D. H. Lawrence and Italy: Sketches From Etruscan Places, Sea and Sardinia, Twilight in Italy by D. H. Lawrence & Simonetta de Filippis & Paul Eggert & Mara Kalnins & Michael Frederick Herbert & Tim Parks

Author:D. H. Lawrence & Simonetta de Filippis & Paul Eggert & Mara Kalnins & Michael Frederick Herbert & Tim Parks [Lawrence, D. H. & Filippis, Simonetta de & Eggert, Paul & Kalnins, Mara & Herbert, Michael Frederick & Parks, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141441559
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 1985-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

In dithers a candle, and an elderly, bearded man in gold-coloured corduroys, and an amazing object on a long, long spear. He put the candle on the mantel-ledge, and crouched at the side of the fire, arranging the oak-roots. He peered strangely and fixedly in the fire. And he held up the speared object before our faces.

It was a kid that he had come to roast. But it was a kid opened out, made quite flat, and speared like a flat fan on a long iron stalk. It was a really curious sight. And it must have taken some doing. The whole of the skinned kid was there, the head curled in against a shoulder, the stubby cut ears, the eyes, the teeth, the few hairs of the nostrils: and the feet curled curiously round, like an animal that puts its forepaw over its ducked head: and the hind-legs twisted indescribably up: and all skewered flat-wise upon the long iron rod, so that it was a complete flat pattern. It reminded me intensely of those distorted, slim-limbed, dog-like animals which figure on the old Lombard ornaments, distorted and curiously infolded upon themselves. Celtic illuminations also have these distorted, involuted creatures.

The old man flourished the flat kid like a bannerette, whilst he arranged the fire. Then, in one side of the fireplace wall he poked the point of the rod. He himself crouched on the hearth-end, in the half-shadow at the other end of the fireplace, holding the further end of the long iron rod. The kid was thus extended before the fire, like a hand-screen. And he could spin it round at will.

But the hole in the masonry of the chimney-piece was not satisfactory. The point of the rod kept slipping, and the kid came down against the fire. He muttered and muttered to himself, and tried again. Then at length he reared up the kid-banner whilst he got large stones from a dark corner. He arranged these stones so that the iron point rested on them. He himself sat away on the opposite side of the fireplace, on the shadowy hearth-end, and with queer, spell-bound black eyes and completely immovable face, he watched the flames and the kid, and held the handle end of the rod.

We asked him if the kid was for the evening meal—and he said it was. It would be good! And he said yes, and looked with chagrin at the bit of ash on the meat, where it had slipped. It is a point of honour that it should never touch the ash. Did they do all their meat this way? He said they did. And wasn’t it difficult to put the kid thus on the iron rod? He said it was riot easy, and he eyed the joint closely, and felt one of the forelegs, and muttered that it was not fixed properly.

He spoke with a very soft mutter, hard to catch, and sideways, never to us direct. But his manner was gentle, soft, muttering, reticent, sensitive.