IX
I
“Fabio,” said Teresa, “come here, my Fabio, there is something I want to show you.”
She was sitting at the table which was strewn with papers; a ledger and two passbooks lay open before her, and her voice when she spoke was unusually gentle, there was something caressing about it. Fabio drew up a chair to her side and adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses.
“So many papers!” he exclaimed with a smile.
“So much good money,” she answered.
Her hand began straying among invoices and bills, letters and order-sheets: “Today I have heard from yet one more restaurant; they send a large order for immediate delivery—I am thinking we had better get another cart and horse, and another young man to drive it.”
Fabio scratched his head and looked rather frightened: “It seems that we grow,” he murmured.
“We grow,” agreed Teresa; “we are getting quite well known; the Casa Boselli prospers.” She let her eyes dwell on one of the passbooks, then she pushed it over to Fabio. “The total will show you that we grow,” she said, pointing; “that sum represents our deposit alone, and here is the drawing account.”
He stared incredulously, frowning a little. “I had not realized—” he stammered.
“We have not gone over the accounts together for more than a year,” she remarked, smiling quietly. “Will you now check these figures, Fabio?”
He fished a stump of pencil from his waistcoat pocket and wetted the lead with his tongue.
“First the ledger,” said Teresa, “and then the two passbooks, after which you might total up the orders.”
Fabio ran his pencil down the long columns: “Trenta, trentotto, cinquanta—” he muttered, then: “Cento, cento dieci, duecento, trecento—” From time to time he sucked at his pencil or licked the end of his thumb. Presently he raised his eyes to Teresa. “Our Lady is good,” he said softly.
Teresa shrugged her shoulders: “Our wares are good, you mean; I am very well pleased with our business.”
“It would seem,” said Fabio, “that you and I grow rich.” But his voice lacked enthusiasm. He was thinking: “We grow rich—yes—but Olga is dead—the dead have no use for money.”
Perhaps Teresa divined his thoughts, for her face closed up like a secret door that, in closing, is one with the surrounding structure; when she spoke her voice was no longer caressing. “I have not let life crush either of us, Fabio.”
“That is true,” he said humbly; “you speak the truth, Teresa—but somehow—” He paused and began to rub his eyes. “But somehow, those pains in my back, when they come, make me timid—they make me feel old. I am old to to be useful in so large a business, it begins to frighten me a little. I am stupid about money, and the pains in my back—”
“They are only lumbago; you drink too much red wine,” she told him, closing the ledger.
He nodded: “I know—but I love my Chianti, it takes my hand like a friend—when I feel it in my gullet I am more of a man—however, those pains in my back—”
Teresa, strong as a tall steel girder, surveyed him a moment in silence. “I will rub you tonight. Does it pain now?” she inquired.
He shook his head.
“Very well, then, that is good, for I want to talk about Gian-Luca.”
He had known that this was coming, that it had to come—the boy had been idle for weeks. But Fabio, these days, shrank from all mental effort as a sea-anemone will shrink from a touch—he had lived too long with Teresa. Something told him that he would be left to decide upon a career for the child; that now that Gian-Luca was no longer a baby, Teresa would feel even less obligation towards him than she had done in the past; and his fears were confirmed, for Teresa was saying:
“He is not a baby any more; it is now your turn, Fabio—I have done what I had to—it is time that you took a hand.”
“You mean—?” he faltered.
“That Gian-Luca must work; we are not like the English—idle.”
He nodded; she was right, Gian-Luca must work—Fabio had no doubt at all about this, for Fabio came of a thrifty peasant stock. They might spoil their children while they were little, but once they left school they no longer spoilt them; their children then, as a matter of course, became part of the earning machine. Nor did it occur to Fabio to consider those sums lying at the bank; that had not been the way with his peasant forbears, it was not the way now with Fabio. He loved Gian-Luca, patiently, tenderly, bearing him no resentment; but the idea of giving him a better education than that provided by the local Board School never crossed his horizon. When he himself had been Gian-Luca’s age he had worked at any employment that offered; that had been and still was the way of his people, they were not afraid of small beginnings. Adaptable and infinitely painstaking in business, with an eye always on the future, they respected hard work, sagacity and money, but completely lacked imagination.
Fabio laid his hand on Teresa’s arm: “Will you not advise—?” he began.
