all the great Italian singers have come from the city of Naples, and gave him a few examples of singers with fine voices that never made the grade because they were bums, and people won't listen to bums. About that, I knew plenty. Then I got off on Mexico, and about that, I guess you can realize I was pretty bitter. I began getting it off my chest. He listened, but pretty soon he stopped me. "Not so fast, lad, not so fast. 'Tis instructive that Caruso came from Naples, as McCormack came from Athlone, and that it was part of his gift, but when you speak so of Mexico, I take exception."
"I say they can't sing because they can't talk."
"They talk soft."
"They talk soft, but they talk on top of their throats--and they've got nothing to say! Listen, you can't spend a third of your life on the dirt floor of an adobe hut, and then expect people to listen to you when you stand up and try to sing Mozart. Why, sit down, you goddam Indian, and--"
"I'm losing patience with you."
"Did you ever hear them sing?"
"I don't know if they can sing, and I don't care. But they're a great people."
"At what? Is there one thing they do well?"
"Life is not all doing. It's part being. They're a great people. The little one in there--"
"She's an exception."
"She's not. She's a typical Mexican, and I should know one when I see her by now. I've been sailing these coasts for fifty years. She speaks soft, and holds herself like the little queen that she is. There's beauty in her."
"I told you, she's an exception."
"There's beauty in them."
"Sure, the whole goddam country is a musical comedy set, if that's what you mean. But when you get past the scenery and the costumes, what then? Under the surface what do you find? Nothing!"
"I don't know what I find. I'm no great hand at words, and it would be hard for me to say what I find. But I find something. And I know this much: If it's beauty I feel, then it must be under the surface, because beauty is always under the surface."
"Under the bedrock, in that hellhole."
"I think much about beauty, sitting alone at night, listening to my wireless, and trying to get the reason of it, and understand how a man like Strauss can put the worst sounds on the surface that ever profaned the night, and yet give me something I can sink my teeth into. This much I know: True beauty has terror in it. Now I shall reply to your contemptuous words about Beethoven. He has terror in him, and your overture writers have not. Fine music they wrote, and after your remarks I shall listen to them with respect. But you can drop a stone into Beethoven, and you will never hear it strike bottom. The eternities and the infinities are in it, and they strike at the soul, like death. You mind what I'm telling you, there is terror in the little one too, and I hope you never forget it in your relations with her."
There wasn't much I could say to that. I had felt the terror in her, God knows. We lit up again, and watched Ensenada turn gray, blue and violet. My cigarettes were all gone by then, and I was smoking his tobacco, and one of his pipes, that he had cleaned out for me on a steam jet in the boiler. Not a hundred feet from the ship a black fin lifted out of the water. It was an ugly thing to see. It was at least thirty inches high, and it didn't zigzag, or cut a V in the water, or any of the things it does in books. It just came up and stayed a few seconds. Then there was the swash of a big tail and it went down.
"Did you see it, lad?"
"God, it was an awful-looking thing, wasn't it?"
"It cleared up for me what I've been trying to say to you. Sit here, now, and look. The water, the surf, the colors on the shore. You think they make the beauty of the tropical sea, aye, lad? They do not. 'Tis the knowledge of what lurks below the surface of it, that awful-looking thing, as you call it, that carries death with every move that it makes. So it is, so it is with all beauty. So it is with Mexico. I hope you never forget it."
***
We
"I say they can't sing because they can't talk."
"They talk soft."
"They talk soft, but they talk on top of their throats--and they've got nothing to say! Listen, you can't spend a third of your life on the dirt floor of an adobe hut, and then expect people to listen to you when you stand up and try to sing Mozart. Why, sit down, you goddam Indian, and--"
"I'm losing patience with you."
"Did you ever hear them sing?"
"I don't know if they can sing, and I don't care. But they're a great people."
"At what? Is there one thing they do well?"
"Life is not all doing. It's part being. They're a great people. The little one in there--"
"She's an exception."
"She's not. She's a typical Mexican, and I should know one when I see her by now. I've been sailing these coasts for fifty years. She speaks soft, and holds herself like the little queen that she is. There's beauty in her."
"I told you, she's an exception."
"There's beauty in them."
"Sure, the whole goddam country is a musical comedy set, if that's what you mean. But when you get past the scenery and the costumes, what then? Under the surface what do you find? Nothing!"
"I don't know what I find. I'm no great hand at words, and it would be hard for me to say what I find. But I find something. And I know this much: If it's beauty I feel, then it must be under the surface, because beauty is always under the surface."
"Under the bedrock, in that hellhole."
"I think much about beauty, sitting alone at night, listening to my wireless, and trying to get the reason of it, and understand how a man like Strauss can put the worst sounds on the surface that ever profaned the night, and yet give me something I can sink my teeth into. This much I know: True beauty has terror in it. Now I shall reply to your contemptuous words about Beethoven. He has terror in him, and your overture writers have not. Fine music they wrote, and after your remarks I shall listen to them with respect. But you can drop a stone into Beethoven, and you will never hear it strike bottom. The eternities and the infinities are in it, and they strike at the soul, like death. You mind what I'm telling you, there is terror in the little one too, and I hope you never forget it in your relations with her."
There wasn't much I could say to that. I had felt the terror in her, God knows. We lit up again, and watched Ensenada turn gray, blue and violet. My cigarettes were all gone by then, and I was smoking his tobacco, and one of his pipes, that he had cleaned out for me on a steam jet in the boiler. Not a hundred feet from the ship a black fin lifted out of the water. It was an ugly thing to see. It was at least thirty inches high, and it didn't zigzag, or cut a V in the water, or any of the things it does in books. It just came up and stayed a few seconds. Then there was the swash of a big tail and it went down.
"Did you see it, lad?"
"God, it was an awful-looking thing, wasn't it?"
"It cleared up for me what I've been trying to say to you. Sit here, now, and look. The water, the surf, the colors on the shore. You think they make the beauty of the tropical sea, aye, lad? They do not. 'Tis the knowledge of what lurks below the surface of it, that awful-looking thing, as you call it, that carries death with every move that it makes. So it is, so it is with all beauty. So it is with Mexico. I hope you never forget it."
***
We
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