The Pillars of Hercules

I was writing this, or something like it, at a little place, La Regino, with its chickens on the line, and thinking: In German there is a word, Künstlerschuld, which means “artist’s guilt,” the emotion a painter feels over his frivolity in a world in which people work in a rut that makes them gloomy. Perhaps there is also a sort of traveler’s guilt, from being self-contained, self-indulgent, and passing from one scene to another, brilliant or miserable makes no difference. Did the traveler, doing no observable work, freely moving among settled serious people, get a pang of conscience? I told myself that my writing—this effort of observation—absolved me from any guilt; but of course that was just a feeble excuse. This was pleasure. No guilt, just gratitude.

At Ile-Rousse the deep blue sea, the bluest I had so far seen, was beaten and blown by the west wind, and the sea foam of the whitecaps lay piled like buckets of egg-white whipped into fluff against the beach of the pretty town. It had a snug harbor and a headland and a lighthouse and yet another—there was one in every Corsican town, perhaps obeying a local ordinance—Hôtel Napoleon.

The surf beat against the rocks near the train tracks that ran along the shore, and then in minutes we were at the next town, Calvi.

Some of Corsica’s highest, snowiest mountains lay in sight of the harbor at Calvi, from a table at a harborside restaurant where I was drinking the local wine, a crisp white Figarella made from the Calvi grapes, and reading my Francis Bacon book (“Later, when we were alone … Francis showed me the weals across his back … The masochist is stronger than the sadist …”) and the owner of the restaurant was telling me that Christopher Columbus had been born here in Calvi, which was not true at all, so I had read (some Calvi families by that name gave rise to the myth). I thanked him for the information, and had fish soup that was heartier and more flavorful than in Nice, and rouget—four small red snappers en papillot, whole pink fish on a pink plate, like a surrealist’s lunch.

Apart from this restaurant and the post office and a pair of inexpensive hotels (the Hôtel Grand was closed until April), everything was shut in Calvi, closed and locked and shuttered. Still, I stayed for the novelty of the sight of snow, and the exposed crags in the sunshine. After dark the town twinkled a bit, but it was empty, and the chill in the air and the black sea at its shore gave it a ghostly quality.

Retracing my steps, I returned to the same restaurant that night, had the fish soup again, finished the Bacon book, and then walked around the harbor, looking at the lights over Calvi’s fortress. I passed by the little railway station and saw there was an early train out of here. Life had vanished, disappeared indoors. Walking back towards the harbor, I saw a woman whom I had seen just before sundown. She was perhaps selling something—she had that ready smile, and a ring binder thick with brochures—samples of furniture, maybe, or hotel accessories.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Good evening,” she replied, and she passed into the darkness.

The next sound made me jump, because it erupted behind me, a shrill cautioning voice, saying, “You spoke to that woman.”

It was English but accented.

“How do you know I speak English?”

“I know, I know. You spoke to that woman. You make a mistake. In Corse you never, ever speak to a woman. Never ever, never ever.”

“Why not?” I said, trying to discern this man’s features in the dim light of the harbor’s edge.

“They put a bomb in your car.”

“I don’t have a car,” I said.

“They fight you—they kill you.”

He had been sitting in the shadows, speaking confidently. He got up and came nearer, still nagging. He was young, balding, with a large pale face and an explosive and scolding way of talking. His French accent had something else in it that I could not place.

“You’re English?”

“American,” I said.

“I hate the English.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I never went there. I just hate them. I meet them sometimes. They swear all the time.”

To give me an impression of this, he mimicked an Englishman swearing and it sounded as though he had swallowed something foul and was retching.

“Where do you live?” I ask.

“Nizza,” he said.

Calling Nice “Nizza”—it rhymed with pizza—seemed to indicate that he was Italian; I was sure he was not, yet there was something Mediterranean in his manner, in his irritating certainty.

“And you’re traveling in Corsica.”

“Not just Corse, but all over. And I don’t talk to women, like you just done. I don’t talk to anyone. I keep my mouth like so. These Corse people are giving problems if they don’t like you.”

“How do you know?” It was not that I doubted him, everyone said this; but I wanted some colorful evidence, preferably firsthand.