Teresa shook her head: “I have no advice to give; now it is you who must decide. The boy is twelve years old, he will soon be a man, he will not be backward, I think. While he was little I did my duty, I saw that he was clothed and fed and kept clean—he is no longer little, he needs me no more, therefore I may rest from Gian-Luca.”
“How you hate him!” exclaimed Fabio in spite of himself.
Teresa looked surprised: “You are wrong, I do not hate him, but to me he is alien—from the moment of his birth he has always been alien flesh.”
Fabio stared at her dumbly, then he cleared his throat and turning, spat into the fire. He was thinking: “I must go and consult with Nerone, perhaps he will tell me what to do.”
II
On the following day he sought out Nerone at an hour when he hoped to find Mario at home. Mario, he knew, was fond of Gian-Luca, and no doubt he also would be willing to advise. The three of them retired to a room behind the shop, in which Nerone kept his birds; the skylark, brought in because of the weather; a bullfinch that suffered much from its feet, two Norwich canaries that would very shortly breed, and a box cage of avadavats. The avadavats were huddled together in a long, ruffled, melancholy row. Mario began to tease the bullfinch with his finger, but kindly, because of its feet.
“I wish that I too could stand on one leg!” he said, almost enviously.
“I have come to talk about Gian-Luca,” began Fabio; “he must work, the moment has arrived.”
“You are right,” agreed Nerone, “we spoke of it last night; it is most unnatural how he reads.”
Mario stopped teasing the bullfinch for a moment: “What does Teresa say?” he inquired.
“She will not say anything at all,” sighed Fabio. “I have come to you two for advice.”
“Advice? Can you yourself not decide?” demanded Nerone sternly.
“There is so little choice,” Fabio temporized; “for Italians of our class there is very little choice, when we want to find work in England.”
“Oh, oh, but I thought you were English!” gibed Nerone.
“There is very little choice—” repeated Fabio.
“There is of course tobacco,” Nerone smiled complacently; “but tobacco I am keeping for Geppe. When Geppe leaves school he will come into the shop, which is lucky for his father, eh, Mario?”
“After meals one smokes—” mused Fabio, gently. “It is always much the same thing—”
“So it is!” laughed Mario. “They may say what they please, but when a man is starving will he think of his soul? I say no, he will think of his stomach; therefore, empty or full it is all the same thing—stomachs and nothing but stomachs.”
“Some people will even chew tobacco,” remarked Nerone; “everybody does in America, I am told.”
“There you are!” broke in Fabio; “what did I say? For us it is always the same.”
“You prosper, I believe,” Nerone said jealously; “I hear that you will soon be very rich. Why not let Gian-Luca work in your shop for a little? After that he could go as a waiter if you do not require him at home.”
“He may wish to be a cook,” suggested Fabio, “or perhaps a hall porter at a restaurant.”
“If he wants to be a waiter, I can help him,” put in Mario; “there is no doubt at all about that!”
“You!” sneered Nerone; “are you not well over thirty, and still at your Capo di Monte? Per Bacco! I think Gian-Luca could help you; I think it is the other way round!”
Mario flushed darkly. “You go too far, Babbo; insult me if you must, but not my restaurant. How often have I told you that the Capo will be famous, very famous, one of these days?”
“Many times you have lied thus,” Nerone said rudely; “many times have I spat out your lies!”
“Basta! Basta!” cried Fabio, dreading a quarrel; “I implore you not to get angry.”
“Who would not get angry?” grumbled Nerone. “Am I not a long-suffering man?” Presently he said: “Have you thought of our Rocca? I hear that he is wanting a boy.”
“I had thought of that, of course,” replied Fabio, “but I do not think it would quite suit Gian-Luca; he is still rather funny about those small goats.”
“Let me ask the Padrone to take him at the Capo,” Mario insisted eagerly.
“Sacramento!” yelled Nerone. “You and your Capo! And nothing you are, no, less than nothing! It is I who provide for Rosa and the children, it is I who scrape and save. As for you, you have nothing so far as I can see but a bunion on your left foot. I would not exchange my good wooden leg for your bunion—no, that I would not!”
“I am thinking, Mario,” said Fabio slowly; “I am thinking of what you have said. If I kept Gian-Luca for two years in the shop, he might go to you afterwards. Already I can see him in a neat white waistcoat and a little black satin tie; I can see him in a fashionable restaurant after he has learnt at the Capo. He is one of those boys who is bound to rise; he will have such a fine appearance, I cannot promise that you will keep him long; still, no doubt it would be good training—”
“As for that, no better exists,” bragged Mario. “Will he not be under me?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Fabio in enormous relief; “then I think we can take it as settled. I have always intended to make him a waiter; I have my ideas for Gian-Luca!”
