Ciccio

“ When he was in his war-paint, for one moment she hated his muscular, handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid and full. The fine sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly. Ciccio’s velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so full and softly powerful, sickened her.
She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing Kishwégin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina—elusive and yet conscious, a distance, and yet a connection. ”

“ As she was doing her hair, she heard the plaintive nasal sound of Ciccio’s mandoline. She looked down the mixed vista of back-yards and little gardens, and was able to catch sight of a portion of Ciccio, who was sitting on a box in the blue-brick yard of his house, bare-headed and in his shirt-sleeves, twitching away at the wailing mandoline. It was not a warm morning, but there was a streak of sunshine. Alvina had noticed that Ciccio did not seem to feel the cold, unless it were a wind or a driving rain. He was playing the wildly-yearning Neapolitan songs, of which Alvina knew nothing. ”

“ Alvina, as she sat at the piano, saw Max tall and blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious and convulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in ordinary dress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves. Ciccio was clutching a property knife.
“Now! None of that! None of that!” said Mr. May, peremptory. But Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite unconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife.
“A dirty Eyetalian,” said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. “They understand nothing.” ”

“ But the sullen watchfulness in her eyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio’s, as he glanced at her, showed another state behind the obviousness of the words. “And Miss Houghton is one of us! Yes? She has united us once more, and so she has become one of us.” Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round white face.
“I should love to be one of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras,” said Alvina.
“Yes—well—why not? Why not become one? Why not? What you say, Ciccio? You can play the piano, perhaps do other things. Perhaps better than Kishwégin. What you say, Ciccio, should she not join us? ”

“ Women shrieked as Ciccio, in his war-paint, wheeled near the pavement. Children screamed and ran. The colliers shouted. Ciccio smiled in his terrifying war-paint, brandished his spear and trotted softly, like a flower on its stem, round to the procession.
Miss Pinnegar and Alvina and James Houghton had come round into Knarborough Road to watch. It was a great moment. Looking along the road they saw all the shopkeepers at their doors, the pavements eager. ”

“ Love is for all, even the grasshoppers. But marriage means a kitchen. That’s how it is. La pauvre demoiselle; c’est malheur pour elle.”
“That’s true,” said Ciccio. “Et aussi pour moi. For me as well.”
“For thee as well, cher! Perhaps—” said Geoffrey, laying his arm on Ciccio’s shoulder, and giving him a sudden hug. They smiled to each other.
“Who knows!” said Ciccio.
“Who knows, truly, my Cic’.”
As they went downstairs to rejoin Alvina, whom they heard playing on the piano in the drawing-room, Geoffrey peeped once more into the big bedroom. ”

“ Ciccio, who had been watching and slightly grinning, here rose to his feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up.
“Basta!” he said. “Tu es saoul. You are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. How are you going to ride to Mansfield, hein?—great beast.”
“Ciccio,” said Geoffrey solemnly. “I love thee, I love thee as a brother, and also more. I love thee as a brother, my Ciccio, as thou knowest. But—” and he puffed fiercely—“I am the slave of Allaye, I am the tame bear of Allaye.”
“Get up,” said Ciccio, “get up! Per bacco! She doesn’t want a tame bear.” He smiled down on his friend. ”

“ He was indifferent.
“Because,” said Alvina gaily, “we can please ourselves what we do, whatever we say. I shall say we think of getting married in the summer, when we know each other better, and going to Italy.”
“Why shall you say all that?” said Ciccio.
“Because I shall have to give some account of myself, or they’ll make me do something I don’t want to do. You might come to the lawyer’s with me, will you? He’s an awfully nice old man. Then he’d believe in you.”
But Ciccio shook his head. ”

“ Lovely, in the lost hollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing with two great white oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wild scrub that bordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered, massive desert and across stream to the other scrubby savage shore, and so up to the high-road. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina would accompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid. And her sense of the beauty of the place was an infinite relief to him.
Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight. ”

“ At length Alvina was called down to dinner. The young men were at table, talking as young men do, not very interestingly. After the meal, Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise vibrate through the house. ”

“ Ciccio too was feasted, in the dark hole of a room. And the two natives seemed to press their cheer on Alvina and Ciccio whole-heartedly.
“How nice they are!” said Alvina when she had left. “They give so freely.”
But Ciccio smiled a wry smile, silent.
“Why do you make a face?” she said.
“It’s because you are a foreigner, and they think you will go away again,” he said.
“But I should have thought that would make them less generous,” she said.
“No. They like to give to foreigners. They don’t like to give to the people here. ”

“ These were days of waiting—horrible days of waiting for Ciccio to be called up. One batch of young men left the village—and there was a lugubrious sort of saturnalia, men and women alike got rather drunk, the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks of distress. Crowds accompanied them to Ossona, whence they were marched towards the railway. ”

“ Louis and Goeffrey followed, lurid, horrid in the face, wearing blankets with stroke after stroke of blazing colour upon their duskiness, and sitting stern, holding their spears: lastly, Ciccio, on his bay horse with a green seat, flickering hither and thither in the rear, his feathers swaying, his horse sweating, his face ghastlily smiling in its war-paint. So they advanced down the grey pallor of Knarborough Road, in the late wintry afternoon. Somewhere the sun was setting, and far overhead was a flush of orange.
“Well I never!” murmured Miss Pinnegar. “Well I never!” ”

