It was not timidity, though he did
say to me once: "You do not know what a Camorra is, my dear sir. I am
a marked man." He was not afraid of what could be done to him.
His delicate conception of his dignity was defiled by a degrading
experience. He couldn't stand that. No Japanese gentleman, outraged in
his exaggerated sense of honour, could have gone about his preparations
for Hara-kiri with greater resolution. To go home really amounted to
suicide for the poor Count.
There is a saying of Neapolitan patriotism, intended for the information
of foreigners, I presume: "See Naples and then die." Vedi Napoli e poi
mori. It is a saying of excessive vanity, and everything excessive was
abhorrent to the nice moderation of the poor Count. Yet, as I was seeing
him off at the railway station, I thought he was behaving with singular
fidelity to its conceited spirit. Vedi Napoli! . . . He had seen it!
He had seen it with startling thoroughness--and now he was going to
his grave. He was going to it by the train de luxe of the International
Sleeping Car Company, via Trieste and Vienna.
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