“Then what a contemptible creature you must be!  If a man knows his weakness, he is inexcusable for not overcoming it.”

“A preposterous contradiction, allow me to say.  A man is what he is, and will be ever the same.  Have you no tincture of philosophy?  You talk as though one could govern fate.”

“And you, very much like the braying jackass in the field there.”

Mallard had a savage satisfaction in breaking all bounds of civility.  He overwhelmed his companion with abuse, revelled in insulting comparisons.  Elgar laughed, and stretched himself on the cushions so as to avoid the wind as much as possible.

They clattered through the streets of Castellammare, pursued by urchins, crying, “Un sordo, signori!” Thence on by the seaside road to Vico Equense, Elgar every now and then shouting his ecstasy at the view.  The hills on this side of the promontory climb, for the most part, softly and slowly upwards, everywhere thickly clad with olives and orange-trees, fig-trees and aloes.  Beyond Vico comes a jutting headland; the road curves round it, clinging close on the hillside, turns inland, and all at once looks down upon the Piano di Sorrento.  Instinctively, the companions rose to their feet, as though any other attitude on the first revelation of such a prospect were irreverent.  It is not really a plain. but a gently rising wide and deep lap, surrounded by lofty mountains and ending at a line of sheer cliffs along the sea-front.  A vast garden planted for Nature’s joy; a pleasance of the gods; a haunt of the spirit of beauty set between sun-smitten crags and the enchanted shore.

“Heaven be praised that you forced me to come!” muttered Elgar, in his choking throat.

Mallard could say nothing.  He had looked upon this scene before, but it affected him none the less.

They drove into the town of Tasso, and to an inn which stood upon the edge of a profound gorge, cloven towards the sea-cliffs.  Sauntering in the yard whilst dinner was made ready, they read an inscription on a homely fountain: 

“Sordibus abstersis, instructo marmore, priscus Fons nitet, et manat gratior unda tibi.”

“Eternal gratitude to our old schoolmasters,” cried Elgar, “who thrashed us through the Eton Latin grammar!  What is Italy to the man who cannot share our feelings as we murmur that distich?  I marvel that I was allowed to learn this heathen tongue.  Had my parents known what it would mean to me, I should never have chanted my hic, haec, hoc.”

He was at his best this afternoon; Mallard could scarcely identify him with the reckless, and sometimes vulgar, spendthrift who had been rushing his way to ruin in London.  His talk abounded in quotation, in literary allusion, in high-spirited jest, in poetical feeling.  When had he read so much?  What a memory he had!  In a world that consisted of but one sex, what a fine fellow he would have been!

“What do you think of my sister?” he asked, a propos of nothing, as they idled about the Capo di Sorrento and on the road to Massa.