I came under an even greater debt of gratitude than to Saredo, to the
good-natured people in whose house I lay ill. I was as splendidly
looked after as if I had made it a specified condition that I should be
nursed in case of illness.
My landlady, Maria, especially, was the most careful nurse, and the
best creature in the world, although she had the physiognomy of a
regular Italian criminal, when her face was in repose. The moment she
spoke, however, her features beamed with maternal benevolence. After
the hospital, it was a decided change for the better. I was under no
one's tyranny and did not feel as though I were in prison; I could
complain if my food was bad, and change _trattoria_, when I myself
chose. Everything was good.
As long as I was well, I had taken hardly any notice of the people in
the house, hardly exchanged a word with them; I was out all day, and
either hastily asked them to do my room, or to put a little on the
fire. It was only when I fell ill that I made their acquaintance.
Let me quote from my notes at the time:
Maria is forty, but looks nearly sixty. Her husband is a joiner, a
stout, good-looking man, who works all day for his living, and has a
shop. Then there is Maria's niece, the nineteen-year-old Filomena, a
tall, handsome girl. Every evening they have fine times, laugh, sing,
and play cards. On Sunday evening they go out to the fair (_alla
fiera_) and look at the things without buying. Others have to pay a
lire to go in, but they go in free, as they know some of the people. On
festival occasions Maria wears a silk dress.
There is a crucifix over my bed, an oleograph of the Madonna and child
and a heart, embroidered with gold on white, horribly pierced by the
seven swords of pain, which were supposed to be nails; on the centre of
the heart, you read, partly in Latin, partly in Greek letters: