Book + 

III + 

I + 

I + 

There had never been such a season at the Doric as the season that followed the Armistice; everyone was flocking to the restaurants now, in a kind of hilarious reaction. Millo was in the seventh heaven of delight, and so were most of his waiters, for people were recklessly spending their money, eating up banknotes with every mouthful, and washing them down with champagne or spirits, so that, naturally, when they got up to go, they left a fat tip behind them. + 

Millo had long since had to duplicate his band, for a supper without dancing was unheard of. It was said that among other excellent things, he possessed the best jazz-bands in London. The craze for dancing was on the increase, and now there was no age limit; the white-haired, the portly, the withered, the ailing, young or old, maid or matron, they must get up and dance; while a decadent Pan⁠—discarding his reed-pipe⁠—turned sobriety to bibbing and dignity to folly, with the help of a water-whistle. + 

Gian-Luca inspected his rooms one May morning and quietly nodded his head. Everything was perfect, from the vases of flowers to the well-polished plate and glass. + 

“Va bene,” he murmured, “it is all as it should be; that Daniele is a competent fellow.” And then he observed a fork out of place and hastily put it straight. + 

A man in a baize apron, with a dustpan and brush, was stalking a couple of waiters; every few minutes he would suddenly swoop at some microscopic speck on the carpet. At a long side-table a person in shirtsleeves opened endless packets of matches; he filled the match-stands with infinite care so that each little red head stood neatly in its place awaiting its coming cremation. Daniele was giving a last expert touch to the wicks of the spirit-lamps, pinching them firmly between finger and thumb, then spreading out their tips as though they were petals; for these wicks were important, since they would assist in the making of the temperamental Crêpe Suzette! + 

At last all was in order for the business of the day⁠—and what a momentous business! The Doric would feed many hundred stomachs, postwar stomachs too, long deprived of their fill and now determined to get it. + 

The telephone began to ring every few minutes⁠—people calling up to book tables; Gian-Luca must consult that complicated list which stood on a desk by the door. + 

“What name do you say is asking, Daniele? No, I do not know that name, we have not got a table.” Or: “The Duchess of Sussex? Yes, of course; how many, five? She can have her usual table in the window; and see that you put some flowers by each plate⁠—say a couple of those pink roses.” + 

And now Gian-Luca was much in request, for the clients were calling in person. “Good morning, signore, a table for three⁠—” + 

“Certainly, Milady, a table in the corner⁠—will you take that one over there?” + 

“Ah, scusi, signorina, have you been waiting long? Yes, yes, I have seen to everything for supper, it shall be exactly as you wish.” + 

Gian-Luca was all ingratiating smiles, he seemed so anxious to please you. To see him was to think that he liked you for yourself⁠—not for what you would eat for the good of the Doric; no, he liked you because you were just yourself⁠—that was what was so charming about him. It made you feel genial, you glanced round the room in the hopes of finding someone to nod to, and there stood Roberto, that capital waiter with the really good knowledge of wine. + 

“Good morning, Roberto. So you’re back again. That’s splendid; I’m jolly glad to see you!” + 

And Roberto grinned shyly and bowed from the waist as though you had done him an honor⁠—that was what was so nice about Roberto, he made you feel like a sultan. And there was Giovanni, and he too was smiling, smiling and rubbing his hands⁠—Giovanni who knew how you liked your cold beef, not too underdone, just pink. + 

“Good morning, Giovanni! So you’re safe and sound. Glad to get back here, aren’t you?” + 

And Giovanni looked flattered: “I thank you, signore. I hope the signore is well?” + 

Oh, and there was Millo himself, also bowing, waiting to catch your eye⁠—that was what was so nice about Millo, he never forgot the face of a client; a wonderful gift, and it went a long way towards making you feed at the Doric. + 

II + 

This then was the atmosphere of well-being that Millo had managed to create. He believed in giving people exactly what they wanted, for someone was certain to gain in the process, and as a rule it was the giver. Millo might sometimes smile rather wryly, he might even shake his wise head, but then he would murmur: “Le monde est ainsi fait.” And remember that he had not made it. + 

Of his vast staff whose duty it was to see that everyone got what they wanted, none so deft, so proficient, so agreeable as Gian-Luca, whose lips had acquired an automatic smile which he kept expressly for the clients. Millo, watching his clever headwaiter, would consider him well-nigh perfect. He would think: + 

“After all he was right to be ambitious; the man knows the worth of his talent, and why not? I am lucky to have him in days like these, when everyone feels so hungry!” And then he would chuckle a little to himself, thinking of the people who felt hungry. + 

But sometimes, if nobody happened to be looking, Gian-Luca’s face altered completely; it grew sullen and tired, it was quite a different face from the one that he showed to the clients. Backwards and forwards superintending the service went Millo’s clever headwaiter, and all that he did was supremely well done, for so many years had gone to his making that now he must work like a perfect machine, without hitch, without flaw, without hurry. There had been many days during that time in France when Gian-Luca had tried to work badly, to be inefficient, clumsy, forgetful of orders; hoping against hope to get sent to the Front if he ceased to give satisfaction. But then, even as now, his long training held, and he could not be other than himself, the perfect mess-sergeant, the perfect headwaiter, the master and slave of innumerable details, the man who could not see a fork out of place but that he must put it straight. He had slipped back into his groove at the Doric as though he had never been away, taking up his work just where he had left it; ordering his waiters, humoring his clients; with a watchful eye, too, for his master’s interests, which he served whenever he might. + 

Yet all the while, and herein lay the change, Gian-Luca cared nothing at all. If the Doric had suddenly fallen to pieces, and he himself with it, he would not have cared; a curious indifference had begun to possess him, he worked without interest or pleasure or ambition, because he had the habit of working. Now he would try not to think of his work, because if he thought about it too much he was filled with a sense of smallness. Everything he did now seemed infinitely small, and he himself seemed small in the doing; Millo, the Doric, Gian-Luca, all small⁠—the servants of poor Lilliputians. And yet he could never stop doing small things, he would pause to pick up a pin; a badly-drawn curtain would worry his eyes until he must go and arrange it. A crumb on the carpet, a chair out of place, would cause him acute discomfort; but after he had spoken pretty sharply to Daniele, he would think: “Dio Santo! what does it matter? What do all these trifles matter?” + 

He began to grow anxious about himself, because of this curious indifference. He who had all but reached the height of his ambition, and could buy his own restaurant now if he chose, or if he preferred it get a manager’s job and work up in time to be a rival to Millo; he who had achieved so much single-handed in the face of unpropitious fate, what had he got to complain of? Nothing⁠—and yet, somehow, the thought of his days lay heavy, like a cold, hard stone on his brain. The clashing of music, the clattering of dishes, the incessant talking and laughing; the perpetual movement of knives and forks, the perpetual chewing of food. + 

“Maître d’hotel!” + 

“Si, signore?” + 

“I want the wine-waiter.” + 

“Si, signore, I will send him at once!” + 

“Gian-Luca⁠—” + 

“Si, signore?” + 

“I’d like some more hors d’oeuvres.” + 

“Si, signore, I will send you your waiter.” + 

Food, food, food⁠—all those dozens of people thinking of it, talking of it, eating. His business in life just to see that they got it, just to see that they ate more and more. His head would feel dizzy with the fumes of the food, until he would grow almost stupid; but then he would suddenly pull himself up, while a kind of terror seized him. + 

“This is my life, my whole life,” he would mutter, “and I like it⁠—I like my work.” + 

To assure himself how much he liked his work, he took to going down to the basement again, in the time between luncheon and dinner. He would stand on the steps that led into the great kitchen, and listen to the pulsing of that mighty heart; he would think of Millo, the heart of that heart, while he tried to recapture the lure of the place that had held him before the war. Food, food, food⁠—great cauldrons of food. Food on the tables of wood and of iron; splashes of food on the walls, on the floor, on the clothes and the hands of men. The vastness of the thing would begin to oppress him⁠—grotesque that it should be so vast⁠—the vastness of the Doric and all that it stood for, the vastness of the appetites that it must appease, the vastness of that long vista of jaws. Yet the larger the Doric grew in his imagination, the smaller it seemed to become; so small that now it was crushing and squeezing; a prison, a press that closed in and in until he could scarcely breathe. But how could a thing be vast and yet small? Surely that way lay madness. + 

His hand would go up to his throat. He would think: “It is awful⁠—it suffocates!” And then he would hurry away to the larders, afraid of these fantastic fancies. + 

In the principal larder there would be much to see, the chopping and slicing of meat, for instance; great chunks of raw meat, which a chef called Henri was forever dividing with his knife. There were also those long rows of newly-plucked chickens, with their necks swinging over the shelves, and those deep, white dishes of quaking entrails, and those slabs full of slow-moving, beady-eyed lobsters, who protested that they were alive. Henri would look up from his work with a smile, and perhaps he would say: “Good morning, Gian-Luca. Would you like to select a nice, fat lobster for your pretty Milady? You are always so fussy, and no wonder, for she is extremely gourmande, she will eat it up shell and all!” + 

And Gian-Luca might answer: “She is little and lovely⁠—they are always the greediest kind.” But he would not select the fat lobster for Milady, instead he would just stand staring at Henri, and one day he said: “Do you like what you do? Do you like the feeling of food?” + 

“Ma foi! But why not?” laughed Henri, surprised. “Do I not live by their food?” + 

III + 

Gian-Luca still found consolation in his books, he still read the “Gioia della Luce,” and now Ugo Doria had written a new poem, an epic of peace and of peaceful things, of vineyards and hillsides and valleys. It had come to Gian-Luca like a breath of sweet air, like a cool hand laid on the forehead. He said to Maddalena: + 

“When I read Doria’s words I can almost believe in the Spirit⁠—I can almost believe in your God, Maddalena, for that is how Doria writes sometimes⁠—as though he wrote with his spirit.” + 

One day he went off to see the Librarian, taking the poem in his pocket. “Have you read it?” he demanded. “It is wonderful, sublime⁠—it is equal to the ‘Gioia della Luce.’ ” + 

The Librarian shook his head. “No,” he said slowly; “I am sick unto death of books.” + 

Gian-Luca stared: “You are tired of your books? But I thought you loved books as I do.” + 

“A man may change⁠—” the Librarian said softly, “perhaps every man must change.” + 

Then Gian-Luca was silent because he felt frightened, terribly frightened of change. But presently he said: + 

“A man must not change, he might lose himself in the process!” + 

“Would that matter very much?” inquired the Librarian. “Suppose he should find something better.” + 