“ She was infinitely delicate and attractive. Her braves became glamorous and heroic at once, and magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow which surrounded Kishwégin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now: without war-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and remote. A stranger—and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano, almost in tears. She hated his beauty. ”

“ But tonight they have a little beer. I do not take any myself, because I am afraid of inflaming myself.” She laid her hand on her breast, and took long, uneasy breaths. “I feel it. I feel it here.” She patted her breast. “It makes me afraid for tomorrow. Will you perhaps take a glass of beer? Ciccio, ask for another glass—” Ciccio, at the end of the table, did not rise, but looked round at Alvina as if he presumed there would be no need for him to move. ”

“ The sun came on to the market at about nine o’clock, and then, from the terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderful sight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the black hats of the men, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the pale lovely cattle, the many tethered asses—and she wondered if she would die before she became one with it altogether. It was impossible for her to become one with it altogether. Ciccio would have to take her to England again, or to America. He was always hinting at America. ”

“ But I remember your name, Francesco Marasca, and I remember Pescocalascio.”
Ciccio heard in silence, as they walked the half-empty, Monday-morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina. Some hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at Ciccio. Ciccio however stood aside and turned his back.
“Oh yes,” Alvina said. “I am staying with friends, here and there, for a few weeks. No, I don’t know when I shall be back. Good-bye!”
“You’re looking well, Alvina,” people said to her. “I think you’re looking wonderful. A change does you good.” ”

“ Ciccio is with me. Effie insisted on my coming to see you.”
There was Ciccio climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant! This was too much for her.
“So you came with your valet?” she said, as Ciccio stood with the bag.
“Not a bit,” said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “We’re the best of friends. I don’t carry bags because my heart is rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you better in uniform. Black doesn’t suit you. ”

“ Being a great deal alone, in the strange place, fancies possessed her, people took on strange shapes. Even Ciccio and Pancrazio. And it came that she never wandered far from the house, from her room, after the first months. ”

“ And Mr. May strutted out of the room like a bird bursting with its own rage. Ciccio stood with his hands on the table, listening. They heard Mr. May slam the front door.
“Gone!” said Geoffrey.
Ciccio smiled sneeringly.
“Voyez, un cochon de lait,” said Gigi amply and calmly.
Ciccio sat down in his chair. Geoffrey poured out some beer for him, saying:
“Drink, my Cic’, the bubble has burst, prfff!” And Gigi knocked in his own puffed cheek with his fist. “Allaye, my dear, your health! We are the Tawaras. We are Allaye! We are Pacohuila! We are Walgatchka! Allons! ”

“ Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turned upstream.
“Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense,” his voice floated angrily across the chill darkness.
Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony river-bed, in the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the men crawl upstream with the lantern.
Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! ”

“ Monday passed, and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: and Wednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping their promise—either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their promise? She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her soul was stubborn within her.
On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the Endeavour. Mr. May found James Houghton fainting in the box-office after the performance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina, nor the performance. ”

“ Re-enter the brave Louis—he is angry with Kishwégin—enter the brave Ciccio hauling a bear, apparently dead. Kishwégin examines the bear, Ciccio examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwégin swings the cradle. The prisoner is tripped up—falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the fallen bear. Kishwégin carries food to Ciccio. The two braves converse in dumb show, Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. The men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. ”

“ This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere, Alvina and Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last maize. Suddenly, in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out: the drone of a bagpipe, and a man’s high voice half singing, half yelling a brief verse, at the end of which a wild flourish on some other reedy wood instrument. ”

“ Good-night valiant Geoffrey. Ah Ciccio, do not add to the weight of my heart. Be good braves, all, be brothers in one accord. One little prayer for poor Kishwégin. Good-night!”
After which valediction she slowly climbed the stairs, putting her hand on her knee at each step, with the effort.
“No—no,” she said to Max, who would have followed to her assistance. “Do not come up. No—no!”
Her bedroom was tidy and proper.
“Tonight,” she moaned, “I shan’t be able to see that the boys’ rooms are well in order. They are not to be trusted, no. They need an overseeing eye: especially Ciccio ”

“ And the crumbs of snow were like a speckled veil, faintly drifting the atmosphere and powdering the littered threshold where they stood—a threshold littered with faggots, leaves, straw, fowls and geese and ass droppings, and rag thrown out from the house, and pieces of paper.
The carol suddenly ended, the young man snatched off his hat to Alvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followed by the bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly down the incline between the twiggy wild oaks.
“They will come every day now, till Christmas,” said Ciccio. “They go to every house.” ”

“ But the two brothers did not love Ciccu any better because he had succeeded when they hoped he would have failed, and one day they spoke to the king. ‘It is all very well for Ciccu to have got possession of the sword, but it would have been far more to your majesty’s honour if he had captured the Man-eater himself.’ The king thought upon these words, and at last he said to Ciccu, ‘Ciccu, I shall never rest until you bring me back the Man-eater himself. ”