The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [317]
of a deeper despair. Not long ago I was in Florence, Italy. Stella and I-are in Europe now and have been since the end of the war. She wanted to come for professional reasons, and I'm in a kind of business I'll soon tell about. Anyway, I was in Florence; I travel all over; a few days before I had been in Sicily where it was warm. Here it was freezing when I arrived; when I came out of the station the mountain stars were barking. The wind called the Tramontana was pouring in. In the morning when I woke, in the Hotel Porta Rossa, just behind the Amo, I felt cold. The maid brought coffee, which warmed me some. Some light shell of old metal in a church tower rung in the swift glossy rush of the free-sight mountain air. I washed with hot water, splashing the wooden floor. It was a comfort on an icy day to go out in a rubbed body, wrapped in a warm coat. I asked the clerk, "What's a good thing to see that I can go out and see in an hour? I have an appointment at noon." I knew this was a very American question, but it happened to be the truth. I won't conceal what the appointment was about. I was acting for Mintouchian in a piece of business and had to contact a man who was arranging to obtain an Italian import license for us so we could unload Army surplus goods bought cheap in Germany. Vitamin pills especially, and other pharmaceutical goods. Mintouchian knew all about this type of speculation and we were making a lot of dough. There was this Florentine uncle of a Rome bigshot I had to pay off, and he was one of these civilized personalities with about five motives to my one. However, I have got the hang of dealing with them by now, and when in doubt I talk to Mintouchian on the transatlantic phone and he tells me what to do. The clerk at the Porta Rossa said, "You can see the gold doors of the Baptistery with the sculptures of Ghiberti." I recollected that that lunatic Basteshaw had spoken of this Ghiberti and so I followed the man's directions to the Piazza del Duomo. Horses were shivering from the cutting wind. Down the cold alleys flames tore from the salamander cans of the people selling chestnuts far in the stone angles of walls and cobblestones. There were not many people by the Baptistery, due to this cold, only a few huddlers with teary eyes who offered souvenirs for sale and were flapping packs of postcards hinged together. I went and looked into the gold panels telling the entire history of humankind. As I stared and these gold heads of our supposedly common fathers and mothers burned in the sun while they told once and for all what they were, an-, old lady came up to explain what they represented, and she began to tell me the story of Joseph, of Jacob wrestling with the Angel, about the flight from Egypt and about the Twelve Apostles. She got everything balled up, for they're not well up on the Bible in Latin countries. And I wanted to be let alone and moved away, but she followed. She carried a stick down which her pocketbook was sliding by the handle and she wore a veil. At last I looked at her face beneath the veil, this aged face of a great lady covered by mange spots and with tarry blemishes on her lips. The fur of her coat was used up and the bald hide broken and crustlike. What she had to say to me was, "Now I'll tell you about these gates. You're an American, aren't you? I'll help you, because you'll never understand things like these without help. I knew many Americans during the war." "You're not an Italian, are you?" I said. She had a German sort of accent. "I'm a Piedmontese," she answered., "Many people tell me I don't speak English like an Italian. I'm not a Nazi, if that's what you're driving at. I'd tell you my name if you knew something about distinguished names, but you probably don't, so why should I pronounce it?" "You're absolutely right. You shouldn't have to tell strangers your name." I walked on, with my face stung by the Tramontana, and applied myself again to the sculptures of the gate. She was after me again on her sprawl feet, but quick. "I don't want a guide," I said, and I took some dough