Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [120]
We do not have to take such masculine posturing at face value, especially as the speaker was also widely held to be responsible for absconding with some of the funds of a rotating credit association, leaving the principal organizer to face charges of usury; he himself says it was neighbors' gossipy accusations of usury that scared the members away in the first place. His account of his response to the inquisitive police officer is nevertheless revealing of the instability and insecurity that pervades some of the most affable expressions of courtesy, and fairly represents what many men wished they had the freedom to say. It also shows how easily any dealings with authority can undermine an artisan's or a merchant's social standing, and how important it therefore is to deny any such connections.5
Courtesy is valued for its own sake. The merchant who complained about being called racist by a Chinese immigrant explained his reaction in terms of respect-which, he said, he is prepared to show anyone who demonstrates "a minimum of civilization, of sociability." Demonstrations of respect and good style facilitate communication and attest to a shared sense of civilized conduct. They do not necessarily convey benign intentions. Only when the pretenses wear too thin may one drop the veil of polite speech, as when the outraged merchant chased his spying police friend away. This was an explicit rejection of unwanted, false friendship-a too-obvious betrayal, badly performed, of the fundamental social principle of minding one's own business. The ideals of civilta are about performance, good manners, and tact.
But snooping is something that residents actively fear, and not only from officials. Local gossip can lead to official interference; it can also be the mark of an antisocial competitiveness. Although the tactic of "stealing with the eyes" is a socially expected technique for craft apprentices, for example, it can be extended into adulthood with less positive implications. A barber with over four decades of work behind him and a shop that started functioning in 1923) recounted how, in his youth, a friend who was a women's hairdresser would come and pick him up an hour early at his shop-not, as it turned out, to engage in simple conversation, but because "he was stealing my craft from me here." It would have been more honest ~onesto) simply to have asked for instruction, since women's hairdressing involved quite different procedures than did men's, instead of "stealing with his eye" ~rubare coll'occhio).
Friendly civility, which sometimes has less to do with affection than with the choreography of competition, also evokes the glories of a fiercely urban national culture-a culture, we should remember, that has for centuries been steeped in oppressive forms of clientelism, torture, simony, and sumptuous displays of the fruits of sin. A clothing merchant told me that newcomers to Monti were often welcomed with professions of friendship and offers of help but that this simply meant that the old-timers were "seeking to impose their will": "But it's not as though they want to help me, it's that they only want to help themselves!"
Courtesy, which can subtly convey serious threats, conversely may often signify fear and nervousness, which also inflect its forms. One man approaching retirement told me that he preferred to stand in buses, because, while he was accustomed to offering his seat to the truly elderly and, especially, to pregnant women, he also preferred to avoid the offense that this well-intentioned act occasionally caused in modern times. This detail illustrates the uncertainty that still, perhaps more today than ever before, clings to acts of formal deference. It may also be that the Roman Jews' reputation for having a less brusque manner in their dealings with others arose from the constant fear of persecution and their erstwhile dependence on a narrow range of trades.' A local Jewish merchant, attentive to the danger of reinforcing negative stereotypes, told me that he was careful not to accept many offers of coffee but always