I, too, have known the joys of travel! I, too, have left the easy slopes of home for the steep ascents of foreign lands! Like many another simpleton, sated with the familiar, I have enthusiastically crossed frontiers in search of that something or other which might give me unexpected sensations.

After being tossed and jolted and bruised in the hard sleeping cars, I have fallen into the hands of porters, or "traegers" or "facchini," who bewildered me with their violent pantomime accompanied by anti-French sounds, obliged me to follow them by going off with my wraps and bags, and after an extortionate charge flung me on to the sympathetically dejected cushions of the hotel omnibus, amid strange companions. Next, a hideous rattling of iron and window glass, while a gold-laced individual asks me simultaneously in three different languages to account for my presence here, and say how I mean to spend my time, telling me in the same breath the great advantage there would be in doing something quite different from what I intend to do. Presently the torture changes. A gigantic porter in an imperial great coat transfers me to silent automata in black broadcloth and white tie, who hand people and luggage from one to the next as far as the elevator. Nothing more remains but to answer the chambermaid's investigations as to my habits and tastes, my theory of existence, while by an error of the hall boy my luggage is scattered in neighbouring rooms, and I am burdened with someone else's. All is finally straightened out. Alone, at last!

Then comes a discreet knock at my door. It is the interpreter, the guide, the cicerone, the indispensable man, who with touching obsequiousness places his universal knowledge at my disposal for to-day, to-morrow, or all time. Here follows a long enumeration of what custom imposes upon the stranger. There is no question of breaking away from tradition. There stand the monuments, and here are the roads leading to them. One may begin the round by one or another. My liberty is limited to the order in which I shall see them. The rest does not concern me. Here is such and such a picture, there stands such and such a piece of statuary. We shall cross the street or the square where such and such an event took place. A date, the year, and month, and day, are supposed to stamp the facts on my memory. Why did the men of the past choose this precise spot to make history? I have no time to inquire, for in three turns of the wheel I am in another and still more memorable place, where other dates and other names are dextrously driven into the quick of my memory. Galleries follow upon galleries, trips to rivers, to mountains. A glimpse of a cool garden tempts me. How sweet to rest there for a while, and dream! But where is one to find the time, when interpreter and coachman are growing impatient because there is no more than time to go to the Carthusian monastery, and get back before nightfall?

The interminable road unfolds before me while I delve into my Baedeker for the history of the monastery. Suddenly the coachman stops, points with his whip at the horizon, and makes an emphatic, incomprehensible speech. A battle was fought there in the time of the Risorgimento. His little cousin's brother-in-law was wounded there, not mortally, though his corporal had his leg cut off. How should one not be proud of such memories? My guide says that his father was fond of telling that he had seen it all from the top of a tower. He begins another version of the story, which is interrupted by our arrival at the monastery, and taken up again on the return journey. Next day in the train I shall have leisure to think over all these things, if the complete confusion in my memory leaves me capacity for anything but stupefaction.

When we try to get at the reason for these extraordinary performances, people offer different explanations. This one will call it "taking a holiday." The other will say that he has had an unhappy love affair and needs distraction. For the most part, people will confess that they are trying to forget something—their wife, their children, their business. All seem tormented by the same desire for novelty. What they are seeking from men and monuments and places in foreign lands is something not yet seen, a fresh enjoyment, a virgin impression which shall draw them outside the circle of outworn sensations. It is something to rouse a happy wonder, and fulfil a hope of pleasure that always keeps ahead of any pleasure experienced. Do they find it? Everyone must answer for himself. Many probably never ask themselves the question, lest they be obliged to confess a weary disappointment.

Before this procession of churches, statues, and pictures, where shall we stop, what shall we try to retain? How shall we disentangle the significance of things, the meaning and power and expressiveness of which can only be grasped by deep study? It would be too simple, if one need merely open one's eyes in order to understand. The work of art speaks, but we must know its language. Not only is time wanting, knowledge of the need of knowledge is wanting in most passers by, who will never do anything but pass by. Their pride is satisfied when they can say: "I have seen." That is the most definite part of their harvest of pleasure. It is apparently a conscientious scruple that obliges them to go out of their way to obtain it.

"I am going to Rome," said a young Englishman to Miss Harriet Martineau, "oh, just so as to be able to say that I have been there."

"Why don't you say so without going?" was the simple reply.

It is upon Italy particularly that the crowd hurls itself. Wherever you may go in that classic land, you will be surrounded by an ever-rising flood of the natives of every known continent, all seeking under new skies for self-renewal. Silent, tired, their eyes straining at invisible things, they file past with their shawls and veils and parasols, levelling field glasses, marking maps, asking senseless questions, and emitting exclamations expressive of an equal admiration for everything they see. I have always pitied these poor people, dragged from their native land by a force which their simple minds are unable to analyze. They will never express their disappointment, most of them will never realize it. But I feel it for them, and I pity their wasted effort.

