 76my misused shoes among the lava-beds of vesuvius, slept on a park bench to save the price of a lodging, and was rowed out to the lederer sandor, a miserable cargo-steamer hailing from trieste. she did not sail until a full twenty-four hours after the time set, and my stock of bread and dried codfish gave out while we were but halfway to genoa. i had noted, however, that, the ship’s business being chiefly the carrying of freight, little watch was kept on the passengers. upon arrival in the birthplace of columbus, therefore, i purchased a second stock of provisions and returned on board, for it was cheaper to hire a boatman to row me out to the ship than to pay lodgings in the city. among a score of through passengers my presence on board attracted no attention and, knowing that the sandor was to continue along the riviera, i was still seated on one of her hatches when she sailed out of genoa at noon.
we cast anchor next morning at st. maurizio and, in the early afternoon, steamed on towards nice. as we slipped by gleaming monte carlo, and i was beginning to congratulate myself on having made my way thus far in spite of a flat purse, the first mate, a native of trieste, sought me out on deck.
“what is your name?” he asked, in italian, waving in his hand a bundle of tickets, each of which bore the signature of its purchaser.
plainly my ruse was discovered; but, hoping to confuse the discoverer, i answered in english. but to no avail. for this young man, who swore at the sailors in german and cursed longshoremen impartially in italian and french, spoke english almost without an accent. i had barely mentioned my name when he burst out in my own tongue:—
“what are you doing on board? your ticket is only to genoa.”
“yes!” i stammered, “but i want to get to marseilles and i haven’t the price.”
“no fault of ours, is it?” demanded the officer. “your ticket reads genoa. you will have to pay the price from genoa to nice.”
“haven’t got the half of it,” i protested.
the mate stared at me a moment in silence and hurried away to attend to more pressing affairs. whether he forgot my existence purposely or by accident, i know not; he was busy on the bridge until our arrival at nice and, by dropping over the bow to the wharf as dusk fell, i dodged the vigilant eyes of both ship and custom officers and hurried away, once more in “la belle france.”
italian peasants returning from the vineyards to the village
a factory of red roof-tiles near naples. the girl works from daylight to dark for sixteen cents
i rose next morning with a one-franc piece in silver and a five-franc note, both in italian currency. the silver passed as readily as a french 77coin and, fancying the paper would be as eagerly accepted, i did not trouble to change it into coin of the republic before setting out on the hundred and fifty mile tramp to marseilles. the last sou of the silver piece had been spent when i arrived at cannes in the evening. i turned in at an auberge of the famous spa and tendered an italian note in payment for a lodging.
“non d’un chien! we don’t take italian paper!” cried the aubergiste, with great vehemence. “?a ne vaut rien du tout.”
i visited several other inns and such shops as were still open, but the note i could not pass, even at a discount. i found myself in the paradoxical situation of being penniless with money in my pocket. a chill wind blew in from the mediterranean. i sat down on a step out of range of the village lights, but soon fell to shivering and rose to wander on. down on the sandy beach in front of the principal street were drawn up several rowboats. i peered from behind the nearest building until the two officers who patroled the water front had reached the far end of their beats and, scurrying down to the beach, dropped into the shadow of the first skiff. most of the boats were tightly covered with boards or tarpaulins but, creeping on hands and knees from one to another, i found two with coverings that had openings in them large enough to admit a lean and hungry mortal. in the first into which i thrust my head i made out the forms of two gamins, sound asleep. the second was uninhabited. i squirmed my way in and found inside a bed of dirty, but warm reed mats.
scarcely had i fallen asleep when i was awakened by the chatter of hoarse voices and looked up to see an angry face peering at me through the opening.
“eh! dis donc, toi!” growled the possessor of the face. “qu’est-ce que tu fais dans mon lit?”
“ton lit,” i answered, sleepily. “if i got here first, how does it come to be your bed?”
“hein!” snarled the face. “? ’a été mon coucher ces trois mois. bouge toi de là, sinon—” and he drew a finger suggestively across his throat.
at this display of emotion one of his companions outside pulled the speaker away and thrust his own face in at the opening.
“mais, dis donc, mon vieux!” he murmured. “you don’t mean to rob three poor devils of the bed they have slept in for weeks, quoi?”
i admitted the injustice of such action and crawled out to join the three crouching figures in the shadow of the craft.
78“where do you come from?” whispered one of them.
“from nice. i am on the road.”
“quoi!” cried the three, in suppressed chorus, “on the road! then why don’t you go to the gendarmerie?” and they pointed away across the beach to a lighted window.
