voice. And a wave of suppressed emotion passed through all these
guileless folk. Each one looked at his neighbour with a point of
interrogation in his eyes; and each one naturally tried to put a certain
ostentatious spontaneity into his laughter.
Said Ciávola: “You must all stand in a row, so that no one can hide
himself.”
When they were all ready he took the bottle and glasses, preparing to
pour out the wine. Ristabilito went to one end of the row, and began
quietly to distribute the _confetti_, which crunched and disappeared in
a moment under the splendid teeth of the rustics. When he reached Mastro
Peppe he handed him one of the pills prepared with aloes, and passed on
without giving any sign.
Mastro Peppe, who till then had been standing staring with his eyes wide
open, intent on surprising the culprit, put the pill into his mouth
almost with gluttonous eagerness and began to chew. Suddenly his cheeks
rose with a sudden movement towards his eyes, the corners of his mouth
and his temples were filled with wrinkles, the skin of his nose was
drawn up into folds, his lower jaw was twisted awry; all his features
formed a pantomimic expression of horror, and a sort of visible shudder
ran down the back of his neck and over his shoulders. Then, suddenly,
since the tongue could not endure the bitterness of the aloes, and a
lump rising in his throat made it simply impossible for him to swallow,
the miserable man was forced to spit.
“Ohé, Mastro Pé, what are you doing?” exclaimed the sharp, harsh voice
of Tulespre dei Passeri, an old goatherd, greenish and shaggy as a swamp
tortoise.
Hearing this, Ristabilito, who had not yet finished distributing the
pills, turned suddenly round. Seeing that La Bravetta was contorting his
features and limbs in agony, he said, with an air of the greatest
benevolence—
“Well, perhaps that one was too much done! Here is another! swallow it,
Peppe!”
And with his finger and thumb he crammed the second aloe-pill into
Peppe’s mouth.
The poor man took it, and, feeling the goatherd’s sharp, malignant eyes
fixed on him, made a supreme effort to overcome his disgust; he neither
chewed nor swallowed the pill, but kept his tongue motionless against
his teeth. But when the aloes began to dissolve, he could bear it no
longer; his lips began to writhe as before, his eyes filled with tears,
which soon overflowed and ran down his cheeks. At last he had to spit
the thing out.
“Ohé, Mastro Pé, and what are you doing _now_?” cried the goatherd
again, with a grin which showed his toothless, whitish gums. “Oh! and
indeed, now, what does this mean?”
All the peasants broke from their ranks and surrounded La Bravetta, some
with laughing derision, others with angry words. The sudden and brutal
revulsions of pride to which the sense of honour of the rustic
population is subject—the implacable rigidity of superstition—now
suddenly exploded in a tempest of abuse.
“What did you make us come here for? To try and lay the blame on us with
a false charm? To cheat us? What for? Thief! liar! son of a dog! etc.,
etc. Would you cheat us? You scoundrel! you thief, you! We are going to
break all your pots and dishes! Thief! son of a dog!” etc., etc., _da
capo_.
Having smashed the bottle and glasses, they went their ways, shouting
back their concluding imprecations from among the poplars.
There remained on the threshing-floor Ciávola, Ristabilito, the geese,
and La Bravetta. The latter, filled with shame, rage, and confusion, and
with his mouth still sore from the bitterness of the aloes, could not
utter a word. Ristabilito, with a refinement of cruelty, stood looking
at him, shaking his head ironically, and tapping the ground with his
foot. Ciávola crowed, with an indescribable mockery in his voice—
“Ah! ah! ah! ah! Bravo, La Bravetta! Now do tell us—how much did you
make by it? Ten ducats?”
_Gabriele d’Annunzio._
_A DAY IN THE COUNTRY._
“It is no use talking, my dear fellow!—there are times when it is simply
impossible to say no. They urge you—they worry you—they lay you under
obligation by so many kind attentions, that a refusal would be an actual
breach of good manners towards people whose only thought is to do you a
kindness.”
You allege business. “Oh!” they reply, “the world will not come to an
end for one day’s absence.” It is too hot? “Come in the morning, when it
is cool.” The village is such a long way from the station? “We will send
the gig for you.” You have engaged to pass the day with a friend? “Bring
him along with you....” In short, I said yes,—and so on Sunday morning I
went and did the deed.
When I had reached the village, and found myself in the midst of a crowd
of peasants coming out from early mass, who looked at me as if I had
been a wild beast, I asked for Signor Cosimo’s house. Eight or ten
people immediately offered to accompany me thither.
