THE announcement that a _principe Americano_ was coming to live in
Villa Vivalanti occasioned no little excitement in the village. Wagons
with furnishings from Rome had been seen to pass on the road below the
town, and the contadini in the wayside vineyards had stopped their work
to stare, and had repeated to each other rumours of the fabulous wealth
this signor _principe_ was said to possess. The furniture they allowed
to pass without much controversy. But they shook their heads dubiously
when two wagons full of flowering trees and shrubs wound up the roadway
toward the villa. This foreigner must be a grasping person—as if there
were not trees enough already in the Sabine hills, that he must bring
out more from Rome!
The dissection of the character of Prince Vivalanti’s new tenant
occupied so much of the people’s time that the spring pruning of the
vineyards came near to being slighted. The fountainhead of all
knowledge on the subject was the landlord of the _Croce d’Oro_. He
himself had had the honour of entertaining their excellencies at
breakfast, on the occasion of their first visit to Castel Vivalanti,
and with unvarying eloquence he nightly recounted the story to an
interested group of loungers in the _trattoria_ kitchen: of how he had
made the omelet without garlic because princes have delicate stomachs
and cannot eat the food one would cook for ordinary men; of how they
had sat at that very table, and the young _signorina principessa_, who
was beautiful as the holy angels in paradise, had told him with her own
lips that it was the best omelet she had ever eaten; and of how they
had paid fifteen lire for their breakfast without so much as a word of
protest, and then of their own accord had given three lire more for
_mancia_]. Eighteen lire. _Corpo di Bacco!_ that was the kind of guests
he wished would drop in every day.
But when Domenico Paterno, the baker of Castel Vivalanti, heard the
story, he shrugged his shoulders and spread out his palms, and asserted
that a prince was a prince all over the world; and that the _Americano_
had allowed himself to be cheated from stupidity, not generosity. For
his part, he thought the devil was the same, whether he talked American
or Italian. But it was reported, on the other hand, that Bianca Rosini
had also talked with the _forestieri_ when she was washing clothes in
the stream. They had stopped their horses to watch the work, and the
signorina had smiled and asked if the water were not cold; for her
part, she was sure American nobles had kind hearts.
Domenico, however, was not to be convinced by any such counter-evidence
as this. ‘Smiles are cheap,’ he returned sceptically. ‘Does any one
know of their giving money?’
No one did know of their giving money, but there were plenty of boys to
testify that they had run by the side of the carriage fully a kilometre
asking for soldi, and the signore had only shaken his head to pay them
for their trouble.
‘_Si, si_, what did I tell you?’ Domenico finished in triumph.
‘American princes are like any others—perhaps a little more stupid,
but for the rest, exactly the same.’
There were no facts at hand to confute such logic.
And one night Domenico appeared at the _Croce d’Oro_ with a fresh piece
of news; his son, Tarquinio, who kept an osteria in Rome, had told the
whole story.
‘His name is Copli—Signor Edoardo Copli—and it is because of
him’—Domenico scowled—‘that I pay for my flour twice the usual price.
When the harvests failed last year, and he saw that wheat was going to
be scarce, he sent to America and he bought all the wheat in the land
and he put it in storehouses. He is holding it there now while the
price goes up—up—up. And when the poor people in Italy get very, very
hungry, and are ready to pay whatever he asks, then perhaps—very
charitably—he will agree to sell. _Già_, that is the truth,’ he
insisted darkly. ‘Everybody knows it in Rome. Doubtless he thinks to
escape from his sin up here in the mountains—but he will see—it will
follow him wherever he goes. _Maché!_ It is the story of the Bad Prince
over again.’
Finally one morning—one Friday morning—some of the children of the
village who were in the habit of loitering on the highway in the hope
of picking up stray soldi, reported that the American’s horses and
carriages had come out from Rome, and that the drivers had stopped at
the inn of _Sant’ Agapito_ and ordered wine like gentlemen. It was
further rumoured that the _principe_ himself intended to follow in the
afternoon. The matter was discussed with considerable interest before
the usual noonday siesta.
‘It is my opinion,’ said Tommaso Ferri, the blacksmith, as he sat in
the baker’s doorway, washing down alternate mouthfuls of bread and
onion with Vivalanti wine—‘it is my opinion that the Signor Americano
must be a very reckless man to venture on so important a journey on
Friday—and particularly in Lent. It is well known that if a poor man
starts for market on Friday, he will break his eggs on the way; and
because a rich man has no eggs to break, is that any reason the _buon
Dio_ should overlook his sin? Things are more just in heaven than on
earth,’ he added solemnly; ‘and in my opinion, if the foreigner comes
to-day, he will not prosper in the villa.’
Domenico nodded approvingly.
‘_Si, si_, Tommaso is right. The Americano has already tempted heaven
far enough in this matter of the wheat, and it will not be the part of
wisdom for him to add to the account. Apoplexies are as likely to fall
on princes as on bakers, and a dead prince is no different from any
other dead man—only that he goes to purgatory.’
It was evident, however, that the foreigner was in truth going to tempt
Fate; for in the afternoon two empty carriages came back from the villa
and turned toward Palestrina, obviously bound for the station. All the
_ragazzi_ of Castel Vivalanti waited on the road to see them pass and
beg for coppers; and it was just as Domenico had foretold: they never
received a single soldo.
The remarks about the _principe Americano_ were not complimentary in
Castel Vivalanti that night; but the little yellow-haired _principino_
was handled more gently. The black-haired little Italian boys told how
he had laughed when they turned somersaults by the side of the
carriage, and how he had cried when his father would not let him throw
soldi; and the general opinion seemed to be that if he died young, he
at least had a chance of paradise.