and which, turning its back
to the capital, beholds afar the blue crests of Capri. Nothing could
be simpler or brighter. The brick walls were hung with ivy greener than
emeralds, and enamelled with white bell-flowers; on the ground floor was
a fairly spacious apartment, in which the men slept and the family took
their meals; on the floor above was Nisida's little maidenly room, full
of coolness, shadows, and mystery, and lighted by a single casement that
looked over the gulf; above this room was a terrace of the Italian kind,
the four pillars of which were wreathed with vine branches, while its
vine-clad arbour and wide parapet were overgrown with moss and wild
flowers. A little hedge of hawthorn, which had been respected for ages,
made a kind of rampart around the fisherman's premises, and defended his
house better than deep moats and castellated walls could have done. The
boldest roisterers of the place would have preferred to fight before
the parsonage and in the precincts of the church rather than in front of
Solomon's little enclosure. Otherwise, this was the meeting place of the
whole island. Every evening, precisely at the same hour, the good women
of the neighbourhood came to knit their woollen caps and tell the news.
Groups of little children, naked, brown, and as mischievous as little
imps, sported about, rolling on the grass and throwing handfuls of sand
into the other's eyes, heedless of the risk of blinding, while their
mothers were engrossed in that grave gossip which marks the dwellers in
villages. These gatherings occurred daily before the fisherman's house;
they formed a tacit and almost involuntary homage, consecrated by
custom, and of which no one had ever taken special account; the envy
that rules in small communities would soon have suppressed them. The
influence which old Solomon had over his equals had grown so simply
and naturally, that no one found any fault with it, and it had only
attracted notice when everyone was benefiting by it, like those fine
trees whose growth is only observed when we profit by their shade. If
any dispute arose in the island, the two opponents preferred to abide by
the judgment of the fisherman instead of going before the court; he was
fortunate enough or clever enough to send away both parties satisfied.
He knew what remedies to prescribe better than any physician, for it
seldom happened that he or his had not felt the same ailments, and his
knowledge, founded on persona