III + 

I + 

The spring is perhaps the time of all others when the lonely most realize their loneliness; and this had always been the case with Gian-Luca⁠—he felt terribly lonely in the spring. His desire for companionship had been growing of late, becoming a kind of craving; even Fabio and Teresa saw more of him now; he would hang about the shop in his time off from the Doric; or if they were too busy he would go to Nerone’s on the pretext of buying cigarettes. Schmidt had gone back to Switzerland, and Gian-Luca did not regret him. He hated Schmidt as one hates the creature who has helped one to gratify one’s lower instincts; unjust, perhaps, since but for those instincts there would be no occasion to hate. He might have made friends of his fellow headwaiters, Riccardo, the head of the large restaurant, or Giuliano, who had charge of the grillroom. But he felt that they were jealous, as indeed they were, of the favor he stood in with Millo; and this knowledge made him stiff and a little awkward with them, while they on their part always eyed him with suspicion, as one who was waiting to jump into their shoes. Geppe, Gian-Luca could not endure, and besides he was more than four years his junior; Geppe, who was always asking him for money in order to run after girls. He still feared Berta with her flashing brown eyes, her temperamental moods and her affectations. He felt that Berta would have liked him to propose, and he thought her extremely unattractive. “It is strange,” he would think, “that I have so few friends.” And then he would wonder if the fault lay in himself, and this thought would make him unhappy. + 

But the spring that was thrusting the sap along the branches and filling the parks with flowers and lovers, and making Teresa’s old heart feel young because of her new macaroni factory⁠—the spring brought Maddalena to the Doric; and chance or the spring, both impulsive and freakish, took Gian-Luca down to the still-room one morning, and there he saw Maddalena. + 

Maddalena was standing by a mound of golden butter, with the large wooden pats just raised in her hands. She was looking towards the little square opening through which the waiters gave their orders. The still-room had the kindly innocent smell of butter and milk and fresh bread. On a table in a corner stood a huge bowl of salad, green and glistening with sunshine and water, and over by the fireplace a girl was grinding coffee; she was humming under her breath. + 

There were several other young girls in the room, they were dressed in white and wore large white caps. A sense of cleanliness and youth hung about them, as about the cool little room itself; a sense of peace, pleasant, homely peace after the noise of the restaurant, and the hellish heat of the kitchens. + 

Maddalena was tall, strong-limbed and full-breasted; her face was oval and pale. Either side of her face curved her dark brown hair, covering her little ears. Her eyes were large and indulgent and soft, like the eyes of a mothering doe; and as she stood there in a patch of sunlight, she turned them full on Gian-Luca. There was nothing inviting in that gaze of hers, only it seemed to question; and his eyes questioned back⁠—yet neither of them knew at that moment what they were asking. + 

Then he smiled. “Buon giorno,” he said politely, “you are new to the Doric, is it not so?” + 

“I came yesterday,” she told him, but she did not smile; “I have taken Maria’s place.” + 

He considered her a moment: “Oh, yes, the Maria⁠—was she a friend of yours?” + 

“No, a friend of my aunt’s; I have just come from Rome⁠—I have not got friends in England.” And then because she was feeling homesick: “Are you an Italian too? You speak our language as though you were⁠—all the girls in the still-room are French except me.” + 

“I do not know what I am⁠—” he said gravely, “but I feel just like an Italian.” He was thinking: “She is terribly homesick, poor creature, they are always like that just at first.” Aloud, he went on kindly: “You will like your work here; we all like our work at the Doric.” Then he gave an order to one of the maids and hurried upstairs to the restaurant. + 

Once or twice that afternoon he remembered Maddalena, and the next day he went back to see her; it was easy enough to visit the still-room on some slight pretext or another. The week that followed found him constantly there, whenever he could get the chance, in fact. + 

“She is homesick, poor soul,” he would say to himself; “I am sure she is terribly homesick.” + 

They spoke seldom; she seemed to be always patting butter, turning it into little rolls. Her large, competent hands held the pats very deftly. He liked to see her there by the clean, golden butter; the sight of her filled a void that was in him, she gave him a feeling of home. + 

Then one afternoon between luncheon and dinner, he met her crossing the street. On a sudden impulse he turned and walked beside her. + 

“Will you not come into the park?” he suggested. “It is cool there under the trees.” + 

“Thank you,” she said simply; “are you going to the park?” He smiled and said: “I am, if you are.” + 

