my life. There is at Naples a garden where those who have determined to kill themselves go. It is called, I believe, il Giardino dei Stranieri , the Garden of Strangers. I do not know if the name has some sinister import or if it was called that long before it began to be put to such deadly use. Well, some two years ago, after Bosie had gone away, I was so cast down by the boredom of leaving the villa at Posilipo, and by the annoyance that some absurd friends in England were giving me, that I felt I could bear no more. Really, I came to wish that I was back in my prisoner’s cell picking oakum. I thought of suicide. Yes! Oscar Wilde, the passionate worshipper at the shrine of life, once contemplated such a thing.’
‘Did you go to this garden with the means of performing the act? What did you take with you? A gun? Prussic acid?’
‘Oh, my dear Ellwood, nothing so vulgarly practical.’ He laughed. ‘I suppose I had a vague notion that someone would be there to sell me the means, just as in pleasure gardens there may be sellers of balloons or ice cream. Incidentally, dear boy, talking of ice cream, they do a Bombe here which is a work of art. It is the Mona Lisa of ices. Shall we indulge, before our cognac?’
We ordered our ices and he continued.
‘It was too far to walk from my hotel in Naples so I determined to take a carriage. I tried any number of drivers, but they refused, even for ready money. They seemed to look upon the act of driving me to my grave as ill-omened. Eventually I secured the services of a villainous old fellow who was prepared to take me there in his dreadful old carrozza for a perfectly ridiculous sum of money.
‘The Garden of Strangers is situated on a little hill overlooking the bay of Naples. I had occasion to reflect that the rather absurd injunction to “see Naples and die” had an ironic appropriateness for me. At any rate the view was, I suppose, as views go, a good one. Personally, I have very little time for views. Views are like women of a certain age: the vaster they are, the less they have to offer. Give me a simple silver-crowned olive tree to contemplate, or a dew drop upon a rose. It is the small things which enlarge the soul.
‘As for the garden itself, I understand that it had once been attached to the villa of a Neapolitan nobleman who, in a fit of misguided philanthropism, had left it upon his death to the Municipality. He had evidently disregarded the universal truth that what belongs to everyone, belongs to nobody; but perhaps his bequest was a subtle act of revenge on the world, for the Marchese di Catalani del Dongo—yes, that was his extravagant name—died by his own hand. It was the old story: unrequited hatred. He could not bear the fact that the friend whose wife he had so callously seduced was still very fond of him. Can you imagine a more cutting insult to an Italian lover? In England and France they do things differently, of course. In France they are realists and know that it is always the lover and not the cuckolded husband who is the true injured party, so they shrug their shoulders. In England respectability is everything: in private you threaten to horsewhip your wife’s lover; in public you take him out onto the golf course and offer him an insulting three stroke advantage. The Italians know nothing of golf: that is the secret of their charm, and the origin of their misfortunes.
‘Well the garden is not a very exciting affair. A few dusty paths wind between overgrown and uncared-for shrubberies. Tall sentinels of cypress—that most melancholy of trees—pierce the sky. There are a number of terraces where one may sit down upon a stone bench to contemplate the view, and, presumably, commit the awful act. So I went and sat down upon one of these.
‘It was a dull evening, thick and oppressive, and I knew that the coming night would be unblessed by stars. I was relieved to see that there was nobody about, nobody living, that is; but I immediately
‘Did you go to this garden with the means of performing the act? What did you take with you? A gun? Prussic acid?’
‘Oh, my dear Ellwood, nothing so vulgarly practical.’ He laughed. ‘I suppose I had a vague notion that someone would be there to sell me the means, just as in pleasure gardens there may be sellers of balloons or ice cream. Incidentally, dear boy, talking of ice cream, they do a Bombe here which is a work of art. It is the Mona Lisa of ices. Shall we indulge, before our cognac?’
We ordered our ices and he continued.
‘It was too far to walk from my hotel in Naples so I determined to take a carriage. I tried any number of drivers, but they refused, even for ready money. They seemed to look upon the act of driving me to my grave as ill-omened. Eventually I secured the services of a villainous old fellow who was prepared to take me there in his dreadful old carrozza for a perfectly ridiculous sum of money.
‘The Garden of Strangers is situated on a little hill overlooking the bay of Naples. I had occasion to reflect that the rather absurd injunction to “see Naples and die” had an ironic appropriateness for me. At any rate the view was, I suppose, as views go, a good one. Personally, I have very little time for views. Views are like women of a certain age: the vaster they are, the less they have to offer. Give me a simple silver-crowned olive tree to contemplate, or a dew drop upon a rose. It is the small things which enlarge the soul.
‘As for the garden itself, I understand that it had once been attached to the villa of a Neapolitan nobleman who, in a fit of misguided philanthropism, had left it upon his death to the Municipality. He had evidently disregarded the universal truth that what belongs to everyone, belongs to nobody; but perhaps his bequest was a subtle act of revenge on the world, for the Marchese di Catalani del Dongo—yes, that was his extravagant name—died by his own hand. It was the old story: unrequited hatred. He could not bear the fact that the friend whose wife he had so callously seduced was still very fond of him. Can you imagine a more cutting insult to an Italian lover? In England and France they do things differently, of course. In France they are realists and know that it is always the lover and not the cuckolded husband who is the true injured party, so they shrug their shoulders. In England respectability is everything: in private you threaten to horsewhip your wife’s lover; in public you take him out onto the golf course and offer him an insulting three stroke advantage. The Italians know nothing of golf: that is the secret of their charm, and the origin of their misfortunes.
‘Well the garden is not a very exciting affair. A few dusty paths wind between overgrown and uncared-for shrubberies. Tall sentinels of cypress—that most melancholy of trees—pierce the sky. There are a number of terraces where one may sit down upon a stone bench to contemplate the view, and, presumably, commit the awful act. So I went and sat down upon one of these.
‘It was a dull evening, thick and oppressive, and I knew that the coming night would be unblessed by stars. I was relieved to see that there was nobody about, nobody living, that is; but I immediately
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