It was a consolation to me to find one day that there are people who turn homeward satisfied, with the object of their desires attained, and the happiness secured of having seen and felt what it is granted only to a chosen few to see and feel.

I was quite alone on the platform of the bell tower of Torcello, from which the entire Venetian lagoon is visible at a glance. Sea, air, and sky, all luminous and transparent, melted into one another, building a vast dome of light. In the distance, bluish spots—islands, or perhaps clouds—what cared I for names! Do clouds have names? Boats loaded with fruit and vegetables streaked the bright mirror of the sea, and alone reminded one of the reality of the earth. Not a sound. The desert calm of sky and sea imposes silence. The lagoon has no song.

I stood there, as if transfixed in the crystal of the universe, admiring without reflection, when lo!—a group of Germans arriving, led by the fever-shaken cicerone whose aid I had a little earlier refused. Here was his chance for revenge. Immediately, without preamble, he gathers his audience in a circle, and begins to "exhibit" the horizon. With outstretched arms he throws at every point of the compass names, and names, and then more names. From the top of the peaceful tower fly sonorous sounds to the spots where his imperious gesture firmly fastens them. Mountain, island, tower, village, indentations of the coast line, everything has its turn, visible objects and objects that might be visible. Men, women, and children, all Germany hangs upon the lips of the voluble showman. At each name, as if at a military command, all glances follow the pointing finger and take an anxious plunge into space. For one must be sure to see the designated spot. Otherwise what is the good of coming? But as soon as the eyes are settling down to feed upon the sight just announced, a new command drags them all in another direction. That blue line, that white gleam have a name, a history—this is the name, and here is the history. Now let us go on to the next thing.

These people, marvellously disciplined, listen in admiring attitudes. A student is taking notes, so as to impart his learning when he gets home. But the end is not yet. The cicerone, suddenly silent, one hand shielding his eyes, appears hypnotized by something at the horizon. The attitude, the fixed stare, particularly the silence, keep the spectators in suspense. The man has drawn from his pocket a battered opera glass which, possibly, in the last century, contributed to the delight of some noble dame at the Fenice. Its lenses acquire from being dextrously rubbed with an accurately proportioned mixture of saliva and tobacco, and then dried with a handkerchief reminiscent of fish fried in oil, and of polenta, the unique property of making infinitely small objects at the horizon visible—objects smaller than any other optical instrument could enable one to see. The man brandishes the apparatus.

"To-day Giambolo is visible," he says. "I am going to show you Giambolo."

Everyone exclaims joyously: "What! Is it possible? He is going to show us Giambolo!"

And the man on the bell tower of Torcello is as good as his word. Pushing aside the German field glasses with a scornful gesture, he thrusts his precious instrument upon the group.

"Do you see, just above the horizon line, something white that seems to move in a burst of light? Half close your eyes, in order to see farther. By an uncommon piece of luck Giambolo is visible to-day. You cannot help seeing it. I can even see it with my naked eye. But of course I know where to look for it."

The rigid German, ankylosed at his glass, suddenly straightens up.

"Yes, yes, I saw it very well. It is all white, and there is something shining."

"That is it," answers the man of Torcello, satisfied.

Then everyone took his turn. The women all saw it at the very first glance; they even gave detailed descriptions of it. The student alone could not see Giambolo. He confessed it with genuine humiliation, and was looked upon with pitying disdain by all the others.

"What is it like?" he asked of everyone. And everyone gave his own description. There was a slight vapour at the top. A streak at the right, said some, some said at the left; there was nothing of the kind, according to the pater familias who had had the distinction of being the first to see Giambolo.

The unfortunate student tried again and again, and went on exclaiming in despair: "I can see nothing! I can see nothing!"

The Italian shrugged his shoulders with a placid smile, the meaning of which obviously was that some people had not the gift.

"But," cried the exasperated youth, "what is Giambolo, will you tell me? Is there any such thing, really, as Giambolo?"

A unanimous cry of horror went up at this blasphemy. How could one see a thing that did not exist? When half a dozen human beings have in good faith seen Giambolo and are willing to swear before God that they have, no further discussion is possible.

"Then tell me what it is, since you have seen it."

With a gesture the Italian checked all forthcoming answers.

"Giambolo is Giambolo," he pronounced, with imposing solemnity. "One cannot, unless one is mad, argue about it. Only, it is not granted to everyone to see it."

There was evidently on the bell tower of Torcello no one bereft of reason, for silence followed this speech, and no one seemed inclined to dispute a settled fact. Groaning under the weight of his shame, the unfortunate young man who had not seen Giambolo gave the signal for moving on, and the descent was made in the contented repose of mind that attends the happy accomplishment of an act above the common.