“Then why did you come to consult us, Dio Santo!” bawled Nerone, now thoroughly roused.
“I wished to hear what you would say,” Fabio told him. “We are such old friends that I thought it only courteous to tell you of my plans for the boy.”
III
Everyone thought Fabio’s decision a wise one, including Gian-Luca himself. Gian-Luca, aged twelve, had no exalted ideas, and very few illusions about life. It seemed to him perfectly natural and right that he should help Fabio in the shop, and that afterwards he should work under Mario at the celebrated Capo di Monte. Most people that he knew did just that sort of thing, or at all events, something very like it. “And,” argued Gian-Luca, “if I cannot write well, perhaps I can serve well—even better than Mario.” For at twelve years old he already had great confidence in his own ability to serve.
“What fun you will have!” said Berta enviously, with her eye on a jar of fruit toffee from Turin. “There are so many things one can eat in this shop, it is ever so much nicer than ours.” She and her brother had wandered in one Saturday afternoon, to find Gian-Luca in a little white jacket, importantly installed behind the counter. He looked at her disdainfully.
“We do not eat, Berta, that is not the way to grow rich; we offer our sweets to our customers, they eat and we keep the money.”
“Oh, but think—” persisted Berta. “Just one little bit! That cannot be worth a farthing.”
“You are not to!” cried Gian-Luca, catching at her hand. “You are not to go stealing our toffee!”
“Dirty pig!” retorted Berta; “I do not want your toffee, we have much nicer toffee at home.”
“Then leave it alone, and do not touch those raisins, you are squashing them soft with your fingers!”
Geppe strolled round with his hands in his pockets: “Good day,” he said, nodding in the manner of Nerone; “it appears that we shall have some fine weather.”
“Good day,” said Gian-Luca, bowing a little; “it appears that we undoubtedly shall.” Geppe’s game was certainly very appealing, Gian-Luca’s eyes began to sparkle. “And now,” he said pompously, “I will show you how I serve; you go out and come in again.”
At that moment, however, Teresa appeared: “Be off, you two children!” she commanded. “Have you sorted that wrapping-paper, Gian-Luca? You have not? Then do so at once.”
“Ha, ha!” mocked Berta. “He is so very grand and he does not know how to sort paper!”
“I do!” said Gian-Luca.
“You do not!” sneered Berta. “It is obvious that you do not.”
Gian-Luca’s arm shot out across the counter and he tugged at a lock of black hair.
“Take that!” yelled Berta, slapping his face.
“And that!” he retorted, with a truly frightful pinch. “And that!” spluttered Berta, beginning to scratch, whilst Geppe ate olives in a corner.
“And this!” remarked Teresa, as she seized Rosa’s offspring and thrust them forth into the street. “And now,” she said, turning again to Gian-Luca, “if you think you have finished behaving like a baby, I will show you how to sort paper.” She proceeded to explain the art of saving, as applied to paper and string. “One does not always give a new piece,” she told him. “One uses one’s discretion according to the order; small orders may be done up in old bits of paper—say anything under two shillings.”
Gian-Luca nodded, rather red in the face and considerably humbled in spirit. “And what must one do, Nonna, if they ask for something that does not exist in the shop?”
“In that case one persuades them to take something else; they should never go away empty-handed.”
“But if they do not want it?”
“You must make them think they want it; that is the art of good selling.”
“I will try—” he murmured doubtfully, forgetting for the moment how proficient in all things he was.
IV
There was much to learn about the art of selling, as Gian-Luca was soon to discover. There was also much to learn about the ways of people who came for the purpose of buying. There were people who spoke with habitual rudeness, who ordered you about your own shop. When you handed them the parcel they never said “Thank you,” they just turned and went out of the door. You longed to make faces at these sort of people or to pinch them like you pinched Berta; however, you remembered that at least they had to pay, and that consoled you a little. There were people who never knew quite what they wanted, who could never make up their minds. They asked you for tomatoes, but their eyes strayed to funghi; when you showed them the funghi they inquired about biscuits: “I wish to take home a small present,” they told you. In the end, as like as not, they bought cheese. There were people who never fancied anything handy, anything that lived low down: “Let me see that honey up there,” they would say, pointing; “no, not this—that honey up there, if you please, I think it looks fresher than this.” There were people who believed in always being friendly, no matter how busy you were. They usually arrived when the shop was quite full, and engaged you in long conversations about nothing—but they always counted their change. There were people who seemed unable to see you, who looked over your head at Fabio or Teresa. You leant across the counter in your most approved manner: “Are you being served?” you inquired politely, but they answered: “I think I’ll wait, thank you.” But the worst kind of people were those who did see you, and appeared to be amused at what they saw. These people made you nervous as you struggled with their parcels or tried to make out their bills. They would thank you profusely with mock gravity, they might even tweak your ear, and they frequently called you objectionable names like “Kiddie,” “My lad,” or “Infant.” After such people left you began to grow downwards, you began to get smaller and smaller. In the end your head barely reached above the counter—at least, that was the way you felt.
