A Set of Six

J >> Joseph Conrad >> A Set of Six


Presently, he approached for the third time the man on the garden seat,
still leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. It was a dejected
pose. In the semi-obscurity of the alley his high shirt collar and his
cuffs made small patches of vivid whiteness. The Count said that he had
noticed him getting up brusquely as if to walk away, but almost before
he was aware of it the man stood before him asking in a low, gentle tone
whether the signore would have the kindness to oblige him with a light.

The Count answered this request by a polite "Certainly," and dropped his
hands with the intention of exploring both pockets of his trousers for
the matches.

"I dropped my hands," he said, "but I never put them in my pockets. I
felt a pressure there--"

He put the tip of his finger on a spot close under his breastbone,
the very spot of the human body where a Japanese gentleman begins the
operations of the Harakiri, which is a form of suicide following
upon dishonour, upon an intolerable outrage to the delicacy of one's
feelings.

"I glance down," the Count continued in an awestruck voice, "and what do
I see? A knife! A long knife--"

"You don't mean to say," I exclaimed, amazed, "that you have been held
up like this in the Villa at half-past ten o'clock, within a stone's
throw of a thousand people!"

He nodded several times, staring at me with all his might.

"The clarionet," he declared, solemnly, "was finishing his solo, and I
assure you I could hear every note. Then the band crashed fortissimo,
and that creature rolled its eyes and gnashed its teeth hissing at me
with the greatest ferocity, 'Be silent! No noise or--'"

I could not get over my astonishment.

"What sort of knife was it?" I asked, stupidly.

"A long blade. A stiletto--perhaps a kitchen knife. A long narrow blade.
It gleamed. And his eyes gleamed. His white teeth, too. I could see
them. He was very ferocious. I thought to myself: 'If I hit him he
will kill me.' How could I fight with him? He had the knife and I had
nothing. I am nearly seventy, you know, and that was a young man. I
seemed even to recognize him. The moody young man of the cafe. The young
man I met in the crowd. But I could not tell. There are so many like him
in this country."

The distress of that moment was reflected in his face. I should think
that physically he must have been paralyzed by surprise. His thoughts,
however, remained extremely active. They ranged over every alarming
possibility. The idea of setting up a vigorous shouting for help
occurred to him, too. But he did nothing of the kind, and the reason why
he refrained gave me a good opinion of his mental self-possession. He
saw in a flash that nothing prevented the other from shouting, too.

"That young man might in an instant have thrown away his knife and
pretended I was the aggressor. Why not? He might have said I attacked
him. Why not? It was one incredible story against another! He might
have said anything--bring some dishonouring charge against me--what do
I know? By his dress he was no common robber. He seemed to belong to the
better classes. What could I say? He was an Italian--I am a foreigner.
Of course, I have my passport, and there is our consul--but to be
arrested, dragged at night to the police office like a criminal!"

He shuddered. It was in his character to shrink from scandal, much more
than from mere death. And certainly for many people this would have
always remained--considering certain peculiarities of Neapolitan
manners--a deucedly queer story. The Count was no fool. His belief in
the respectable placidity of life having received this rude shock, he
thought that now anything might happen. But also a notion came into his
head that this young man was perhaps merely an infuriated lunatic.

This was for me the first hint of his attitude towards this adventure.
In his exaggerated delicacy of sentiment he felt that nobody's
self-esteem need be affected by what a madman may choose to do to
one. It became apparent, however, that the Count was to be denied that
consolation. He enlarged upon the abominably savage way in which that
young man rolled his glistening eyes and gnashed his white teeth. The
band was going now through a slow movement of solemn braying by all the
trombones, with deliberately repeated bangs of the big drum.

"But what did you do?" I asked, greatly excited.

"Nothing," answered the Count. "I let my hands hang down very still. I
told him quietly I did not intend making a noise. He snarled like a dog,
then said in an ordinary voice:

"'Vostro portofolio.'"

"So I naturally," continued the Count--and from this point acted the
whole thing in pantomime. Holding me with his eyes, he went through
all the motions of reaching into his inside breast pocket, taking out
a pocket-book, and handing it over. But that young man, still bearing
steadily on the knife, refused to touch it.

He directed the Count to take the money out himself, received it into
his left hand, motioned the pocketbook to be returned to the pocket,
all this being done to the sweet thrilling of flutes and clarionets
sustained by the emotional drone of the hautboys. And the "young man,"
as the Count called him, said: "This seems very little."

"It was, indeed, only 340 or 360 lire," the Count pursued. "I had left
my money in the hotel, as you know. I told him this was all I had on me.
He shook his head impatiently and said:

"'Vostro orologio.'"

