ESTATE OF POMPEII
197
light and a cock outside," the guide mused, discovering another hori–
zontal emblem in the pavement outside the ex-respectable lupanar.
"Formalities!" He regarded this dislocated and unusual signpost–
perhaps the great-grandfather of all signposts---a moment. "Friend
ask-" he began, "But how to fir.d this-a house? Friend say: go to
fountain thirty paces on left pavement
is
cock pointing. Friend go ..."
he gestured significantly, as if having gone. "Why for this? He goes
in. Very nice, very clean, separate rooms for love and fine garden
where walk around first to get excited...." Signor Salacci was tired
and sat down for a moment on a ruined wall. The abomination of
desolation sitting in the unholy place. "Very dirty streets," he added
as now they started to move on once more. "Contrasts," he said
musingly, "in everything. Roman Empire start-a in Pompeii to-a
going down ... old marbles a-broken," he said sadly. He pointed to
a lone bust, sad in the brilliant sunshine. "A facsimile of Apollo–
exactly the same size but-" he hissed and made a long expression,
"with a lady-face, because the Greeks make everything so sweet and
gentle, but the Romans make everything like
this:"
he drew down
a growth of savage air from his chin, "with beards."
"Roman exaggerations is," he continued after a while, "each
exaggeration in life
is
defeat, and therefore downfalls.... You see,"
he said, pointing out an example of this phenomenon, "Lime is-a
stronger than stone, stones worn out, lime still good. Attention, gentle–
men, the curve!" He guided their steps around a pre-Roman Doric
column. "In Italian we laugh and we say, 'Attention, gentlemen, the
curve.' A pun," he explained. "Curva also mean lost woman...."
They approached a heap of rubble. "Americans drop bombs here.
. . . Americans will drop bomb anywhere," he lamented delightedly.
"Students walking in garden." The Fairhavens looked round but
they didn't see them. "Greek theater, soldier barrack, night theater,
pine trees," he hummed: "Where
is
too much religion
is
perdition,"
he added, "white, red light, and a cock outside. Formalities! See,
modem plumbing." And Roderick reflected, looking at the twisted
pieces of big lead pipes, that once upon a time it was true, the
Romans
did
have modem plumbing.
Until a man has built (or helped to build-for he had helped
the Wildernesses build their house) a house with his own hands,
Roderick thought, he may feel a sense of inferiority before such things
