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The Floating Press - John Galsworthy

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50 pages

English

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One-time winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, John Galsworthy is best known as a prolific novelist and playwright who created the sweeping historical epic series known as the Forsyte Saga. The Inn of Tranquility collects a representative cross-section of his work, including short stories, essays, and autobiographical recollections.

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775450016
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE INN OF TRANQUILITY
STUDIES AND ESSAYS
* * *
JOHN GALSWORTHY

*

The Inn of Tranquility Studies and Essays First published in 1912 ISBN 978-1-775450-01-6 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
*
The Inn of Tranquillity Magpie Over the Hill Sheep-Shearing Evolution Riding in Mist The Procession A Christian Wind in the Rocks My Distant Relative The Black Godmother
The Inn of Tranquillity
*
Under a burning blue sky, among the pine-trees and junipers, thecypresses and olives of that Odyssean coast, we came one afternoon on apink house bearing the legend: "Osteria di Tranquillita,"; and, partlybecause of the name, and partly because we did not expect to find a houseat all in those goat-haunted groves above the waves, we tarried forcontemplation. To the familiar simplicity of that Italian building therewere not lacking signs of a certain spiritual change, for out of theolive-grove which grew to its very doors a skittle-alley had been formed,and two baby cypress-trees were cut into the effigies of a cock and hen.The song of a gramophone, too, was breaking forth into the air, as itwere the presiding voice of a high and cosmopolitan mind. And, lost inadmiration, we became conscious of the odour of a full-flavoured cigar.Yes—in the skittle-alley a gentleman was standing who wore a bowler hat,a bright brown suit, pink tie, and very yellow boots. His head wasround, his cheeks fat and well-coloured, his lips red and full under ablack moustache, and he was regarding us through very thick andhalf-closed eyelids.
Perceiving him to be the proprietor of the high and cosmopolitan mind, weaccosted him.
"Good-day!" he replied: "I spik English. Been in Amurrica yes."
"You have a lovely place here."
Sweeping a glance over the skittle-alley, he sent forth a long puff ofsmoke; then, turning to my companion (of the politer sex) with the air ofone who has made himself perfect master of a foreign tongue, he smiled,and spoke.
"Too-quiet!"
"Precisely; the name of your inn, perhaps, suggests—"
"I change all that—soon I call it Anglo-American hotel."
"Ah! yes; you are very up-to-date already."
He closed one eye and smiled.
Having passed a few more compliments, we saluted and walked on; and,coming presently to the edge of the cliff, lay down on the thyme and thecrumbled leaf-dust. All the small singing birds had long been shot andeaten; there came to us no sound but that of the waves swimming in on agentle south wind. The wanton creatures seemed stretching out white armsto the land, flying desperately from a sea of such stupendous serenity;and over their bare shoulders their hair floated back, pale in thesunshine. If the air was void of sound, it was full of scent—thatdelicious and enlivening perfume of mingled gum, and herbs, and sweetwood being burned somewhere a long way off; and a silky, golden warmthslanted on to us through the olives and umbrella pines. Large wine-redviolets were growing near. On such a cliff might Theocritus have lain,spinning his songs; on that divine sea Odysseus should have passed. Andwe felt that presently the goat-god must put his head forth from behind arock.
It seemed a little queer that our friend in the bowler hat should moveand breathe within one short flight of a cuckoo from this home of Pan.One could not but at first feelingly remember the old Boer saying: "OGod, what things man sees when he goes out without a gun!" But soon theinfinite incongruity of this juxtaposition began to produce within one acurious eagerness, a sort of half-philosophical delight. It began to seemtoo good, almost too romantic, to be true. To think of the gramophonewedded to the thin sweet singing of the olive leaves in the evening wind;to remember the scent of his rank cigar marrying with this wild incense;to read that enchanted name, "Inn of Tranquillity," and hear the blandand affable remark of the gentleman who owned it—such were, indeed,phenomena to stimulate souls to speculation. And all unconsciously onebegan to justify them by thoughts of the other incongruities ofexistence—the strange, the passionate incongruities of youth and age,wealth and poverty, life and death; the wonderful odd bedfellows of thisworld; all those lurid contrasts which haunt a man's spirit tillsometimes he is ready to cry out: "Rather than live where such things canbe, let me die!"