“He is mad!” thought Gian-Luca. “He is obviously mad!” And he wished that he had not come. “It must be the shock of those boys getting killed within a week of each other.” + 

“Do you still care for books and food and stomachs?” the Librarian asked him gravely. “I am disappointed in books myself, such a lot of them seem to suggest indigestion⁠—a kind of deranged mental stomach.” + 

“I care very much indeed,” said Gian-Luca, and his voice was loud and aggressive; “I care for the things that I know to be real; I cannot afford to be a dreamer like you. I am just a headwaiter at the Doric.” + 

“I know nothing so inexpensive as dreams⁠—” said the little Librarian, smiling. + 

But Gian-Luca did not smile: “He is quite mad,” he mused; “I suppose they keep him on out of pity!” + 

IV + 

That summer Teresa said to Maddalena: “What is the matter with Gian-Luca?” For even Teresa, immersed in her business, had noticed a change in her grandson. + 

And then it was Rosa and Mario who spoke, and they both looked hard at Maddalena. “What is the matter with Gian-Luca?” they demanded, as though Maddalena were to blame. + 

Two days later Nerone called on Maddalena, and there he found the Padrona. The Padrona had just been giving advice as to how one should manage a husband. + 

“One should never allow him to sulk,” she was saying; “now I think your Gian-Luca is sulking.” + 

“Per Bacco, he is not!” Nerone protested; “the boy is doing nothing of the kind. I think he is probably ill, our Gian-Luca, I think you should send for a doctor.” + 

Rocca waylaid Maddalena one morning and beckoned her into the shop: “I do not much like the look of Gian-Luca, his face has grown dull and he speaks very little⁠—I hope you take care of our child, Maddalena? He was born in our midst⁠—such a queer little boy, with a positive terror of goats. You must not mind an old fellow like me speaking frankly: I think he is ill; he works very hard, and he needs his small comforts, and I hope you see that he gets them.” + 

Maddalena reassured them all as best as she could, but her own heart was deeply anxious. Gian-Luca looked weary and discontented; he was sleeping very badly, and when he got up his eyes would be vague and unhappy. + 

“What is the matter, amore?” she would say. “Try to tell me what is the matter.” + 

But he always replied: “There is nothing the matter; leave me in peace, donna mia.” + 

He was growing coldly unkind to Maddalena; never angry, just coldly unkind. At times he would treat her as though she were a stranger, preferring his books to her company, it seemed, and that summer he refused to go out of London when the time for their holiday arrived. + 

“I do not want people,” he told her firmly; “wherever one goes there are too many people.” So he sat at the open window and read, sometimes he would not speak for hours. Once he looked up and noticed her eyes: “You are always watching,” he said sharply; “stop staring, Maddalena, I do not like your eyes⁠—they are frightened, they remind me of a rabbit in a trap; I wish you would look more cheerful.” + 

There were days when he found fault with everything she cooked. “How can I eat this mess!” he would grumble. “It is all greasy butter, you use too much butter. Dio Santo! I get enough grease at the Doric; cannot you cook more simply?” But then he would proceed to finish the whole dish. “I must eat, a man must eat,” he would mutter. And the watchful Maddalena would know that he was not hungry⁠—would know that he forced himself to eat. + 

At moments her self-control would desert her, and then she would go down on her knees: “I love you so⁠—” she would tell him wildly. “I am childless, Gian-Luca, I have no one but you; all these long years I have waited for a child⁠—be kind to me⁠—kiss me, Gian-Luca!” + 

He would look at her dumbly as though trying to be kind, and after a moment he would kiss her. “There, there, mia donna,” he would say, getting up; “there, there, mia donna, you are tired.” + 

Oh, indeed Maddalena had need of her prayers, had need of the kindly Madonna at St. Peter’s, had need of the Child who stood at her knee, and of Father Antonio, their priest. Father Antonio counselled much patience, it would surely come right, he told Maddalena. God worked in strange ways, but He knew His own business, and His business might well be a prodigal son⁠—Maddalena must leave it to God. + 

And she honestly did try to leave it to God, try to have courage and patience, but her great faithful heart was failing a little. She would think: + 

“He came home to me safely from the war, but was it for this that he came home safely⁠—so that he might grow to hate me?” Then she would remember her prayers for his safety, and something within her would tremble, and something within her would start to ask a question, over and over again it would ask it. “My God!” she would answer in a kind of desperation, “I was right to pray for my husband’s safety, every poor wife all over Europe was praying for her husband’s safety!” + 

V + 

Gian-Luca worked better than ever in the autumn, determined to slay this thing that possessed him, this spirit of indifference and depression. People were hurrying back from the country, and the Doric was full to overflowing once more; then one morning the telephone rang loud and long, it was someone demanding the headwaiter. + 

Gian-Luca put the receiver to his ear: “Yes, I am the headwaiter⁠—the restaurant, yes⁠—” + 

“I want a table for two,” came a voice, “it must be a small little table and quiet⁠—for two, yes, next Thursday for lunch, half-past one⁠—I want a quiet little table for two. Are you an Italian? Then for God’s sake talk Italian!” And the voice proceeded to order a luncheon that spoke well for its owner’s palate. + 

“What name, signore?” inquired Gian-Luca when at last the order was completed. + 

“Doria⁠—have you got it?” came the voice less distinctly. “A table for Ugo Doria.” + 