“they’ll give you a bed for three nights,” went on one of the trio; “we’ve been stowed away there as many times as the law allows or we wouldn’t make our nests here.”
i crouched out of sight until the patrol had passed once more and dashed across the sand towards the lighted window. a door stood ajar; inside, an officer, armed in a way more fitting to a chief of brigands than to the guardian of a peaceful watering-place, leaned back in his chair, puffing at a long italian cigar.
“bien! qu’est-ce qu’il y a?” he demanded, laying the stogie on the table edge and surveying me leisurely from head to foot.
i waved the five-franc piece in the air. “i’m a sailor, walking to marseilles, and the innkeepers won’t accept this.”
“?a!” he cried contemptuously, after examining the bill under the light; “why, that’s italian. no good at all! why do you come to the gendarmerie so late? we can’t let vagabonds into the asile de nuit at this hour.”
“the asile de nuit!” i protested. “i’m not looking for the asile, but for an inn; and i don’t see that i’m a vagabond, with a five-franc note—”
“that’s no good,” he finished, “perhaps not, legally, but—where are your papers?”
i handed over the consular letter and the cattle-boat discharge. the officer studied them a moment as if english were not unknown to him and fell into a reverie.
“american, eh?” he mused, when his dream had ended; “sailor? hum! well, go sit out in the hall until i am relieved and i’ll take you to the asile.”
i sat down against the wall on the flagstone of the entry and fell into a doze from which i was awakened by the entrance of another gendarme, in full armament like his colleague. the latter stepped out a moment later, growled a “viens,” and hurried off through the deserted streets, his sword rattling noisily on the pavement in the silence of the night. i marched close at his heels, wondering what was in store for me; for, though i had often heard roadsters mention the 79vagabond quarters which every city of france maintains, i knew nothing of the institutions at first hand.
five minutes’ walk brought us to a small brick building, at the door of which the gendarme drew out a bunch of gigantic keys and entered. the first door led into a hallway along which the officer walked some ten feet and, with more rattling of keys, opened a second that led into nothing, so far as i could see, but stygian darkness.
“voilà!” he shouted, pushing me past him through the door; “te voilà à l’asile de nuit.”
“but where do i sleep?” i demanded. the darkness was absolute and, at my first step inside the door, i bumped against what appeared to be the edge of a heavy table.
“hein! diable! sleep on the shelf,” snapped the gendarme; then, comprehending that i was unfamiliar with the architectural arrangements of an asile de nuit, he struck a match and by its brief flicker i caught a glimpse of the night asylum of cannes.
it was a room about twenty feet long and seven wide, with a single, strong-barred window at the end facing the street. the entire length of the room ran a sloping wooden shelf, six feet wide and some four feet above the floor at the highest edge, with an alleyway a foot wide between it and the wall behind me. the ledge was occupied by about fifteen as sorry specimens of humanity as it had as yet been my lot to see in one collection. they were packed like spoons, with nothing between their bodies and the twenty-foot bed but their own rags; and each of the fifteen braced his feet against a board projecting some four inches above the lower end of the shelf as if his life depended on keeping in that position.
as the wavering light of the match fell on their faces, a chorus of surly growls burst from the lips of the speakers, and increased to shouts and curses when the gendarme crowded a knee between two of the prostrate forms and exerted his strength to push more closely together the two divisions of the company thus formed.
“sacré bleu, vous!” he bellowed. “bougez vous, donc! here ’s a comrade. do you want all the asile to yourselves, non de dieu!” “crowd in there,” he commanded, pushing me towards the six-inch space which he had opened between two of the sleepers. i crowded in, as per order, but did not succeed in widening the space to any appreciable extent. the gendarme went out, slammed and locked both doors, and left me to listen to the growls and oaths that by no means 80decreased at his exit. the planks, for all i know, may have been soft enough; with all my struggling i could not force the slumberers far enough apart to reach the shelf; and i spent the night lying with one shoulder and one hip on each of my nearest companions, who alternated in turning over and pushing me back and forth between them like a piece of storm-tossed wreckage on the open sea.
the king of theatrical costumers, striving to dress unconventionally the beggar chorus of a comic opera, could have created nothing to equal the garments of the gathering of tramps from the four corners of europe that slid off the shelf with the advent of daylight, and fell to brushing and rearranging their rags as if some improvement in appearance could result from such industry. instinct is so strong in man that, were his only covering a fig-leaf, he would doubtless give it a shake and a pull upon arising, if only in memory of days when his attire was less abbreviated. i rubbed my eyes and waited for some of my companions to make the first move towards the door. but their toilet finished, they sat down one by one on the edge of the shelf as if the desire to get outside the building was the furthest from their thoughts, and fell to exchanging their troubles in at least four languages.