“There it is—up there; do you see that house with a little tower on the
top?—that’s it. Do you know Sor Cosimo? Ah! he’s a good gentleman! And
his brother the priest? And his wife, Sora Flavia? She’s a kind lady, so
she is, and gives away ever so much money. And Sora Olimpia, too, Signor
Cosimo’s sister.... She’s one who has her own ideas ... as who should
say that she has such a passion for books that she always has one in her
hands, and has nearly lost her head over them; but afterwards, do you
see? she repeats them all by heart, in a way that no one could believe
it! And she is a good creature too; and, as for her family, when there
is anything to be put on paper, I don’t see how they could ever do
without her.... There used to be Bistino, Sor Cosimo’s eldest son, but
now he is in the seminary at Volterra, and they say that he does them so
much credit there that they won’t even let him come home for the
holidays. There’s a boy for you! When he was at home, and used to help
his uncle the chaplain at his net,[15] the two between them caught more
birds in a day than all the other nets in a week.... Look, sir, you turn
this way and go up hill, and you can’t miss it!”
All this varied information about my hosts, with whom I was already
slightly acquainted, was given me on the way by the peasants, who, each
in turn, vied with the rest in bestowing it on me, till, having escorted
me to the end of a short avenue leading to the villa, they quitted me
with respectful salutations, after asking me whether I required any
servants.
Scarcely had I rung the bell when the door was opened by a youth in his
shirt sleeves, and a white apron tucked into the waistband of his
trousers.
“Is Signor Cosimo in?”
“Oh! yes, sir! Come in, come in! You are that gentleman from Florence
who sent yesterday to say that perhaps he would come to-day—eh?”
“Yes.”
“Come, then, come along! The master said I was to show you into the best
room, and he will come presently. That’s right, sir! You’ve done well to
come. Such a long time as they’ve been talking about you, and expecting
you! Are they all well at Florence? See; come in here and sit down. Will
you excuse me, sir?”
“Go on, go on, my good fellow.”
I went and sat down by the window, and began to turn over an old
photograph album. In the meantime I perceived that my arrival might
truly be said to have created a sensation, since I could hear on the
first floor a great banging of doors and a going and coming of shod and
unshod feet, which caused a thick shower of whitewash to descend from
the ceiling, and the window-panes and the glass shade covering a wax
figure on the sideboard to vibrate as with an earthquake.
After a few minutes I heard a scratching at the door, then a kick
against it; it opened, and I saw a child of about six years, with a
half-eaten apple in his hand. He looked at me with an air of
displeasure, and asked—
“I say, is that your book? You’ve got to put it down at once—if you
don’t, I’ll tell my uncle the priest.”
I laid aside the album, but he continued to look daggers at me.
“Are you that stranger that was to come to-day?”
“Yes, little one.” Affecting a caressing gentleness, in order to
conciliate him, I held out my hand. The small boy retreated two paces,
and showed symptoms of being about to throw the apple at my head.
“Will you keep your hands to yourself? What did you come up here for?”
I was beginning to feel annoyed, and did not answer.
“Yes, yes—father told you to come—I know that well enough; but mother
didn’t want you, because she had to have all those fowls killed. Gostino
is plucking them just now. But you’re going away this evening?... Won’t
you answer? But I hope you are,—because, when mother saw you coming
along the road, she wished you all sorts of bad luck.”...
The door opened, and there appeared, shod in slippers, the magnificent
bulk of Signor Cosimo, who, smiling cordially, clapped his great hands
on my shoulders, saying, three times over, “Bravo, bravo, bravo!” Then,
turning to the small boy, he demanded—
“What are you doing here?”
“Just what I think fit!” replied the infant, who was thereupon expelled
from the room with a tremendous box on the ear, after which his father
turned to me and invited me to be seated.
My eye was at once caught by the grease-spots, and stains of wine and
coffee, which adorned Signor Cosimo’s shirt and trousers. To tell the
truth, I was uncomfortably affected by the sense of a want of
consideration towards myself, but was soon appeased by his apologies for
having kept me waiting, because he had gone upstairs to his own room, to
“clean himself up a bit.”
“Oh! but.... Don’t mention it, Signor Cosimo!”
“Oh! bravo! bravo! bravo! But what a season, eh? Look here, you must be
in need of some refreshment.... Gostino-o-o-o! What are they saying?
What do they say in Florence about the crops?... Bravo! bravo! It is
very good of you to have come; you have given us a regular treat!”
“Did you call, sir?”