Then Gian-Luca suddenly ceased to be a waiter. “Ugo Doria, the poet?” he babbled. + 

“Ma si, I am the poet⁠—never mind about that, have you got it all down about the luncheon?” + 

Gian-Luca walked straight into Millo’s office. “Ugo Doria is lunching here next Thursday, signore; I have come to ask if I may serve him myself⁠—” + 

Millo looked up from a bundle of papers. “Doria the poet?” he inquired. + 

“Si, signore, Ugo Doria, and coming to the Doric⁠—I have just written down his order.” + 

Gian-Luca’s voice sounded young with excitement. Millo glanced at him in surprise. “You are fond of poetry then, Gian-Luca? Doria is certainly a great writer, but I did not know that you were a great reader. Have you read his new epic, ‘The Sowing of Peace’? It is very lovely, I think.” + 

“Yes, but have I your permission to serve him myself, signore?” + 

“Certainly, Gian-Luca, why not? Let Daniele take your place in the restaurant during luncheon, I would wish you to serve Ugo Doria.” + 

“Thank you,” said Gian-Luca, “you have made me very happy.” And his eyes were actually shining. + 

“How curious; he reads Ugo Doria’s poems,” thought Millo as his headwaiter left him. “How little one knows about other men’s minds, and as for their hearts⁠—well, nothing.” + 

That afternoon Gian-Luca went back to Maddalena. “Maddalena! Where are you?” he shouted. + 

“I am here,” she answered, coming quickly towards him. “I am waiting for you, piccino.” + 

Then he hugged her, and laughed, and told her the great news⁠—Ugo Doria was coming to the Doric. “And I shall serve him myself, Maddalena; my hands only shall serve him!” Presently he said: “When I was very young⁠—before I left the Capo, Maddalena⁠—I used to long for this thing to happen, I used to long to serve Doria. I used to see myself pouring out his wine and passing his food with a flourish; I used to wish to impress him, I remember⁠—I distinctly remember that I wished to impress him⁠—but he never came to the Capo.” + 

“And now you can do it all!” she said gladly; “you, who are a headwaiter! I hope he will know who it is who serves him, but of course he will see by your necktie.” + 

Gian-Luca teased her: “He will know by my appearance; he will know by my splendid appearance! He will say: ‘Why here comes the great Gian-Luca!’ And then no doubt he will write me a poem, inspired by my exquisite waiting.” + 

She scarcely dared to believe her own eyes, Gian-Luca was laughing with pleasure. He was young and gay and affectionate again, and all because Doria was coming to the Doric! But what did that matter, so long as he was happy, happy and kind to Maddalena? + 

She said: “I will bless this man Ugo Doria, because he has made you smile.” + 

Then Gian-Luca kissed her: “It is foolish perhaps, but yes, I feel as excited as a schoolboy.” After which he must needs get out Doria’s poems, and read her the “Gioia della Luce.” + 

II + 

I + 

On the following Thursday Gian-Luca arrived at the Doric an hour before his time. He must interview the head chef regarding certain dishes that Doria had specially ordered; he must speak to Roberto about the champagne; he must give the final directions to Daniele; in fact he must rouse the whole staff of the Doric by announcing Doria’s prospective visit. + 

Doria’s table would be in the octagon room, in a quiet corner by the window, and at each of the plates there should be a red carnation made up as a buttonhole, for Gian-Luca felt sure in his own mind, somehow, that Doria’s friend would be a man. He might be bringing a well-known statesman, or a soldier famous in war, or perhaps a poet less great than himself, to whom he was doing a kindness. But whoever he brought was sure to be important, if not now, then at some future date, for the man who had written the “Gioia della Luce” was not likely to cast his pearls before swine⁠—and then greatness attracted greatness. + 

Gian-Luca, who was now nearly thirty-two years old, was weaving romances like a boy; he pictured Doria as slender and tall, with the strong, lean flanks of a racehorse; his eyes would be inspired, the eyes of a poet, but above all the man would convey a sense of bigness, bigness of mind, bigness of spirit; oh, yes, and bigness of sin when he sinned⁠—for nothing small or despicable or mean could have written the “Gioia della Luce,” nor could it have conceived those many other poems that burnt with the fires of the flesh. Serene and enduring he must be, this Doria, in spite of those outbursts of passion⁠—a pasture swept by occasional storms, a valley that harbored a mountain torrent, a mountain whose peak was covered in snow, and illumined by swift crude lightning. + 

To everyone he met at the Doric that morning, Gian-Luca said: “Doria is coming here today.” + 

And they answered: “Ugo Doria the poet?” Then Gian-Luca nodded and smiled. + 

Monsieur Martin, the head of the army of chefs, was inclined to be short in his manner, however. For no war stopgap was Monsieur Pierre Martin, but a culinary king returned to his kingdom, and now on his coat showed a green and red ribbon which stood for the Croix de Guerre. + 

“Parbleu, is he God?” inquired Monsieur Martin. “Is he God, this poet you speak of? I have never so much as heard his name; now if it could have been Rostand⁠—but Rostand is dead, a very great pity, for only the French can write verses.” + 

“As you please,” said Gian-Luca; “let us not discuss writers, I am here to discuss their food.” + 