They walked on in silence for quite a long time, then he found an empty seat and they rested. He noticed that Maddalena wore black and supposed that she must be in mourning. + 

“You come from Rome?” he inquired with interest. + 

She nodded. “Yes, I come from Rome. I am very homesick in England, signore; are you not homesick too?” + 

And suddenly he knew that he was very homesick, that he had been for years and years. He was homesick for some place a long way away⁠—much farther away than Rome. But he said: + 

“As for me, I was born here in London, so what right have I to be homesick?” + 

“You have a look in your eyes⁠—” she told him, then flushed, for she felt that she was being overbold. + 

Gian-Luca turned, the better to see her; she filled him with a sense of peace; the curve of her bosom was kind and maternal. Her beauty was that of a vine-clad arbor, an arbor heavy with purple grapes, where a man might rest after toil. + 

“May I not know your name?” he said gently; “I would like to know what I may call you.” + 

“My name is Maddalena Trevi,” she told him. + 

“And I am Gian-Luca,” he replied very gravely; “Gian-Luca⁠—just that, nothing else.” + 

He saw that she did not understand him, and his heart felt lonely and aggrieved. He wanted her to ask him about himself, to ask him why he was just Gian-Luca. For he knew that the telling would come as a balm, because he would be telling Maddalena. But her gentle brown eyes were on his face and he suddenly felt ashamed; ashamed of the impulse that possessed him so strongly to make this girl share his troubles. + 

“Tell me about yourself,” he said quickly, as though she might read his thoughts. + 

Then she told him all that there was to tell; speaking quietly, trying to remember back along the years of her innocent life⁠—as though he had a right to know. She was twenty-six, and had lost both her parents within a year of each other. Her father had died only eight weeks ago; he had kept a small trattoria. She was quite alone now except for distant cousins, and her Aunt Ottavia who lived in London. Aunt Ottavia lived in Little Italy, and here Maddalena smiled at Gian-Luca. “But it is not little at all,” she said; “it is large and gloomy and very full of people⁠—Italians who do not seem quite like Italians⁠—nor is it the least like home.” Aunt Ottavia let out her house in lodgings, and Maddalena must pay for her room⁠—but Aunt Ottavia was kind, and asked little, later on she would pay her more. Maddalena was missing the big Campagna, where the sheep all wore little bells; and the sunshine and the hills, and the trattoria, which had been on the road to Domine Quo Vadis, where Our Lord had left His Footprint in the marble. Did not Gian-Luca think it gracious of Our Lord to leave us His sacred Footprint? There had been a good priest there, Father Battista, whom she had known ever since she was a child. She missed him, he had been such a kind, merry father⁠—sometimes she had taken him a flask of Chianti, or a basket of oranges from her garden, or a loaf of homemade focaccia. + 

He had come to see her off at the station, and had warned her that most English people were not Christians, they were Protestants he had told her sadly, and had begged her to go to Mass every day. When she had been a girl of seventeen she had kissed a boy called Rubino⁠—he had courted her for the space of a summer, and then he had gone to his military service. When he had come back he was changed, he was impudent, and Maddalena had not loved him any more. The grapes in the vineyards along the Via Appia had been unusually fine last year; the peasants had earned a great deal of money, but her father’s mule had gone suddenly lame⁠—a large white mule whose name was Umberto⁠—a mule with a temper, and a passion for grapes⁠—he would steal the grapes out of their baskets. + 

Gian-Luca listened with a little smile, while she told of these simple things. Of the faith that believed in that Footprint in stone, of the priest who ate oranges grown in her garden, of the tinkling sheep bells across the Campagna, of the mule who stole grapes and whose name was Umberto. And while she talked thus, she seemed very childish, and made Gian-Luca, nearly three years her junior, feel terribly cynical and old. But when he looked at her he felt very young, for her face was the face of a mother of men. + 

“I would like to know Aunt Ottavia,” he told her, “for I want you and me to be friends.” + 

She smiled. “I will give you her name and address.” + 

He wrote it down in his notebook. “My grandmother will be glad to know her, too,” he went on; “I will surely see that they meet, and then I can take you out sometimes⁠—we might go into the country when we get our day off⁠—I will try to arrange that we get it together.” + 

She said: “I should like to go into the country, I should like to see fields and trees.” + 