“Go upstairs, Gostino, and ask your mistress to give you the keys of the
sideboard, and bring this gentleman some refreshments.” Then to the
child, who had returned in the wake of the servitor, “Go at once and get
your face washed and make yourself fit to be seen.” With that, he boxed
the small boy’s ears a second time, and turned him out of the room.
“And as to fruit, my dear sir, there’s nothing at all this year.”
“Ah!”
“Well, what is one to say? For the last three years it’s clear there has
been witchcraft in it. Just imagine it. I used to put aside four hundred
pounds in a year, and now ... sometimes fifty, sometimes sixty.... And
then, what stuff it is! Every bit worm-eaten! I beg your pardon, but
will you come down into the granary with me? But, no—I hear my brother
coming down; we’ll wait for him.”
“Let us wait for him, by all means.”
“He’s a queer sort of customer, you know—a confirmed grumbler!—but,
after all, a good sort at bottom. The other day, for instance, do you
see——he suffers so much from——”
These preliminaries to the introduction were interrupted by the
appearance of Don Paolo himself, who entered the room with a profound
bow. I rose, and was going to meet him, but he protested.
“No, no, I won’t have it—don’t disturb yourself, sir. If you will excuse
me, I will keep my hat on, as that is my custom. Sit down, sit down,
pray.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Sor Cosimo resumed the
conversation.
“You see, Paolo, this is the gentleman whom we were speaking of——”
“I know! I know! Bless you! can’t you make an end of it? How many times
do you find it necessary to repeat a thing?”
“No—I wanted to tell you——”
“Have you sent for refreshments?”
“I told Gostino. He is just coming.”
“And so you’re from Florence, eh?” asked the chaplain, turning to me.
“At your service.”
“A wretched year, my dear sir! If it does not rain soon we shall never
get any crops to speak of.... A year ago this very day I had taken
fifty-six birds by ten o’clock; and this morning, before I came away to
mass at eight, we had caught three miserable little things, and an
accursed hawk that has half bitten my hand to pieces—look! Are they
taking any at Florence?”
“To tell the truth, I have never asked.”
“Is the Prior of San Gaggio catching any this year?—is he catching any?”
“To my knowledge ... I could not say at all.”
“Ah! because last Friday he sent to tell me that he had not even had the
decoy-cages made. He says that Father Lorenzo della Santissima
Annunziata is not well. Is that true?”
“To tell the truth ... I do not know.”
“What!—do you know nothing, then?”
“I will tell you.... Let us rather speak of yourself. Signor Cosimo was
telling me just now——”
“I must run out for a moment to the net. I say, Cosimo, what time is
dinner?”
“Tell the women to get it at any hour that suits you.”
“Ah! here’s one of them,” said Don Paolo, who was just in the doorway.
“What o’clock do we dine, Flavia?—at twelve?”
Signora Flavia, the wife of my host, bowed her head in assent as she
entered the room, while the chaplain, an unsaluted guest, went off to
his nets. She came to meet me, asked me how I was, said that she was
pleased to hear it before I had time to answer “Well,” and planted
herself in a chair to look at me. Sor Cosimo, upon Whom all the
conversation seemed to devolve, remarked—
“See, Flavia, this is the gentleman who, as I was telling you the other
evening——” Whereupon Sora Flavia began again, _da capo_.
“How are you?—Well?”
“Yes, madam.”
“And your wife?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Remember me to her.” Then, looking at her husband as if to ask him
whether she ought to say any more to me, she relapsed into silence, and
fell to contemplating me again.
Fortunately Signor Cosimo relieved me from the embarrassment of choosing
the subject of conversation by reverting to politics. The Tunis Question
being then at its height, he naturally fell upon it tooth and nail, grew
heated and excited, and blurted out, puffing and blowing, all his ideas
touching foreign politics, concluding with the statement that if he and
his brother the priest had been in the Cabinet, there would not be a
Frenchman in Tunis.... At this point Signora Flavia interrupted him by
asking me if there was any cotton in the material of my coat. I choked
down a burst of laughter, and hazarded the answer that there was not.
“Then it is very dear, is it not?”
“Yes; I think it was seven francs a mètre.”
“Ah! they measure by mètres, do they? It must be good stuff, though.
Just look, Cosimo; you ought to have one made like it——”
“Yes, yes; just like you—always interrupting! We’ll speak of that
afterwards.”... Then, turning to me again—
“Because, if France——” He was just about to recommence the attack on
Tunis when the door opened to admit his sister Olimpia, a maiden lady of
fifty or so, the same whose literary reputation had made so great an
impression on the peasants.