On the whole, however, you enjoyed serving people; you could study them while you served. You realized quite soon that you never knew people until you began to serve them.
V
During Gian-Luca’s two years at the shop, he learnt about all sorts of things. England was busily fighting the Boers, so Gian-Luca learnt a little about war, and a little about Death, from hearsay. The Boer War in no way affected his people, it scarcely even touched their trade; but into Old Compton Street there crept a sense of sadness—Rosa was constantly wiping her eyes for the mothers she did not know. He learnt about Teresa, and in place of his love there grew up an aloof respect. He saw her as she was when she stood at the helm, hardheaded, closefisted, fearless in business, with a kind of genius for affairs. He learnt about Fabio; about his little fears, his weariness, his sense of growing old, the pains in his back that made him think of God, that God who was part of the pains in his back, but never quite a part of Fabio. And Gian-Luca, very young, very strong, and very gallant as he seized the long knife and sliced the salame, began to pity Fabio and, in pitying, despised him—as is sometimes the way of youth.
All his life he had seen packing-cases arrive, and had often watched Fabio unpack them. But never before had he quite understood the full significance of all those large cases, that now arrived in their hundreds. There were certainly more than there used to be, and this fact was rather exciting; for in each was a smell or a series of smells, a taste or a series of tastes. Every case contained something that someone would eat, an astonishing quantity when seen all together, and this meant that the whole world was always hungry—incredibly hungry, preposterously hungry, ready and eager to consume every morsel that Teresa and her kind could produce. He found this thought amusing; he would look at a cheese and begin to speculate about it: “I wonder who you will go to,” he would think; “I wonder whose palate you will tickle.” He visualized millions of red, gaping caverns, into which must be poured something pleasing to the taste. “We are right who take up this business,” he would think; “they could never get on without us!” And then there would come a sense of secureness, he would feel less alone in the world.
VI
Gian-Luca still went to the Free Library, and this surprised the Librarian. “I should think you’d have no time for reading,” he remarked, “now that you’re such a man of business. I should think that you must feel rather bored with books, considering there’s no money in them—”
“What has that got to do with it?” inquired Gian-Luca, staring at him in surprise; for at this time he was very much a Latin; he kept two distinct Gian-Lucas, one for beauty, one for business, and so far they had never collided.
“I can’t make you out,” said the puzzled Librarian; “it’s so queer that you like books at all.”
“Rocca likes music,” Gian-Luca told him, “he goes to the gallery at Covent Garden; Rocca is mad about opera!”
“And who is Rocca?” inquired the Librarian. “He sounds very hard, somehow.”
“Rocca’s our butcher, he used to be a soldier. When he was a little boy he knew Garibaldi,” said Gian-Luca, defending Rocca.
“Ah, well,” smiled the Librarian, “it’s a very large world, there must surely be room for us all—Come and see me some day, I live in Putney; perhaps you could come to tea?”
“It would have to be a Sunday,” Gian-Luca told him gravely. “I am very busy all the week—”
“That will do; you can come next Sunday at four—I will show you my own special books. What would you like for tea—Chelsea buns? Or do you prefer Swiss roll?”
“I prefer Swiss roll, apricot,” said Gian-Luca.
“I will tell my wife,” promised the Librarian.
VII
Gian-Luca arrived at the Librarian’s house punctually at four the next Sunday. Fabio had laughed when bidding him goodbye:
“It seems you make new English friends, piccino. Now I have never been the friend of a Librarian, though perhaps I may have fed one—it may be so—unless they eat only books!”
The Librarian lived in one of a row of neat little redbrick villas; its name was “Balmoral,” and each side of the gate stood a foolish-looking acacia. The Librarian opened the door himself, his feet were in carpet slippers; an old briar pipe was gripped between his teeth, and he wore neither collar nor tie.
