stems and immense leaves; he was of that blond type which survives perhaps from some Gothic invasion: a skin that tans quickly because of an undercurrent of darkness, but eyes that reflect the sea, and hair that can’t resist the sun – ‘My hair is of three colours,’ he told me proudly; and so it was, darkish at the roots, dust-coloured in the middle, straw-pale on the outer layer. He had the figure of the dancing faun but with something uncouth in hands and feet, the face of a faun but without spite, commingling the Classic and the Barbarian with acute appeal.
He was a very poor boy; his shirts were varied with an irregular openwork where threads had run, his bathing-slip was so much darned that the original wool scarcely held together, and even his best shoes were patched. But he took no account of wealth or poverty, education or ignorance, the cultured or the rustic – such distinctions did not exist for him. He had no fervid convictions, I am sure, on politics or religion, for he lived in a pre social world, a world of the human primary. His strength was in a relation, simple and unabashed, to movement, light, sound and the elements, and in a dawning lyricism.
He said he was a sailor, showing me a document which I could not understand, but which may have been some kind of certificate. He had made several voyages, he even said he was a captain; sometimes he spoke of travel and of his desire to see Lisbon, London and New York, and Rio where one of his brothers lived. Would he ever see them? To him these places were legendary names, cities built again in the life of his phantasy.
He was the son of the gardener; he had three brothers and two sisters living – others were ‘under the earth.’ He could read, though not easily; but when he suggested that we went to bathe from a distant beach, I noticed that he took with him a translation of the Bible. After a plunge in the turbulent surf, he rushed out and threw himself on the blue shingle; then, his ears echoing with Atlantic thunder, lay poring over the calamitous visions of Isaiah. I turned to the Song of Songs and read a few verses aloud: Innocencio seemed delighted. Then each in turn we buried one another up to the neck in the dark volcanic grains of the shore, Innocencio telling me that they contained healing properties and would do me good.
‘I want to marry you,’ he said. ‘We will live for ever in a little house by the sea.’
‘I want a big house,’ I said.
‘I will give it you,’ he cried.
How can one answer such promises? Innocencio’s words were dreams.
‘We will have some children with fair hair,’ he went on. ‘It would be lovely if you had some children.’
At the time I did not know what to say, but have often remembered Innocencio’s dialect version of the song;
Palomita blanca reluciente estrella
Mas chula y mas bella
Qu’un bianco jasmin –
I asked Innocencio about the crater I had seen from the mainland, and the snowy peak I could even now see.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Right in the middle of the island is a huge volcano, a real volcano, quite as active as Vesuvius or Stromboli. It is called the Bed of Empedocles, and the name is true of this mountain, and of no other. We try to keep its activities hidden; we don’t often admit even its existence to anyone from the mainland or even the other islands. When you see a glow in the night sky and ask us what it is, we tell you it’s a fire in the scrub. So it may be, and very likely the olive trees are burning too; but what has started the conflagration? We won’t tell you anything about those seething underground cauldrons that threaten to break through at any moment, and occasionally do so!’
‘What does the pharos say, out there at the end of the jetty?’ I asked.
‘It flashes a message all night through, long after every other lamp is out, but not a message of comfort. Keep away, it says, I am alight, but so is the mountain! Keep away from these dangerous shores. And
He was a very poor boy; his shirts were varied with an irregular openwork where threads had run, his bathing-slip was so much darned that the original wool scarcely held together, and even his best shoes were patched. But he took no account of wealth or poverty, education or ignorance, the cultured or the rustic – such distinctions did not exist for him. He had no fervid convictions, I am sure, on politics or religion, for he lived in a pre social world, a world of the human primary. His strength was in a relation, simple and unabashed, to movement, light, sound and the elements, and in a dawning lyricism.
He said he was a sailor, showing me a document which I could not understand, but which may have been some kind of certificate. He had made several voyages, he even said he was a captain; sometimes he spoke of travel and of his desire to see Lisbon, London and New York, and Rio where one of his brothers lived. Would he ever see them? To him these places were legendary names, cities built again in the life of his phantasy.
He was the son of the gardener; he had three brothers and two sisters living – others were ‘under the earth.’ He could read, though not easily; but when he suggested that we went to bathe from a distant beach, I noticed that he took with him a translation of the Bible. After a plunge in the turbulent surf, he rushed out and threw himself on the blue shingle; then, his ears echoing with Atlantic thunder, lay poring over the calamitous visions of Isaiah. I turned to the Song of Songs and read a few verses aloud: Innocencio seemed delighted. Then each in turn we buried one another up to the neck in the dark volcanic grains of the shore, Innocencio telling me that they contained healing properties and would do me good.
‘I want to marry you,’ he said. ‘We will live for ever in a little house by the sea.’
‘I want a big house,’ I said.
‘I will give it you,’ he cried.
How can one answer such promises? Innocencio’s words were dreams.
‘We will have some children with fair hair,’ he went on. ‘It would be lovely if you had some children.’
At the time I did not know what to say, but have often remembered Innocencio’s dialect version of the song;
Palomita blanca reluciente estrella
Mas chula y mas bella
Qu’un bianco jasmin –
I asked Innocencio about the crater I had seen from the mainland, and the snowy peak I could even now see.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Right in the middle of the island is a huge volcano, a real volcano, quite as active as Vesuvius or Stromboli. It is called the Bed of Empedocles, and the name is true of this mountain, and of no other. We try to keep its activities hidden; we don’t often admit even its existence to anyone from the mainland or even the other islands. When you see a glow in the night sky and ask us what it is, we tell you it’s a fire in the scrub. So it may be, and very likely the olive trees are burning too; but what has started the conflagration? We won’t tell you anything about those seething underground cauldrons that threaten to break through at any moment, and occasionally do so!’
‘What does the pharos say, out there at the end of the jetty?’ I asked.
‘It flashes a message all night through, long after every other lamp is out, but not a message of comfort. Keep away, it says, I am alight, but so is the mountain! Keep away from these dangerous shores. And
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