i rose and, climbing over a forest of legs to the door, grasped the knob and was about to give it a yank, when the exit of the officer the night before, with the clang of heavy bolts shot home, came back to memory. i sat down again with the others, and following their example, filled my pipe, as the only consolation left me. nor was one of these outcasts, who told of days of fasting and the bitter pangs of hunger, without his supply of the soothing weed.
traffic was already beginning in the street outside. now and then some facetious passer-by stopped to peer through the bars at us and to sneer: “bah! messieurs les vagabonds. sales bêtes!” others carried their jocosity so far as to toss pebbles and clods of earth in through the grating; to which treatment my companions in misery were powerless to reply, except by spitting out viciously at their tormentors and promising them a summary vengeance when once they were released.
an hour after daylight a gendarme came to unlock the doors. i pushed out with the rest and set off in the direction of marseilles. i had not gone five paces, however, when i heard a shout behind me:
“eh, toi! où est-ce que tu vas comme ?a?”
i turned around in surprise.
81“come along here, you,” roared the officer, and with the rest i filed back to the gendarmerie, the butt of the derisive grimaces of passing urchins.
at headquarters each of us was registered again, as we had been the night before, after which we were permitted to go our several ways. there was no means of changing my wealth into french coin until the banks opened, two hours later. scorning to delay so long, i turned away breakfastless to the westward, convinced that some village banker would come to my assistance by the time france was wide awake. but at high noon i was still plodding on, dizzy with hunger and the fatigue of climbing a low, uninhabited spur of the alps that stretches down to the mediterranean west of cannes, with that infernal italian note still in my pocket. at four in the afternoon i reached the village of fréjus. a merchant, whom i ran to earth after a long search, agreed to accept the likeness of vittore emanuele at a half-franc discount; and i sat down on the village green with an armful of bread and dried herring—my first meal in twenty-eight hours.
i paid, that night, for a flea-bitten lodging in le puget, but concluded next day that the three francs remaining could be better invested in food than in sleeping-quarters. when darkness again overtook me, therefore, i applied for accommodations at the gendarmerie of cuers. the village was too small to boast an asile de nuit, but after long argument i induced the rustic in charge of the town hall to allow me to occupy the solitary cell which the hamlet reserved for the incarceration of its felons. it was a three-cornered hole under the stairway leading to the upper story, and i spent the night in durance vile; for the rustic, for some reason unknown, insisted on locking me in.
next day i pressed steadily onward through a hungry sunday of pouring rain, the mud of the highway oozing in through the expanding holes of my dilapidated shoes. from time to time a facetious innkeeper peered out through the downpour to shout: “hé donc, toi! you don’t know it’s raining, perhaps?” but bent on reaching marseilles before my last coppers had been scattered, i dared not linger to give answer.
late sunday evening is an inconvenient hour to look for the municipal officers of an unimportant french village. back of the central place of le beausset i found the h?tel de ville, a decrepit, one-story building; but i knocked at the back door, the entrée des vagabonds, 82for some time in vain. a passing villager advised me to “go right in.” i opened the door accordingly and stepped inside, only to be driven out again by a series of feminine shrieks before i had an opportunity to make out, in a badly-lighted kitchen, the exact source of the uproar. i sat down in the rain outside the door that had been slammed and bolted behind me and waited.
when the last café had ceased its shouting, another villager, half in uniform, pushed past me and knocked for admittance. certain that he was a gendarme, i followed him inside. at the back of the room, over a stove from which rose tantalizing odors, stood two women who, catching sight of me, deluged the officer with a flood of words.
“here, mon vieux,” he snapped, whirling upon me, “what do you mean by marching into my house and frightening my women out of their wits?”
i excused my conduct on the ground of advice too hastily taken. the gendarme scowled over my papers, tucked them away in a greasy cupboard behind the stove, and turned with me out into the night. the asile was not far distant, and it was unoccupied. the officer set a candle-end on a beam and, bidding me not to set the place on fire and to exchange the key for my papers in the morning, departed. i burrowed deep into the straw with which the shelf was covered and fell to sleep in my water-soaked garments.
short rations and plank beds had left me in no condition to cover in a single day the thirty-five miles between le beausset and marseilles. i found my legs giving way when darkness caught me some distance from the harbor and, having no hope of finding a better lodging, sat down against a tree on an outer boulevard. a bitter wind blew, for it was the last day of october and well north of naples. in the far west of my own country, however, i had learned a trick of great value “on the road.” it is, that a coat thrown over the head is far more protection while sleeping out of doors than when worn in the usual manner. i was, therefore, unmolested as long as the night lasted, no doubt because passers-by saw in my huddled form only a grain-sack dropped by the wayside.