“Come in, come in! I am so pleased to see you,” he exclaimed, holding out his hand.
A small, rosy lady of uncertain age, was awaiting them in the drawing-room. The walls of the room were lined with books, as had also been those of the passage. She shook hands with Gian-Luca and smiled at him kindly with her head a little on one side. Her eyes were the eyes of a tame city bird—she reminded Gian-Luca of a sparrow.
“My husband has talked so much about you that I feel as though I knew you quite well,” she said.
At which Gian-Luca made a stiff little bow and brushed her hand with his lips. Teresa believed in punctilious good manners, and considered the English very boorish.
“You have very many books!” remarked Gian-Luca, quite unable to hide his curiosity.
“We have,” she agreed, “very, very many books.” And unlike a sparrow, she sighed.
The books had a somewhat rakish appearance, caused by the sagging of the shelves; in one corner of the room a shelf had collapsed, and its contents were stacked on the floor.
“A slight accident, you see,” observed the Librarian, “it happens occasionally here; I made all the shelves in this room myself, and they’re really not so bad considering—”
Tea not being ready, he took the boy’s arm, and proceeded to conduct him over the house. “If you want to see all my books,” he said happily, “I shall have to take you even into the bathroom. We have to be careful not to have our baths too hot, otherwise the steam might spoil the bindings.”
Gian-Luca was astonished; every room they went into was packed and bulging with books; they elbowed the wardrobes, edged up close to the beds, or lay in untidy heaps on the chairs. The queer, bookish smell of them filled the air—it was pleasant to Gian-Luca’s nostrils. Presently they went downstairs to the study, an absurdly small apartment overlooking the yard. Its sole furniture consisted of a roll-top desk, an armchair and a reading-lamp.
“Here,” said the Librarian in a very solemn voice, “are all my old first editions. They deserve a veritable palace to themselves, yet I find them wonderfully uncomplaining—”
He looked round at his treasures with the eyes of a parent who marvels at the sweetness of his offspring. “They are so full of wisdom, it must be that,” he murmured, “the wise are seldom self-assertive.”
“Are they not worth much money?” said Gian-Luca.
“Hundreds!” the Librarian told him; “but no money could buy them,” he hastened to add, in the tone of one on the defensive. He placed a slim volume in Gian-Luca’s hands. “Take this, for instance, it is almost unique; they haven’t got this one at the British Museum, and they won’t have it until I am dead! I should like to take it with me for my library in Heaven, but that I fear wouldn’t be allowed.” His quizzical eyes were watching Gian-Luca, who by now was staring round him in open amazement.
“So many, so valuable, so expensive!” said Gian-Luca; “I have never seen so many owned books before—at home they have none at all.” He went over to a shelf and took out a volume which he opened, beginning to read. The Librarian noticed his gentle hands, and forbore to protest at his action. In a minute or two Gian-Luca looked up:
“I very much love their smell. It is such an old smell and yet it seems alive—do you think that perhaps they may breathe?”
“Who knows?” said the Librarian, smiling at the thought. “They feel very much alive to me.”
Then Gian-Luca’s mind became practical again. “Did you buy them all yourself?” he demanded.
The Librarian laughed: “Do I look as though I had? Do I look as though I could afford them?”
Gian-Luca examined his friend more closely, and observed that his cleanshaven face was much wrinkled, as though from continual smiling. Two funny, deep lines ran down into his chin, and his hair had a tuft like a schoolboy’s. But although he appeared to have amused himself vastly—over what Gian-Luca could not conceive—his clothes would have thoroughly shocked Teresa, so frayed and untidy were they.
“No,” said Gian-Luca, who felt bound to tell the truth, “you look terribly poor to me.”
The Librarian nodded: “You’re right, I am poor—we’re all as poor as rats. But when I was younger a dreadful thing happened—I had a most wicked old uncle. He left me no money but all his books, I’m afraid he must have done it out of spite! It was rather like leaving a cellar to a drunkard, he probably knew that I’d read myself to death, as I have done financially.”
Gian-Luca was silent for a moment, then he said: “Could you not sell your fine books? After all, one must live and one cannot eat books, and at times one feels very hungry.”
“Good Lord!” sighed the Librarian; “now I’m disappointed in you. Do you always think only of your stomach?”