“Why not cook it yourself!” suggested Monsieur Martin. Gian-Luca smiled: “I should do it so badly; it is you who are the poet of the kitchen!” + 

After which Monsieur Martin had himself to smile, remembering his exquisite dishes. + 

“You may leave it to me,” he said, graciously enough; “I will care for your poet’s digestion.” + 

II + 

At ten o’clock Gian-Luca put on his dress-suit, taking quite a long time in the process; he was almost as fussy about this ritual as he had been about all his other arrangements. But once dressed, there was nothing left for him to do, and more than two hours must elapse before luncheon; so he said to Roberto: + 

“I will open the wine, I wish to serve everything myself.” + 

“You have told me that three times already, signore,” Roberto replied, somewhat nettled. + 

“Very well then, I tell you again!” snapped Gian-Luca, who was feeling like an overwrought piccolo. + 

He sat down and anxiously studied his lists; nearly all the tables were booked. He said to Daniele: + 

“Can you manage, do you think? For God’s sake do not disturb me.” + 

“I can surely manage, Signor Gian-Luca,” Daniele replied, much aggrieved. + 

“Very well, then, remember all the things that I have told you,” warned Gian-Luca in an ominous voice. + 

They said to each other behind his back: “He is not like this as a rule⁠—today one would think he was new to the work. And why must he wait on Doria himself? That is not a headwaiter’s business.” + 

Gian-Luca could feel their covert disapproval, but it left him entirely unmoved. Tomorrow he would be their headwaiter again, the implacable Gian-Luca with the all-seeing eyes, and the method of a ruthless machine. But today he was going to be human for once, he was going to be a creature of feeling; today he would serve for the joy of serving, and his service should be a thing to remember, because it would have come from his heart. + 

III + 

It was one o’clock, clients were beginning to arrive, Daniele was ready and smiling. Gian-Luca stood silently waiting near the table by the window in his octagon room. It was ten past one, then a quarter-past one, then all of a sudden it was half-past; the room had filled up, all the tables were occupied except that one by the window. It was twenty to two; Gian-Luca stiffened, Doria and his friend were late. Stooping down, he fingered the red carnations, very slightly changing their angle. Then someone was coming in at the door, a woman, the little Milady; and after her followed a white-haired man who was taking off pale grey gloves. + 

All in a moment Gian-Luca perceived him; every detail struck through to his brain; a bulky, elderly man of sixty with a self-willed mouth that had weakened and coarsened, with pale eyes that looked small because of the skin that was gathered in bladders beneath them. A man with a face that looked foolish at that moment because it was close to Milady, or rather to Milady’s elegant back which preceded it into the room. + 

Gian-Luca stepped forward and bowed very low. “Signor Doria’s table?” he inquired. + 

“Ma si, I have booked a table,” said Doria, “I have booked a table for two.” + 

“It is ready, signore,” Gian-Luca murmured. “It is ready⁠—this way please, Milady.” + 

They sat down, and Doria smiled at his companion and she smiled back at Doria, and Gian-Luca served them with artichokes in oil and other delectable things. + 

Doria was talking in broken English, making gestures with his long white hands; every few minutes Milady laughed softly, and whenever she laughed Ugo Doria stopped talking, and his eyes looked sheepish, but old and tired⁠—too tired to do justice to Milady. + 

“Open the champagne, waiter,” he ordered. + 

And Gian-Luca opened the champagne. He filled their glasses, while Milady said, still laughing, that she really preferred ginger-beer. + 

Presently they were comfortably launched, and Doria nodded with approval. “Buonissimo, quel poulet Maryland!” he murmured, spearing a piece with his fork. + 

And now he must drink very much champagne, because he was tired and ageing, and because Milady, who was little and lovely, was as greedy in passion as in food. Doria’s eyes grew bolder, ridiculously bold for a man who was tired and ageing, while over his face spread a deep red flush that was less of virility than wine. + 

He said softly: “You are beautiful like morning, bellezza, you are like my ‘Gioia della Luce.’ Have you read my ‘Gioia della Luce,’ bellezza?” + 

“Of course I have read it,” Milady lied; “everyone has read the ‘Gioia.’ ” + 

Gian-Luca smiled coldly as he poured the champagne: “Un’altra bottiglia?” he whispered. + 

Doria nodded: “Si, un’altra bottiglia!” + 

Then Gian-Luca opened a fresh bottle. + 

As he drank, Ugo Doria felt younger and younger, but his face remained terribly old. Milady’s eyes wandered away at moments to someone who sat near the door. And seeing this, Doria must work for her favors, smiling, and trying to be gay; trying to look clear-eyed and fair-haired and twenty, like the person who sat near the door. He talked of his poems, of his literary triumphs, laughing as though he were amused. + 

“A ridiculous success it have been, my new epic; what you call it?⁠—a bumper success!” + 

He bragged like a child who covers its bragging with a flimsy pretense of humility; while his eyes, those lustful, miserable eyes, demanded and cringed and worshipped by turns whenever they dwelt on Milady. + 

Tall and silent, but terribly watchful, stood Gian-Luca, always at his elbow. From time to time he refilled Doria’s glass, and whenever he did this his lips would smile coldly; a queer, cruel smile that distorted his features, twisting the corners of his mouth. + 

