would not have stayed in any case, for the young man had a horror of the sordid, and the best hotel proved, when you counted breakfast, to be cheaper than its second-rate neighbor. Nevertheless, in the circumstances, the move had a significant tone—they hoped to fray, if not to sever, their connection with Mr. Sciarappa, and perhaps also, to tell the truth, to insult him a little. The best hotel, half-requisitioned by the Allied armies, smiled on them with brass and silver insignia, freshly washed summer khaki and blond, straight, water-combed American hair; when Mr. Sciarappa came for cocktails in the same gabardine suit, he looked somehow like a man in prison clothes or the inmate of a mental institution. The young lady, who was the specialist in sentiments, felt toward him sorrow, shame, triumph.
They could not make out what he wanted of them.
Whatever business had, on the train, been hurrying him on to Rome had presumably lost its urgency. He never mentioned it again; indeed, the three spoke very little together, and it was this that gave them that linked and wedded look. During the day he disappeared, except for the luncheon apéritif. He went to Como, to Genoa, and, once, in the Galleria, they saw him with an unshaven, white-haired, morose-looking man whom he introduced as his brother-in-law. In restaurants, he was forever jumping up from the table with a gay little wave of the hand to greet a party that was in the act of vanishing into the dark outdoors. Though he was a man who twitched with sociability, whose conversation was a veritable memo pad of given names, connections, ties, appointments, he seemed to be unknown to the very waiters whom he directed in the insolent style of an old customer. The brother-in-law, who plainly disliked him, and they themselves, whom he hated, were his only friends.
The most remarkable symptom of this hatred, which ate into the conversation leaving acid holes of boredom, which kept him glancing at other tables as though in hope of succor or release, was a tone of unshakable, impolite disbelief. “Ah, I am not such a fool,” his pretty face would almost angrily indicate if they told him that they had spent their morning in the castle-fort of the Sforzas, where beneath the ramparts bombed by the Liberators, a troupe of Italian players with spotlights lent by the American army was preparing to do an American pacifist play. Every statement volunteered by the two friends broke on the edge of Mr. Sciarappa’s contempt like the very thinnest alibi; parks and the public buildings they described to him became as transparent as falsehoods—anyone of any experience knew there were no such places in Milan. When they praised the wicked-looking Filippo Lippi Madonna they had seen in the Sforza Gallery, Mr. Sciarappa and his disaffected brother-in-law, who was supposed to speak no English, exchanged, for the first time, a fraternal, sidewise look: a masterpiece, indeed, their incredulous eyebrows ejaculated—they had heard that story before.
That Mr. Sciarappa should question their professions of enthusiasm was perhaps natural. His own acquaintance with Italy’s artistic treasures seemed distant; they had had the reputation with him of being much admired by English and American tourists; the English and American air-forces, however, had quoted them, as he saw, at a somewhat lower rate. Moreover, it was as if the devaluation of the currency had, for Mr. Sciarappa’s consistent thought, implicated everything Italian; cathedrals, pictures, women had dropped with the lira. He could not imagine that anyone could take these things at their Baedeker valuation, any more than he could imagine that anyone in his right mind would change dollars into lira at the official rate. The two friends soon learned that to praise any Italian product, were it only a bicycle or a child in the street, was an insult to Mr. Sciarappa’s intelligence. They would be silent—and eventually were—but the most
They could not make out what he wanted of them.
Whatever business had, on the train, been hurrying him on to Rome had presumably lost its urgency. He never mentioned it again; indeed, the three spoke very little together, and it was this that gave them that linked and wedded look. During the day he disappeared, except for the luncheon apéritif. He went to Como, to Genoa, and, once, in the Galleria, they saw him with an unshaven, white-haired, morose-looking man whom he introduced as his brother-in-law. In restaurants, he was forever jumping up from the table with a gay little wave of the hand to greet a party that was in the act of vanishing into the dark outdoors. Though he was a man who twitched with sociability, whose conversation was a veritable memo pad of given names, connections, ties, appointments, he seemed to be unknown to the very waiters whom he directed in the insolent style of an old customer. The brother-in-law, who plainly disliked him, and they themselves, whom he hated, were his only friends.
The most remarkable symptom of this hatred, which ate into the conversation leaving acid holes of boredom, which kept him glancing at other tables as though in hope of succor or release, was a tone of unshakable, impolite disbelief. “Ah, I am not such a fool,” his pretty face would almost angrily indicate if they told him that they had spent their morning in the castle-fort of the Sforzas, where beneath the ramparts bombed by the Liberators, a troupe of Italian players with spotlights lent by the American army was preparing to do an American pacifist play. Every statement volunteered by the two friends broke on the edge of Mr. Sciarappa’s contempt like the very thinnest alibi; parks and the public buildings they described to him became as transparent as falsehoods—anyone of any experience knew there were no such places in Milan. When they praised the wicked-looking Filippo Lippi Madonna they had seen in the Sforza Gallery, Mr. Sciarappa and his disaffected brother-in-law, who was supposed to speak no English, exchanged, for the first time, a fraternal, sidewise look: a masterpiece, indeed, their incredulous eyebrows ejaculated—they had heard that story before.
That Mr. Sciarappa should question their professions of enthusiasm was perhaps natural. His own acquaintance with Italy’s artistic treasures seemed distant; they had had the reputation with him of being much admired by English and American tourists; the English and American air-forces, however, had quoted them, as he saw, at a somewhat lower rate. Moreover, it was as if the devaluation of the currency had, for Mr. Sciarappa’s consistent thought, implicated everything Italian; cathedrals, pictures, women had dropped with the lira. He could not imagine that anyone could take these things at their Baedeker valuation, any more than he could imagine that anyone in his right mind would change dollars into lira at the official rate. The two friends soon learned that to praise any Italian product, were it only a bicycle or a child in the street, was an insult to Mr. Sciarappa’s intelligence. They would be silent—and eventually were—but the most
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