She had on a faded light blue dress, wore a crinoline, and carried a
puce-coloured mantilla over her arm. On her head she had a broad-brimmed
straw hat of a dingy yellow, adorned with a wreath of real ivy, and two
small locks of well-greased hair fell in soft folds on the slightly
roughened skin of her cheeks. In one hand she carried her parasol and a
bunch of lavender; in the other a book, in which she kept her finger to
mark the place. She advanced with ostentatious ease of manner, and
bowed, half-shutting her eyes.
“Sir,” she said, “you are welcome to this modest habitation.”
“A delicious habitation, Signorina, where I should be very sorry to be
troublesome.” She again half-shut her eyes, and smiled on me. Retiring
backwards, as gracefully as she could, she went and sat down with her
back to the window. She was evidently well acquainted with the clumsy
artifices of a very mature young lady.
I was contemplating her with the utmost attention, when I felt a heavy
hand on my shoulder, and Sor Cosimo said to me—
“You ought to hear what poetry this girl writes! Have you got it here,
Olimpia—that sonnet you made last Sunday?”
“That ode, you mean—come!”
“Well, well—sonnet or ode—it’s the same thing. But if you could hear
it—with rhymes, and all! I tell you! Come, let us hear it!”
“Afterwards, Cosimo, afterwards!”
Heaven preserve me! Turning to Signorina Olimpia, who still kept her
finger in her book, I asked—
“What are you reading, may I ask?”
“I am just glancing over Leopardi.”
“Ah! ah!” And Sor Cosimo broke in—
“Fine! fine!—ah! very fine!”
“Are you acquainted with his works, Sor Cosimo?”
“Oh! most certainly! She read it to us last Sunday at dessert, and made
us all cry like babies.”
“No, Cosimo, you do not understand. The gentleman means this book that I
have here.”
“Ah! what! Well, well!... I was speaking of the sonnet. But you shall
hear it afterwards.... And you must repeat that one too that you wrote
when Calamai’s son was made a priest. Oh! _that!_ And then.... But don’t
imagine, sir, that she has only one. She has a whole drawer full, and
you may say that, if one is fine, others are not so bad.... Well, you
shall hear.”
I was eager to hear her opinion of Leopardi, and asked—
“What do you think of this book, Signorina?”
“I will tell you,” she replied. “To say the truth, I have scarcely got
at the bottom of it as yet, ... but, if I must speak sincerely, it seems
to me there is not much interest in it.”
“Ah!”
“Don’t you think so too?”
“Well—yes—in a manner of speaking, yes!”
“If you will allow me to say so, no story is ever finished properly. You
find Consalvo—that, now, is stolen from Tasso, the scene of Clorinda and
Tancred.... Well, you find Consalvo. What then? Consalvo dies, and, at
least as far as I have got, one hears no more of her. And the same thing
with the characters. There is that one of that Nerina; it would be fine
enough, but, good heavens! it is so little developed ... and one does
not know what to make of it...! Do you agree with me?”
“Well ... to tell the truth ...”
“You see, Cosimo, whether or not I was right when we were discussing the
subject the other evening with Signora Amalia.”
“I should think so, indeed!” exclaimed Sor Cosimo, testifying his
approval by a great guffaw of laughter. “Do you mean to say you would
compare yourself with that conceited creature? Let her go for seven
years to school with the Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, as you have
been, and then come and talk to us....”
* * * * *
The amazing literary criticisms of Sor Cosimo and his sister completely
took away my breath. I was relieved from the necessity of answering by
the appearance of Gostino with a bottle and a tray of glasses.
“I am sure you’ll like this wine, sir; you’ll see!” said Gostino as he
poured me out some wine.
“Come, come, Gostino!” said Signorina Olimpia.
“Look sharp, Gostino,” continued Sor Cosimo; “go and fetch two more
bottles—one of ’62 (you’ll find it on the table at the end of the
cellar), and the other of ’59 (the year of the Revolution), and you
shall see”—he turned to me again—“you shall see you have never tasted
any like this!”
“But ... that’s enough, Signor Cosimo!”
“Come, come; no compliments. While it’s coming you’ll take another drop
of this, won’t you?”
“Thanks, but I could not.... I am not accustomed....”
“Sir—I’m going to have another glass too—as the friar took a wife, for
company’s sake.... Shall I pour you some out? You can throw it away
afterwards, if you like—but I must pour if out”
“Very well, then; since you wish it so, another sip.... Enough,—that’s
enough!”
“No, sir—the glass full, or none!”