“I hope you will like to see them with me,” he smiled. + 

She answered: “Yes, I shall like that, too.” + 

He glanced at his watch. “We must go,” he said reluctantly; “tomorrow we will come here again. It is good in our life to get plenty of air⁠—and you are so new to our life.” She appeared to consider this for a moment, looking thoughtfully into his face; then she nodded, as though what she saw there reassured her. “That is as you will, signore.” + 

II + 

Gian-Luca’s courtship of Maddalena was tranquil and quite without pain, for this was not loving as he had loved the Padrona, but a gentle, kindly and grateful emotion, soothing rather than stimulating⁠—for the rest, it was being loved. He made the acquaintance of Aunt Ottavia whose house was in Coldbath Square, and she in her turn went to call on Teresa, and was properly impressed by the salumeria, and properly respectful to its mistress. Teresa invited Maddalena to tea, and inspected her not unkindly. Old Compton Street getting wind of the event, in came Rosa, Nerone and Rocca. Presently Mario came in as well; and Maddalena, who was not yet affianced, blushed and smiled shyly beneath all those eyes, and prayed that the Virgin would tell her what to say, so that she might make a good impression. + 

Then Gian-Luca went to see Millo in his office and asked for an extra day’s leave; he also asked that a girl in the still-room should be granted a holiday as well. + 

Millo smiled faintly: “What is this, Gian-Luca? And who is this girl from the still-room?” + 

“Maddalena Trevi,” Gian-Luca told him; “I wish to make her my wife.” + 

“I see. And so you are going to get married?” + 

“If she will have me, signore.” + 

Millo looked into Gian-Luca’s face and noted the lines round his eyes⁠—other things, too, he noted in that face. + 

“It is time you got married,” he told him with decision; “and I hope it may mean that you are going to settle down.” + 

“What else can it mean, signore?” said Gian-Luca. + 

III + 

Gian-Luca took Maddalena to Hadley Woods⁠—they are very lovely in June. Fabio had made up a luncheon basket, and as Gian-Luca carried it he smiled, remembering a day at Kew Gardens. Maddalena had dressed herself all in white, something had made her discard black that morning. She walked by Gian-Luca, very stately and tall, a true daughter of Rome the eternally fruitful⁠—even so had her young virgins walked by their lovers for more than two thousand years. + 

They sat down together under the beech trees, and he lifted her hand and kissed it. “Your hand is full of happiness,” he said, “will it spare a little for me?” + 

“Whatever it holds is yours,” she told him, “all that it holds, I give.” + 

“And yet I have not been a good man,” he said slowly, “not as you understand goodness.” + 

“I do not know what you have been,” she answered; “I only know what you are.” + 

“And that is enough for you, Maddalena?” + 

She smiled: “It is more than enough.” + 

Then he said: “I have no name to offer my wife, I was born in what men call sin.” + 

“If you are the fruit of sin,” she said softly, “how great must be God’s forgiveness.” + 

“Will you marry a man without a name?” he persisted. + 

She said: “I will marry you. No name in the world has ever sounded so sweet to me as your name⁠—Gian-Luca.” Then he took her in his arms and kissed her on the mouth⁠—but gently, for she did not stir his passion. And she kissed him back with slow, lingering kisses, as though she were groping for the soul of this man, with her tender, virginal lips. Presently she pressed his head down on her bosom and rocked him with her arms about his shoulders. + 

“You who have suffered so much,” she whispered; “you who have suffered so much⁠—” + 

“No one has ever loved me before,” he told her; and there was joy in his voice. “I am glad that no one has loved me before⁠—that you should be the first, Maddalena.” + 

“Yes,” she answered, “for that is surely as it should be.” And now she was stroking his hair. “Because of that, beloved, the others do not count: I have washed them away with my love.” + 

He said: “Why are you so good to me, my woman?” + 

And at that she laughed to herself. “If I told you, how could you understand⁠—you who are so much a man?” They got up and wandered together through the woods, arm-in-arm like the other lovers; and Maddalena welcomed their presence⁠—for although he was wishing that the woods might be empty, she saw those lovers through the eyes of her love, and beheld much glory about them. + 

Presently he said: “These wide, green glades⁠—they always make me feel strange; they make me feel as though I had come home⁠—that is queer in a man like me⁠—” + 

She pressed his arm. “But you have come home, amore⁠—you have come home to Maddalena. Wherever we two are together that is home.” + 