The Count gave me the dumb show of pulling out his watch, detaching it.
But, as it happened, the valuable gold half-chronometer he possessed had
been left at a watch-maker's for cleaning. He wore that evening (on a
leather guard) the Waterbury fifty-franc thing he used to take with him
on his fishing expeditions. Perceiving the nature of this booty, the
well-dressed robber made a contemptuous clicking sound with his tongue
like this, "Tse-Ah!" and waved it away hastily. Then, as the Count
was returning the disdained object to his pocket, he demanded with a
threateningly increased pressure of the knife on the epigastrium, by way
of reminder:

"'Vostri anelli.'"

"One of the rings," went on the Count, "was given me many years ago by
my wife; the other is the signet ring of my father. I said, 'No. That
you shall not have!'"

Here the Count reproduced the gesture corresponding to that declaration
by clapping one hand upon the other, and pressing both thus against his
chest. It was touching in its resignation. "That you shall not have,"
he repeated, firmly, and closed his eyes, fully expecting--I don't know
whether I am right in recording that such an unpleasant word had passed
his lips--fully expecting to feel himself being--I really hesitate to
say--being disembowelled by the push of the long, sharp blade resting
murderously against the pit of his stomach--the very seat, in all human
beings, of anguishing sensations.

Great waves of harmony went on flowing from the band.

Suddenly the Count felt the nightmarish pressure removed from the
sensitive spot. He opened his eyes. He was alone. He had heard nothing.
It is probable that "the young man" had departed, with light steps,
some time before, but the sense of the horrid pressure had lingered even
after the knife had gone. A feeling of weakness came over him. He had
just time to stagger to the garden seat. He felt as though he had held
his breath for a long time. He sat all in a heap, panting with the shock
of the reaction.

The band was executing, with immense bravura, the complicated finale. It
ended with a tremendous crash. He heard it unreal and remote, as if his
ears had been stopped, and then the hard clapping of a thousand, more
or less, pairs of hands, like a sudden hail-shower passing away. The
profound silence which succeeded recalled him to himself.

A tramcar resembling a long glass box wherein people sat with their
heads strongly lighted, ran along swiftly within sixty yards of the spot
where he had been robbed. Then another rustled by, and yet another
going the other way. The audience about the band had broken up, and were
entering the alley in small conversing groups. The Count sat up straight
and tried to think calmly of what had happened to him. The vileness
of it took his breath away again. As far as I can make it out he was
disgusted with himself. I do not mean to say with his behaviour. Indeed,
if his pantomimic rendering of it for my information was to be trusted,
it was simply perfect. No, it was not that. He was not ashamed. He
was shocked at being the selected victim, not of robbery so much as of
contempt. His tranquillity had been wantonly desecrated. His lifelong,
kindly nicety of outlook had been defaced.

Nevertheless, at that stage, before the iron had time to sink deep, he
was able to argue himself into comparative equanimity. As his agitation
calmed down somewhat, he became aware that he was frightfully hungry.
Yes, hungry. The sheer emotion had made him simply ravenous. He left the
seat and, after walking for some time, found himself outside the gardens
and before an arrested tramcar, without knowing very well how he came
there. He got in as if in a dream, by a sort of instinct. Fortunately he
found in his trouser pocket a copper to satisfy the conductor. Then
the car stopped, and as everybody was getting out he got out, too. He
recognized the Piazza San Ferdinando, but apparently it did not occur to
him to take a cab and drive to the hotel. He remained in distress on
the Piazza like a lost dog, thinking vaguely of the best way of getting
something to eat at once.

Suddenly he remembered his twenty-franc piece. He explained to me that
he had that piece of French gold for something like three years. He used
to carry it about with him as a sort of reserve in case of accident.
Anybody is liable to have his pocket picked--a quite different thing
from a brazen and insulting robbery.

The monumental arch of the Galleria Umberto faced him at the top of
a noble flight of stairs. He climbed these without loss of time, and
directed his steps towards the Cafe Umberto. All the tables outside
were occupied by a lot of people who were drinking. But as he wanted
something to eat, he went inside into the cafe, which is divided into
aisles by square pillars set all round with long looking-glasses.
The Count sat down on a red plush bench against one of these pillars,
waiting for his risotto. And his mind reverted to his abominable
adventure.

He thought of the moody, well-dressed young man, with whom he had
exchanged glances in the crowd around the bandstand, and who, he felt
confident, was the robber. Would he recognize him again? Doubtless. But
he did not want ever to see him again. The best thing was to forget this
humiliating episode.

The Count looked round anxiously for the coming of his risotto, and,
behold! to the left against the wall--there sat the young man. He was
alone at a table, with a bottle of some sort of wine or syrup and a
carafe of iced water before him. The smooth olive cheeks, the red lips,
the little jet-black moustache turned up gallantly, the fine black eyes
a little heavy and shaded by long eyelashes, that peculiar expression of
cruel discontent to be seen only in the busts of some Roman emperors--it
was he, no doubt at all. But that was a type. The Count looked away
hastily. The young officer over there reading a paper was like that,
too. Same type. Two young men farther away playing draughts also
resembled--

The Count lowered his head with the fear in his heart of being
everlastingly haunted by the vision of that young man. He began to
eat his risotto. Presently he heard the young man on his left call the
waiter in a bad-tempered tone.