Forgetting the presence of this soft-moving waiter, Doria expanded more and more; dragging his exquisite art in the mire, using his immortality as a cloak for a brainless woman to tread on. A large, foolish, lovesick viveur of sixty, greasy with food and wine; hot with the passing caprice of the moment⁠—a triumph of a poet, a disaster of a man; this then was Ugo Doria. + 

Gian-Luca calmly brought in his coffee and poured out his liqueur brandy; very calmly, too, he presented the bill, which Doria paid with scarcely a glance. Then Milady got up, and as she did so, she smiled and nodded at Gian-Luca. Then Doria got up, but heavily, slowly; and he handed Gian-Luca a tip of two pounds in order to impress Milady. Not that he was rich, Ugo Doria, far from it⁠—it costs money to make the beau geste; and all his life he had made the beau geste, whenever it seemed worth while. + 

He said to Gian-Luca: “It have been a fine meal,” and his voice was a little husky. + 

Gian-Luca bowed and held open the door: “Buon giorno, signore, e grazie.” + 

When Doria looked back, Gian-Luca was still standing with his hand on the open door. + 

And that was how Gian-Luca served his father; and that was how Doria was served by his son⁠—neither of them any the wiser. + 

IV + 

That night, while Maddalena slept, Gian-Luca burnt Doria’s books. He burnt them deliberately, one by one, and the pound notes that Doria had given him he burnt also; and the flames that consumed these things were less searing than the anger within his heart. + 

Now he no longer felt weary and indifferent, he was terribly alive with this anger. It shone in his eyes, it tightened his muscles; he felt young with the will that he had to hate, and as he watched Doria’s verses burning he leant forward and spat into the fire. + 

He talked to the shrinking, shriveling things: “You hypocrites! You impostors! You liars! Here is Gian-Luca who believed you all these years, who went to you for comfort when he was so lonely, who went to you for courage when he was afraid, who set you apart as though you were worthy to live all alone in your grandeur; and all the while you were nothing but lies. He is small, small, small, the man who conceived you; his vanities are small and his lusts and his sins. His sins are the sins of an overcharged belly, he must drink in order to sin. I must fill up his glass many times while he sits there in order that your Doria may be sinful! Dio buono, if I could not sin better than that I would call myself less than a man!” + 

All the years of his lonely, outraged childhood, of his painful adolescence, his maturity of toil with its bitter will to succeed; all the dull resentment of that period in France, and the weariness of spirit that had followed after; yea, and strangely enough, that occasional yearning towards the ideal that had come to the son from the father who had written the “Gioia della Luce”⁠—all these things now struck with the blows of a hammer on nerves too long sternly repressed; a hammer in the hand of Ugo Doria, who struck and struck and struck. Fantastically enormous he loomed, that poor creature, by very reason of his smallness; a monster, an outrage, an idol in ruins, a god with feet of coarse clay. + 

The flames that had destroyed the “Gioia della Luce” illumined Gian-Luca’s face, a face that seen thus in the gleaming firelight came perilously near to madness. And now he turned, as though Doria were present, and began to revile him also: + 

“You beast, you fool, you ridiculous bladder! You say to Gian-Luca: ‘Quick, open the champagne!’ You say to Gian-Luca: ‘It is excellent, this chicken!’ You say to the woman: ‘You are beautiful like morning, you are like my “Gioia della Luce”!’ And all the while she is splitting with laughter. Do you hear? She is splitting her sides with laughter! And her eyes are on someone who is stronger and younger, because she is greedy; I know her, the Milady⁠—and all the while your eyes are on her, and your eyes make Gian-Luca go mad with anger, because of the ‘Gioia della Luce.’ But you are not alone, there are many more like you, the Doric is full of you, the whole world is full of you, eating and drinking and moving your jaws, pouring the wine down your gullets. You say to Gian-Luca: ‘Come here, my good fellow, and tell me what I must eat.’ He is such an obliging headwaiter, the Gian-Luca; he bows, he smiles, he produces his menu, he recommends this, he recommends that, he feeds you up like a lot of stud cattle. Damn you!” he shouted, shaking his fists, suddenly beside himself with anger; “damn you and your children and your children’s children! May you all eat and drink yourselves to hell.” + 

Upstairs, Maddalena moaned in her sleep as if she were suffering with him; and as though he heard her, Gian-Luca fell silent, while his face took on a brooding expression. + 

“I must be very careful with Maddalena, or else she will think I have gone mad,” he muttered. “What shall I say about all this burnt paper? I think I will get it out of the house, I can dump it somewhere in the street. And if she asks me about Doria’s books, I will say that I have lent them to Roberto; and if she says that they were all there this evening, I will say that she has made a mistake; and if she asks me about Ugo Doria, I will say that he is all and more than I thought him⁠—it is lucky that I found her asleep when I got home, it is very lucky indeed!” + 

And stooping, he began to collect the burnt paper, which he presently threw into the street. + 

III + 

I + 

In the months that followed on the meeting with Doria, Gian-Luca acquired the habit of watching. Never before had he watched like this, with eyes that weighed and appraised and condemned; with an anger that glowed all the more intensely because it was kept beneath the surface. For after that one wild night of destruction, Gian-Luca had found his self-control again; the next morning he had actually smiled at Maddalena, had actually assured her that Ugo Doria was as great as, if not greater than, his genius. Oh, yes, he was wonderfully self-controlled, and more attentive than ever to his clients; he was everywhere at once with his low-voiced suggestions regarding their food and drink. + 