Like a wild bird tracking through the air, one's meditation wandered on,following that trail of thought, till the chance encounter becamespiritually luminous. That Italian gentleman of the world, with hisbowler hat, his skittle-alley, his gramophone, who had planted himselfdown in this temple of wild harmony, was he not Progress itself—theblind figure with the stomach full of new meats and the brain of rawnotions? Was he not the very embodiment of the wonderful child,Civilisation, so possessed by a new toy each day that she has no time tomaster its use—naive creature lost amid her own discoveries! Was he notthe very symbol of that which was making economists thin, thinkers pale,artists haggard, statesmen bald—the symbol of Indigestion Incarnate!Did he not, delicious, gross, unconscious man, personify beneath hisAmerico-Italian polish all those rank and primitive instincts, whosesatisfaction necessitated the million miseries of his fellows; all thosethick rapacities which stir the hatred of the humane and thin-skinned!And yet, one's meditation could not stop there—it was not convenient tothe heart!
A little above us, among the olive-trees, two blue-clothed peasants, manand woman, were gathering the fruit—from some such couple, no doubt, ourfriend in the bowler hat had sprung; more "virile" and adventurous thanhis brothers, he had not stayed in the home groves, but had gone forth todrink the waters of hustle and commerce, and come back—what he was. Andhe, in turn, would beget children, and having made his pile out of his'Anglo-American hotel' would place those children beyond the coarserinfluences of life, till they became, perhaps, even as our selves, thesalt of the earth, and despised him. And I thought: "I do not despisethose peasants—far from it. I do not despise myself—no more thanreason; why, then, despise my friend in the bowler hat, who is, afterall, but the necessary link between them and me?" I did not despise theolive-trees, the warm sun, the pine scent, all those material thingswhich had made him so thick and strong; I did not despise the golden,tenuous imaginings which the trees and rocks and sea were starting in myown spirit. Why, then, despise the skittle-alley, the gramophone, thoseexpressions of the spirit of my friend in the billy-cock hat? To despisethem was ridiculous!
And suddenly I was visited by a sensation only to be described as a sortof smiling certainty, emanating from, and, as it were, still tinglingwithin every nerve of myself, but yet vibrating harmoniously with theworld around. It was as if I had suddenly seen what was the truth ofthings; not perhaps to anybody else, but at all events to me. And I feltat once tranquil and elated, as when something is met with which rousesand fascinates in a man all his faculties.
"For," I thought, "if it is ridiculous in me to despise my friend—thatperfect marvel of disharmony—it is ridiculous in me to despise anything.If he is a little bit of continuity, as perfectly logical an expressionof a necessary phase or mood of existence as I myself am, then, surely,there is nothing in all the world that is not a little bit of continuity,the expression of a little necessary mood. Yes," I thought, "he and I,and those olive-trees, and this spider on my hand, and everything in theUniverse which has an individual shape, are all fit expressions of theseparate moods of a great underlying Mood or Principle, which must beperfectly adjusted, volving and revolving on itself. For if It did notvolve and revolve on Itself, It would peter out at one end or the other,and the image of this petering out no man with his mental apparatus canconceive. Therefore, one must conclude It to be perfectly adjusted andeverlasting. But if It is perfectly adjusted and everlasting, we are alllittle bits of continuity, and if we are all little bits of continuity itis ridiculous for one of us to despise another. So," I thought, "I havenow proved it from my friend in the billy-cock hat up to the Universe,and from the Universe down, back again to my friend."
And I lay on my back and looked at the sky. It seemed friendly to mythought with its smile, and few white clouds, saffron-tinged like theplumes of a white duck in sunlight. "And yet," I wondered, "though myfriend and I may be equally necessary, I am certainly irritated by him,and shall as certainly continue to be irritated, not only by him, but bya thousand other men and so, with a light heart, you may go on beingirritated with your friend in the bowler hat, you may go on loving thosepeasants and this sky and sea. But, since you have this theory of life,you may not despise any one or any thing, not even a skittle-alley, forthey are all threaded to you, and to despise them would be to blasphemeagainst continuity, and to blaspheme against continuity would be to denyEternity. Love you cannot help, and hate you cannot help; but contemptis—for you—the sovereign idiocy, the irreligious fancy!"
There was a bee weighing down a blossom of thyme close by, and underneaththe stalk a very ugly little centipede. The wild bee, with his littledark bod