Page:Solo (1924).pdf/332

 "This morning, while Germaine stayed in to polish her nails, I rode in a dusty tram-car to the summit of Fiesole. There I saw pointed hills ringed with gardens and stroked with cypresses, and a Roman theatre whose ruined walls were bescribbled with communist slogans. Roses and oranges tranquilly flourished near, as they flourished when the walls were built.

"I also saw a cab-horse whose tail had grown threadbare through long service in swishing off flies, while bracing himself for the ascents of Vallombrosa. His master had tied on a new tail with red ribbon, but it hung motionless from a weary stump. For Dobbin had come to the dispirited conclusion that fine tails do not make fine horses. I have a presentiment that he will lie down on a steep hill and die before the summer flies arrive. Then that luxuriant false tail will be untied and combed and reutilized, and Dobbin will be cast into a pit and covered with earth.  ' Vanitas vanitatum serait bien le fond de tout! ' 

"We've been looking at lovely, long, bent-necked Botticelli virgins, and to-morrow we pack our bags again. Whither is it leading? I've gone far enough on the path of self-realization to know that the life of a man bent on that supreme adventure is like a cake, with highly-flavoured little accidents for raisins, and soft, leavened loneliness for dough. It's baked in an oven of intense meditation, and some one, presumably, will eat of it. Will anyone smack his lips in the eating of my cake? I fear it will be done to a cinder."

"Hotel Helvétia, Rome, February 27, 1924.

"Cold airs are creeping in under the doors of the abode. And just what can be the status of this man who has turned up again—the man with whom she danced in the Kursaal at Geneva? Is he garnishing or dish? A little 'high' I should imagine, whichever."