On the lowest step, the good Torcellian reaped in his discreetly outstretched cap an abundant harvest of silver coins. It is hardly possible to be niggardly with those who have shown one Giambolo.

A few days later, on the roof of the Milan Cathedral, amid the thick forest of statues which makes the place surprising, I saw a mustachioed guide hurling at the marble multitude augmented by a flock of Cook's tourists the names of the snowy summits composing the Alpine range along the horizon. The memory of Torcello was so recent that I could not but be struck by the identity of the scene. The same motions, same accent, same voluble emphasis. The session was near its end. I was about to pass on, when the man, after a moment's silent scrutiny, drew forth an opera glass through which perhaps, in her day, Malibran was seen at the Scala; he signified by a gesture that he had a supplementary communication to make. All Cook's flock drew near, grave, anxious, open mouthed. Oh, surprise! Like the man of Torcello, the Milanese had caught sight of something not usually to be seen. With an authoritative gesture he called upon the elements to deliver up their mystery, and extending a finger with infallible accuracy toward a point known only to himself, cast upon the wind a name the sonorous vibrations of which spread through space. Was it an illusion? It seemed to me that the name was Giambolo.

Still Giambolo! Giambolo, visible from all heights. And the same scene was enacted as on the lagoon at Venice.

The magical glass passed from hand to hand; exclamations of joy and surprise followed one another. Everybody wished to see and saw Giambolo. They exchanged their impressions.

"Did you see the little puff of vapour?"

"Something white."

"Yes—blue."

"No—gray."

"That is it! You have seen it!"

And there was inexpressible delight. Only a few silent individuals showed by their dejected attitude the humiliation they felt at not being sure of what they had seen, or whether they had seen it. But no one took any notice of this in the tumult of commentary.

I looked at the happy group. Laughing faces, bright eyes, all the weariness of travel wiped out. Some of the women grew quiet, the more consciously to taste their joy. The men, more communicative, exchanged opinions. They had seen Giambolo, and could not get over the wonder of it.

They had not come to Italy in vain. Which opinion was shared by the excellent Lombardy guide, weighing in his palm the money accruing to him from the sight of Giambolo.

A week had passed without any notable event other than meeting everywhere those pilgrim bands who spoil all pleasure in beautiful things by the obsession of their ready-made admirations. From the outer rotunda of the convent in Assisi I was letting my gaze wander over the plain of Umbria, all the world in sight being an expanse of billowing greenness. As if through a trap door a man sprang up at my side, then two, then ten, then what seemed a thousand, for the platform on which I had a moment before been walking alone under the sky was turned into a clamorous ant hill.

Voices on all sides exclaimed: "Here it is! Here is the place from which we can see. Over there, there, the towers of Perugia. And the railway!"

"What! The railway that brought us?"

"Yes, really!"

"How strange!"

"Can you tell me, sir," said a fat man, puffing, "the name of yonder village?"

"No, sir."

"Ah, and that other one?"

"No, sir."

There was a cry. Everyone rushed in the direction whence it came. I feared that someone had fallen over the parapet. Not at all, it was the call of the cicerone who had something to impart. As soon as he had obtained silence:

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began in ringing tones, "the day is exceptionally favourable to show you, far away, beyond Perugia, something which few travellers have had the good fortune to see from here."

The greasy opera glass came into sight, wrapped in a red handkerchief together with cigarettes and divers odds and ends. The entire audience was aquiver with suspense, keen to the point of anguish.

"You shall now see," he cried.

I fled. But I had finally begun to see the philosophy of the phenomenon. In a word, Giambolo was a reality, since it was the thing that all these people came in search of. What exactly was it? There was no advantage in knowing, since, if Giambolo were within reach, all joy in it would be lost. Giambolo stands for that which cannot be grasped. Giambolo stands for the beyond—it is the door leading from the known to the Infinite.

We leave our country, our home and friends, all to whom we give the best of ourselves, all for whom we spend ourselves, and we go to foreign lands in quest of that fascinating Giambolo which we do not find at home, where strangers sometimes come in search of it. We wear ourselves out in the quest. When we reach home again, we claim to have seen it. Sometimes we are not sure of having done so. A monument, a statue, a picture is too close. We can always, taking the word of fame, make believe to discover what we in reality do not. But if we succeed in deceiving others, it is harder in good faith to delude ourselves. Whereas, from a height, through the blurred glass of faith, the little white light, beyond the edge of the visible world, by which we are enabled sincerely to see what we do not see brings us the surest realization of human hope.

And, kind readers, if any one of you ever has any doubts, even though you sit in your armchair at home, follow the advice of the guide on the Venetian lagoon: "Half close your eyes——" and you will see Giambolo.

THE END

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

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