“Yes⁠—it must be so⁠—” he murmured. His eyes were searching the long, cool shadows, green because of their trees; the turf and the rustle of last year’s leaves made him want to take off his shoes⁠—“Let us get married very soon,” he said, as though his words were an answer to something. “Since you will take me as I am, diletta, let us get married very soon.” + 

“As soon as you wish, we will marry,” she agreed. “Why should we wait any longer?” + 

He withdrew his gaze from those long, cool shadows and let it rest on her face, and suddenly he wished to tell her of his childhood, knowing that she would understand. + 

“You are my woman⁠—all my woman,” he repeated, “and so I can tell you all. I have never had anyone to talk to like this⁠—no one who cared to listen.” + 

While he talked she saw him less as a man than as a lonely little boy; and all her motherhood stretched out its arms, so that she could not speak for tears⁠—so great was the heart within her. And something of her motherhood touched him, too, and he walked with her holding her hand. + 

He said: “It is strange, but I think my mother must have been just like you Maddalena.” + 

They ate little of the meal that Fabio had prepared, and after a while it was evening. The voices of the other lovers came softly out of the dusk towards them. A large, yellow moon climbed up over the woods, and hung there opposite the sunset. + 

“Look!” said Gian-Luca, and his eyes were wide with the beauty and mystery of it, But Maddalena’s eyes were on him, seeing all mystery and beauty in his face, the beginnings and the noon-tides and the endings of all days⁠—for such is the love of woman. + 

IV + 

Maddalena took him down to the Italian church⁠—St. Peter’s in Hatton Garden. And there he must talk with old Father Antonio, Aunt Ottavia’s confessor. For to please Maddalena, Gian-Luca had consented in the end to be married in a church. “I would have a blessing on our love,” she had said. And because of the gratitude he felt towards her, he had been unwilling to grieve her. He had told her that he did not believe in God, and at that she had only smiled. “You may not believe in Him yet,” she had said, “but remember that He believes in you.” + 

“A man should believe in himself,” he had replied; “he should not be dependent on his God.” + 

Gian-Luca had not disliked Father Antonio, a kindly old fellow, with very blue eyes, who on his part had not disliked Gian-Luca, in spite of the latter’s lack of faith. Father Antonio was a fisher of men, and he sometimes cast his net in strange waters. “One never knows whom one may catch,” he would argue; “it is always worth taking a risk.” And so, when Gian-Luca had faithfully promised that his children should be given to the care of Mother Church, Father Antonio had consented to the marriage being performed at St. Peter’s. Aunt Ottavia got very voluble and busy. + 

“I will go and light candles at once,” she told Gian-Luca; “I will go and light candles for my nephew’s conversion; I will also make a Novena to Saint Joseph.” + 

V + 

Maddalena would have liked them to live with Aunt Ottavia, who was willing to turn out all her lodgers, and to let Maddalena their rooms. But a closer acquaintance with Coldbath Square, and with Aunt Ottavia, kind though she was, had decided Gian-Luca against this plan. For Coldbath Square was anything but clean, in spite of its hopeful name; and as for Aunt Ottavia, she never stopped talking; failing an audience she would talk to herself, Gian-Luca had heard her at it. Aunt Ottavia was all blacks and whites like a magpie, and quite as voluble, it seemed. She was piously shrewd and shrewdly pious, she gave, as a rule, that she might receive. She contributed nothing to St. Anthony’s Bread, for she liked to have something to show for her pennies, and this being so she would buy little candles. Three penny candles she would burn to the saint, and then proceed to tax his patience to the utmost by a long recital of her needs. She liked Gian-Luca and thought Maddalena lucky⁠—a girl without a dot to secure so fine a husband! Yes, indeed, Maddalena was lucky! + 

Aunt Ottavia knew life, very thoroughly she knew it⁠—for the most part it only made her laugh. She had come from a village in far-off Liguria, and there she had known what it was to be married to a cobbler who had liked to get drunk. He had been very funny on certain occasions, and had tried to lay her across his knees so that he might beat her with a newly-soled slipper; but as she had been agile and quick as a squirrel, he had fortunately never succeeded. Now she would laugh when she told of Pietrino; she would say: “He was a kind man, he did it out of love⁠—they are funny, these men, they have their little fancies.” And then she would cross herself, remembering that he was dead, and would mutter a prayer for his soul. + 