“We think of other people’s at the Casa Boselli—that is what really pays. My grandmother says that your money is your best friend, and as she has much she must know.” Then Gian-Luca’s heart softened quite suddenly, and he smiled at the shabby Librarian. “All the same,” said Gian-Luca, “I would like you for a father—I think you would make a nice father.” And he meant it.
The Librarian surveyed him very kindly. “You’re wrong there,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a rotten bad father, and in any case, I’ve got far too many children as it is!”
“Which do you like best, books or children?” Gian-Luca inquired, a little puzzled.
“That,” said the Librarian, “is a difficult question—I’ve never been able to decide.” As he spoke, something bumped against the door, which opened rather abruptly. A very fat child lurched into the room, and seeing Gian-Luca, began to suck its thumb. “My latest folly!” said its father, pointing.
“It’s three, the others are all grown-up. Go away at once, folly!” he commanded sternly; “you’re much too corpulent to fit into my study, in another minute you’ll get stuck.” But the infant continued to stare at Gian-Luca, and its father apparently forgot it. “You were saying,” he went on, “that you think of people’s stomachs—a revolting portion of the body.”
“Why?” said Gian-Luca, a little offended. “I cannot buy books and I cannot write them; so I am going to be a waiter.”
The Librarian seemed to be thinking aloud: “Dull, very dull, very ugly—” he murmured.
“It will interest me,” said Gian-Luca, with dignity, “to see where all the food goes to. We have hundreds of pounds of food at our shop, it arrives in enormous cases!”
“I know where it ultimately goes,” said the Librarian; “but come on, I expect tea’s ready.” And seizing his latest folly by the hand, he led the way to the dining-room.
“You observe,” he smiled, motioning Gian-Luca to a chair, “that we have not forgotten the Swiss roll!”
The plump little lady who looked like a sparrow, beamed across the table at Gian-Luca. She seemed to feel that he must need comforting, and put four lumps of sugar in his tea. Gian-Luca preferred two, but he drank his tea politely, he was obviously growing very thoughtful.
“If you had fewer children, could you then not buy more books?” he suddenly inquired of the Librarian.
“Dear me!” said the hostess, looking rather startled. But Gian-Luca continued to be thoughtful.
“Or suppose,” he went on dreamily, “that you read fewer books, could you not afford to have more children?”
“I’m greedy!” smiled his host; “I’m greedy, I want both; that’s why I wear carpet slippers on a Sunday—it’s not to ease my feet, but to save my boots—and that is what comes of being greedy!”
“I do not understand you,” said Gian-Luca, frowning.
“I don’t understand myself,” said the Librarian. Then he looked at Gian-Luca: “Now, you’re what the world calls wise, you don’t neglect the substance for the shadow; that’s what we all do here, we all neglect the substance, in spite of this disgracefully stout offspring whom you see. However, if at moments you should come to long for the shadow—well, Gian-Luca, we’ll be very glad to see you.”
“Yes, indeed, always glad,” said the hostess gently; “you must come very often, Gian-Luca.”
She was looking at her guest with pity in her eyes, a pity that she could not have explained. “Undoubtedly, a very prosperous child,” she was thinking, “he’s well dressed—I suppose his grandparents must be rich, these Italians only come here to make money!” Yet the mother that was in her was not quite satisfied, it was thinking too, but not about prosperity—it was thinking that never in its life had it seen such a queer, unresponsive and lonely little boy—so self-sufficient and so lonely.
VIII
That evening Gian-Luca went up to his room and found his pencil and paper. A vague spirit of discontent was upon him, a vague longing to find self-expression.
“The Librarian lives in the shadows,” he wrote, “But Gian-Luca must live in the daylight.”
Only rhymes could appease the ache that was in him, he disdained the idea of prose. But the rhymes would not come; there was no rhyme for shadows and nothing that seemed to go very well with daylight. So Gian-Luca lost his temper and tore up his paper, and hurled his pencil to the floor. He sat glaring into space:
“It is all wrong!” he muttered. “Something is all wrong with me. I wish to write poems, I wish to be a waiter; yet a waiter cannot write, and a poet cannot wait—I am greedy like the Librarian. Also, I am sometimes greedy over food, I should very much dislike to go hungry.”
“Piccino!” came Fabio’s voice up the stairs; “come quick! We have minestrone for supper!”
The would-be poet got up with some haste, he was feeling very hungry at that moment. A most enticing odor was pervading the whole house.
“I come now at once!” replied Gian-Luca.