He would say to Roberto: “They are drinking too little, go quickly, my friend, and make them drink some more, but do it with tact or else they may suspect you⁠—never irritate, always persuade.” + 

And Roberto would sometimes stare, almost frightened at the look in Gian-Luca’s eyes; a brooding, cruel, inhuman expression. “They have ordered a bottle of champagne,” he would mutter; “that lot always drink a good deal.” + 

Then Gian-Luca would laugh: “Not enough, not enough! Go and try them with some Napoleon brandy; but always take care that they do not get quite drunk, for that would be bad for the Doric.” + 

Roberto would think: “What is the matter with the fellow? It is almost as though he hated our clients, it is almost as though he took pleasure in their weakness⁠—ma che, we are all weak at times!” + 

In spite of his constant service on the clients, Gian-Luca found time to watch them, and the more he watched them the more he hated, and the deeper his hatred the greater his zeal. + 

And now there was plenty of eating and drinking and dancing and lusting to the tunes of the band; but never enough to content Gian-Luca, who, distrusting Roberto, would tempt them in person, with soft-voiced praise for this vintage or that. He would think of Giovanni who had gone to the war, but had come back to slice up their meats; Giovanni who had wished so much to get killed because of his faithless Anna. There would be Giovanni, very quiet, very pale, with his long knife always so busy⁠—a patient, resigned, rather stupid sort of man who had said to Gian-Luca: + 

“I am back after all. Oh, well, I suppose it was fate!” + 

And Gian-Luca’s anger would flame into his eyes, because Giovanni must still slice meat. Yet Giovanni was quite unfit to rule empires, whereas he was an excellent trancheur⁠ ⁠… + 

Gian-Luca would think of Roberto, the wine-waiter, so humble, in spite of those years at the war⁠—Roberto who would tolerate stupid impatience with a smile and a plea for forgiveness. “Scusi, signore, I am very sorry; the cocktails will not be long coming.” And then he would remember Roberto’s fine record, for Roberto had been an ace. Oh, yes, and he had flown with the gallant d’Annunzio, the dreamer who had known how to turn dreams into actions, and of whom it was told that in moments of peril, it had not been his way with the men to say: “You go!” But instead, “I am going, come with me.” Roberto had done many wonderful things, he had played many times with death. Like a fearless eagle he had soared in the air, swooping, destroying, then up, up and up, while something went spinning earthward! Roberto seldom spoke of these deeds, but one day he had said to Gian-Luca: + 

“I will never keep birds in a cage any more, for now I know what it means to have wings.” + 

Gian-Luca’s anger would well-nigh choke him, because this Roberto must open their wine; and then he would urge him to open still more, eager for their undoing. Yet all wars must end and with them brave deeds, while the Dorics go on forever, and Roberto had a mother to keep in Rapallo, so perhaps it was well that he understood wines, and was such a polite little waiter. And indeed he was marvelous, little Roberto, considering all he had done⁠—a quiet, sober man with a great sense of duty; contented too, or so he appeared, as he opened those innumerable bottles. And if he was less contented than he seemed he took care that you should not see it, arguing no doubt that the longings of your waiter would make bad seasoning for supper. + 

II + 

Gian-Luca discovered that on certain days there would be more to watch than on others; on certain days interesting people would arrive, people whose faces appeared in the papers, together with their outlandish doings. Perhaps Jane Coram would come in with her friends, satellites surrounding the star⁠—a generous star too, who provided them with money, and invariably paid for their meals. Gian-Luca would hasten to find them a table, for such people were always welcome at the Doric; they amused other clients, who could go home and say: “I saw Jane Coram at luncheon.” + 

She was still very young, the famous Jane Coram, and on rare occasions quite sober; but Gian-Luca knew the lure that would catch her, and almost before she could ask he would bring it; then she would sometimes look up with a grin, possessing a great sense of humor. She would sit lolling loosely back in her chair, with her long legs sprawled beneath the table; and as like as not she would have some grievance, a grievance with its tongue in its cheek. + 

“I’m a most unfortunate woman,” she would say, “everyone seems to be down on Jane⁠—if I try to help people there’s sure to be a row, I’m always misunderstood. Got my brandy-and-soda, Gian-Luca? All right, now get us something to eat.” And then all the satellites called for brandy, just to show that they were satellites. + 

After a time they would get very loving, loving and jealous of each other. Their eyes would grow veiled and mysterious and pensive; but Jane’s eyes never changed, they were always the same, the eyes of a homesick monkey. There she would sprawl, this darling of the people, this plaything of the gallery and pit, with her body of an athlete and her mind of a buffoon and her soul of a Solitary. And now it would be the turn of Roberto to bring her those double-brandies, Roberto who had been such a fine man in the war, Roberto who had flown with d’Annunzio. While Gian-Luca, always watchful, would be thinking to himself: + 

“She cannot last very long at this rate.” But never a twinge of pity would he feel for those eyes of a homesick monkey. + 