Gostino returned with the other bottles, and then they all fell upon me,
beginning with Signora Flavia, and not excluding Gostino, beseeching me
to try those also. Signor Cosimo nudged my elbow, Gostino poured out the
wine, and the two ladies entreated me with eloquent glances not to do
them the wrong of refusing this attention.
I resisted for a little, but had to give way at last; and then my evil
genius inspired me with the notion of praising the quality of the wine,
and remarking that not only must the grapes have been exquisite, but the
casks and cellars first-rate also. I regretted the words the moment they
were out of my mouth.
“I’m going to show you them,” said Sor Cosimo immediately.
He took my arm, and, leaving the ladies in the dining-room, dragged me
off to the cellar, with Gostino to light the way—now warning me of a
step, and again requesting me to stoop where the ceiling was low, and at
last showing himself more astonished than I could possibly be at the
beauty of a cobwebbed vault, with a few casks along one wall, and two
smaller barrels in a corner.
As it was necessary for me to be astonished, and to admire something, I
began to praise the solid construction of the house, which I inferred
from an inspection of the basement walls.
“Well, you shall see it now!”
From the cellar we ascended to the ground floor, which I had to review
in detail—dining-room, ironing-room, kitchen, oven, larder,
cupboards.... Then the new staircase—the first one was where the
store-room is now.... Then the study, which his brother the priest had
wished to have on the site of the stable they had had pulled down, but
that was too damp.... Then up to the first floor—drawing-room,
sitting-rooms, bed-rooms, and everything,—in fact, before I knew what I
was about, I beheld Sora Olimpia trying on her puce-coloured mantle
before the looking-glass.... “Look out of the window—now isn’t that a
view? There’s the kitchen-garden. We’ll go there afterwards, but first
you must see the second floor.”
We went up to the second floor, where he led me round for some twenty
minutes, explaining in detail the destination of every apartment,
together with the most noteworthy events which had taken place in the
same—from the large room where the silkworms lived to the dark den where
the chaplain kept the bullfinches he was teaching to pipe....
At the foot of the stairs we met Don Paolo returning from his quail
nets, puffing and blowing, and grumbling at the Provost’s hurry to get
to church. “Was he afraid of not finishing mass in time to get back to
dinner, the great glutton? Do, for any sake, go on, Cosimo; do me the
kindness—bad luck to this sort of work!—and tell them to be getting
ready in the meantime, and I’ll come in ten minutes—if they don’t like
that, they may sing mass by themselves....”
“Do you see?” whispered Sor Cosimo to me, “that’s his way. If he doesn’t
catch any birds he becomes a regular beast. Come, let us go on; the
ladies will follow by themselves.”
“They have already started, sir,” said Gostino.
“All the better; come along.”
I should have been thankful to sit down and rest for a minute, but had
to follow Sor Cosimo, who, in order to get away from his brother, set
off at such a pace that it was difficult to keep up with him.
Mountains stand firm, and men move on. When Sor Cosimo, hurrying into
the door of the canon’s house, left me under the church-porch, my eye
fell on a well-dressed man whose face somehow seemed familiar. As we
passed each other, in walking up and down, I saw that his eyes were
fixed on me, and that he was smiling, as if about to address me. I was
just about to speak to him, as we met for the third time, when he
uttered my name, and I suddenly recalled his.
“After nineteen years! How in the world did you get here?”
“I’m the parish doctor. And you?”
“I only came out for the day.”
“You’ll come and dine with me?”
“I am engaged.”
“To whom?”
“We’ll speak of that afterwards. Now tell me about yourself.... How are
you getting on?”
“As well as a country doctor ever does.”
“And with the peasants.”
“Badly.”
“Why?”
“Because, being a gentleman, I am not a beast like themselves.”
“I understand. And how about the local authorities?”
“No better. I am not on good terms with the Syndic; and, by-the-bye, I
must be off before he comes.”
“The reason?”
“I was imprudent enough to contradict him in public—in the chemist’s
shop, when, speaking of books on etiquette, he mentioned Monsignor della
Casa and _Flavio_ Gioja!”[16]
“Who is this portent of erudition?”
“The wealthiest, the most cultured, the most respectable person in the
commune—a certain Signor Cosimo.”
“My host!”
“Are you staying at his house?”
“I am!”
“How in the world—— But never mind now,—after dinner you must come to me
and tell me about everything, and we shall be together till you leave. I
have a great deal to talk to you about—I’ll drive you down to the
station.... Now let us go in.”
“Here you see my masters,” he said, with a smile, as we came to a halt
in a corner at the upper end of the church. “They are all up there. Do
you know any of them?”
“Only Signor Cosimo’s family.”