Gian-Luca took the basement and the ground floor of a house that he had found in Millman Street. It was not too far from the church for Maddalena, and the Russell Square tube was convenient for him. Maddalena was pleased at the thought of having her own kitchen, for she happened to be an expert cook. + 

Fabio insisted on helping to furnish this new abode for his grandson. “Ma si,” he said firmly, when Gian-Luca demurred, “I will do at least this much for Olga.” Aunt Ottavia, who always pretended to be poor, was evidently not quite so poor as she pretended, for she purchased a huge sideboard in the Tottenham Court Road⁠—it had carving and a kind of overmantel. Rocca and his signora sent a silver-plated bread scoop, engraved with maidenhair fern. Nerone broke all records and cashed a good-sized cheque; from him arrived a splendid parlor clock. Rosa bought two double sheets, and these she embroidered with a couple of large hearts entwined with flowers; she offered them with many words of love from her and Mario, and hopes that they would grace the bridal bed. The Padrone and Padrona of the Capo sent a cream-jug⁠—solid silver with a suitable inscription. The Padrone said: “I will not be outdone by that man, Millo, I send this for the honor of my Capo.” But Millo, as it happened, gave a cheque for fifteen pounds⁠—hard lines, for the Padrone could not well take back his cream-jug. + 

VI + 

Gian-Luca and Maddalena were married in July at St. Peter’s, the Italian church; that queer old lump of Italy dumped down in Hatton Garden, its frescoes blurred and peeling from the horrid English climate, its heart grown chill from many English winters. As Gian-Luca was outside the flock, the Mass, perforce, was short, but everyone was there except Teresa. Teresa would not put her foot inside a Christian church, so Fabio went alone in a very tight black coat, and he it was who gave away the bride. + 

The Padrone, the Padrona, Millo and old Nerone, Rocca, Signora Rocca, Aunt Ottavia, Rosa, Mario, Berta, and the inquisitive Geppe, they all sat or knelt or stood along the dingy pews. And from Putney came the little Librarian with his wife⁠—very strange they felt and awkward in the dim old Popish church, very anxious, too, to show all due respect. Maddalena, pale and lovely in her simple wedding dress, stood serene and undisturbed beside Gian-Luca. Her eyes were large and placid with the faith she had in God, and she prayed that He would grant her many children. Gian-Luca did not pray because he found no words, nor did he know of anyone to pray to. But he looked at Maddalena and his heart knew gratitude, and when he knelt, he knelt to Maddalena. So the two of them were married, while Rosa wept and wept, and Mario coughed and blew his nose to stop himself from weeping. In a pew beside his daughter Nerone scraped his wooden leg; while Rocca in the next pew puffed his chest to show his medals. Geppe’s eyes bulged with excitement, and Berta lay back weakly in order to proclaim her broken heart. But Fabio, near the altar, wished Teresa had been there, and then put up a little prayer for Olga. + 

VII + 

The service being over, Millo went back to the Doric, the Padrone and Padrona to the Capo. The Librarian and his wife had gently disappeared⁠—but the rest of them all hurried off to Fabio’s shop, where Teresa had prepared the wedding breakfast. A magnificent repast it was, quite worthy of the house, of the celebrated Casa Boselli. There was much Asti Spumante, and it went to Mario’s head⁠—he made reminiscent love to patient Rosa. Rocca drank so many toasts to the army and the bride that Signora Rocca had to interfere; Aunt Ottavia, very merry, as she always was with men, asked Nerone how he got his wooden leg. But Nerone was invariably sulky in his cups, and, moreover, he was thinking of that clock, so instead of being gallant to the little Aunt Ottavia, he stuffed his mouth with food and would not tell her. + 

They feasted, they made speeches, they sang patriotic songs: “Avanti Bersagliere!” caroled Rocca with emotion, “Avanti-vanti-vanti-Bersagliere!” Only the bride and bridegroom were shy and rather silent, not doing proper justice to their food. And presently the time came when the bride must change her dress, while the bridegroom waited for her in the hall. Young Geppe fetched a taxi, into which the victims hurried amid a shower of rice and confetti. They would go straight home to Millman Street; there would be no honeymoon, for Gian-Luca had not wished to worry Millo. + 

As they drove he leant towards her: “You do not mind, my Maddalena? You do not mind about our honeymoon?” + 

She was silent for a moment and her eyes were rather wistful, but she said: “I am contented. Let it be just as you wish⁠—so long as you are happy, amore⁠—” + 