Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But it represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his symbol in himself.
Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed. Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose themselves to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this too strong dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of outgoing, of uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world, as the flesh makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set them free to know and serve a greater idea.
The peasants below sat and listened intently, like children who hear and do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held in thrall by the sound of emotion.
But the villagers do not really care for Ibsen. They let it go. On the feast of Epiphany, as a special treat, was given a poetic drama by D'Annunzio, _La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio_--_The Light under the Bushel_.
It is a foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade.
So the audience loved it. After the performance of _Ghosts_ I saw the barber, and he had the curious grey clayey look of an Italian who is cold and depressed. The sterile cold inertia, which the so-called passionate nations know so well, had settled on him, and he went obliterating himself in the street, as if he were cold, dead.
But after the D'Annunzio play he was like a man who has drunk sweet wine and is warm.
'_Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo_!' he said, in tones of intoxicated reverence, when he saw me.
He half-raised his hands, as if to imply the fatuity of the question.
'Ah, but--' he said, 'it was D'Annunzio. The other....'
'That was Ibsen--a great Norwegian,' I said, 'famous all over the world.'
'But you know--D'Annunzio is a poet--oh, beautiful, beautiful!' There was no going beyond this '_bello--bellissimo_'.