At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters
belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with
obsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the
waiters in the Cafe Umberto. The young man muttered something and one
of the waiters walking rapidly to the nearest door called out into the
Galleria: "Pasquale! O! Pasquale!"

Everybody knows Pasquale, the shabby old fellow who, shuffling between
the tables, offers for sale cigars, cigarettes, picture postcards, and
matches to the clients of the cafe. He is in many respects an engaging
scoundrel. The Count saw the grey-haired, unshaven ruffian enter the
cafe, the glass case hanging from his neck by a leather strap, and, at a
word from the waiter, make his shuffling way with a sudden spurt to
the young man's table. The young man was in need of a cigar with which
Pasquale served him fawningly. The old pedlar was going out, when the
Count, on a sudden impulse, beckoned to him.

Pasquale approached, the smile of deferential recognition combining
oddly with the cynical searching expression of his eyes. Leaning his
case on the table, he lifted the glass lid without a word. The Count
took a box of cigarettes and urged by a fearful curiosity, asked as
casually as he could--

"Tell me, Pasquale, who is that young signore sitting over there?"

The other bent over his box confidentially.

"That, Signor Conde," he said, beginning to rearrange his wares busily
and without looking up, "that is a young Cavaliere of a very good family
from Bari. He studies in the University here, and is the chief, capo, of
an association of young men--of very nice young men."

He paused, and then, with mingled discretion and pride of knowledge,
murmured the explanatory word "Camorra" and shut down the lid. "A very
powerful Camorra," he breathed out. "The professors themselves respect
it greatly . . . una lira e cinquanti centesimi, Signor Conde."

Our friend paid with the gold piece. While Pasquale was making up the
change, he observed that the young man, of whom he had heard so much
in a few words, was watching the transaction covertly. After the old
vagabond had withdrawn with a bow, the Count settled with the waiter and
sat still. A numbness, he told me, had come over him.

The young man paid, too, got up, and crossed over, apparently for the
purpose of looking at himself in the mirror set in the pillar nearest to
the Count's seat. He was dressed all in black with a dark green bow tie.
The Count looked round, and was startled by meeting a vicious glance
out of the corners of the other's eyes. The young Cavaliere from Bari
(according to Pasquale; but Pasquale is, of course, an accomplished
liar) went on arranging his tie, settling his hat before the glass, and
meantime he spoke just loud enough to be heard by the Count. He spoke
through his teeth with the most insulting venom of contempt and gazing
straight into the mirror.

"Ah! So you had some gold on you--you old liar--you old birba--you
furfante! But you are not done with me yet."

The fiendishness of his expression vanished like lightning, and he
lounged out of the cafe with a moody, impassive face.

The poor Count, after telling me this last episode, fell back trembling
in his chair. His forehead broke into perspiration. There was a wanton
insolence in the spirit of this outrage which appalled even me. What it
was to the Count's delicacy I won't attempt to guess. I am sure that if
he had been not too refined to do such a blatantly vulgar thing as dying
from apoplexy in a cafe, he would have had a fatal stroke there and
then. All irony apart, my difficulty was to keep him from seeing
the full extent of my commiseration. He shrank from every excessive
sentiment, and my commiseration was practically unbounded. It did not
surprise me to hear that he had been in bed a week. He had got up to
make his arrangements for leaving Southern Italy for good and all.

And the man was convinced that he could not live through a whole year in
any other climate!

No argument of mine had any effect. It was not timidity, though he did
say to me once: "You do not know what a Camorra is, my dear sir. I am
a marked man." He was not afraid of what could be done to him.
His delicate conception of his dignity was defiled by a degrading
experience. He couldn't stand that. No Japanese gentleman, outraged in
his exaggerated sense of honour, could have gone about his preparations
for Hara-kiri with greater resolution. To go home really amounted to
suicide for the poor Count.

There is a saying of Neapolitan patriotism, intended for the information
of foreigners, I presume: "See Naples and then die." Vedi Napoli e poi
mori. It is a saying of excessive vanity, and everything excessive was
abhorrent to the nice moderation of the poor Count. Yet, as I was seeing
him off at the railway station, I thought he was behaving with singular
fidelity to its conceited spirit. Vedi Napoli! . . . He had seen it!
He had seen it with startling thoroughness--and now he was going to
his grave. He was going to it by the train de luxe of the International
Sleeping Car Company, via Trieste and Vienna. As the four long, sombre
coaches pulled out of the station I raised my hat with the solemn
feeling of paying the last tribute of respect to a funeral cortege.
Il Conde's profile, much aged already, glided away from me in stony
immobility, behind the lighted pane of glass--Vedi Napoli e poi mori!