Perhaps a pair of young lovers would arrive, temperate children who drank little as a rule, but because they wished to appear worldly, they must now order cocktails and wine. And gradually the fine ardor of their love would be superseded by something less fine, by something that made them look flushed and coarsened⁠—a stupid, fictitious, unworthy thing, that sat ill on their fresh young faces. They would eat the rich food of the restaurant and their skins would look hot and even rather greasy; then the girl must get out her powder-puff to correct the effects of eating. And now their perceptions would have grown a little blurred, and their sense of values a little untrue, so that they felt much richer than they were, felt that the world was made for their buying, with all its delightful baubles. When they looked across the table at each other and smiled, they were looking through a mist of illusion. Not so Gian-Luca, the quietly observant, he had no illusions about them. He saw them precisely as they were at that moment, when the beauty and the glory of their youth had left them, and into its place had crept something ugly, something that reminded him of Doria. + 

He would think: “What fools, what intolerable fools! They need neither food nor wine for their loving, and yet they must do as the others are doing⁠—as Ugo Doria did.” + 

Compassion? He had none; let them eat, let them drink, the more they consumed the better! “A generation of fools,” he would mutter; and then his anger would flare up afresh. So much splendor of suffering and sacrifice and death, and now this, a generation of fools! + 

Oh, but the aged who must needs feed alone, having neither lover nor friend⁠—the people who drank their lonely champagne and ordered long, lonely meals! Sometimes a woman and sometimes a man, and how carefully they studied their menus; they would have the food-expression in their eyes, in their hands, in their backs, in their whole intent persons. They had come to an age when all other things failing, their meals must provide their diversion, when the garden of Kama must give place to the Doric, and passion to the lusts of the palate. Poor old pitiful, greedy babies, with their unreliable teeth; with their receding gums and their gouty knuckles; with their aches and their pains and their Continental Cures. Four weeks of strict diet then back at the Doric⁠—but dear God! they had to do something for Old Age, he was really terribly insistent⁠ ⁠… + 

Gian-Luca detested these senile gourmets, they made him feel physically sick; and yet he would watch them as he watched all the others, in order the better to hate. + 

III + 

With each day that passed, Gian-Luca’s vision was becoming more cruelly acute, so that now he observed the minutest details that accompanied the ritual of feeding. Nothing was too trifling to strike at his nerves, and via them to arouse his anger; he saw something to condemn in harmless people even, for if they were temperate in eating and drinking, then his mind would seize on their unconscious habits. There would be the crumbling of bread, for instance, and the making of small bread pills; the cleanest of hands would leave the pills dirty, and there they would lie on the spotless linen, an indictment against human skin. Then the habit of preparing a fork full of food so that it comprised a little of all things; a bit of potato, a couple of beans, a section of mushroom, a smear of tomato, a portion of veal⁠—and how maddening the gesture that finally got it to the mouth! There was also the habit of relieving the teeth with the tip of a surreptitious tongue, it not being considered polite in this England to disengage food with a toothpick. Quite nice people would sometimes leave blurs on their tumblers, which they tried to wipe off with their thumbs; while others might leave little stains on their lips, and even after they had rubbed them with the napkin, the stains would remain in the corners. And then there were the people who peered at their food because they were very shortsighted, and the people who sat well back in their chairs because they were the other way round. There were people who made their plates rather untidy, and others who ate in a pattern; a trifle of this, a trifle of that, and keep it all nicely trimmed up and in order like a kind of suburban garden. + 

And then the chewing! There were so many methods of chewing, since everyone came there to chew. Gian-Luca would watch with a kind of fascination, and their busy moving jaws would make him want to scream for the ugly absurdity of it. Some people would chew with their mouths slightly open; if you faced them you knew the condition of a cutlet about to enter Nirvana. Some people would chew with their lips firmly closed, and this kind occasionally made a small noise, a rhythmical clicking connected with saliva, or their tongues, or perhaps their false teeth. Some chewed with a thoughtful, circular motion that suggested an aftermath of grazing, while others nibbled their food very quickly, like rabbits devouring a lettuce. But the thing that Gian-Luca detested most was a species of ball-bearing jawbone, you could see it rotating inside the cheek with the effort of mastication. The more his mind dwelt on this problem of chewing, the more he marveled that they did it in public; hundreds of good-looking people all chewing, openly chewing in front of each other⁠—that was what amazed Gian-Luca. + 

One day he felt a violent distaste for the pleasant, white-tiled refectory, where he himself would begin to chew, and Roberto, and all the others. He tried to swallow his own food down quickly, tried not to look at Roberto, but Roberto was picking the leg of a chicken and Gian-Luca had to look. + 

“Do not do that!” he shouted suddenly; and Roberto dropped his bone in surprise. + 

But then Gian-Luca smiled blandly at him: “Scusa, Roberto, I was thinking aloud, please take up that bone again and pick it.” + 

Roberto obeyed, but that afternoon he whispered a little with Giovanni: “He is strange, very strange, our Signor Gian-Luca⁠—and I do not much like the look on his face, it reminds me of men I have seen after battle⁠—but then he was never near a battle.” + 

It was in March that her husband said to Maddalena: “It is horrible, all this eating. I hate them for it, they are pigs at a trough, they wallow, they make horrid noises.” + 

Maddalena looked up with fear in her eyes, a fear that had been growing lately. She said: “But, Gian-Luca, of course they must eat, otherwise you would not be a waiter.” + 

He scowled at her, then he began talking quickly: “Do you know the meaning of hatred? Of a hatred so enormous that it chokes a man’s breath and jerks the heart out of his body?” + 

“No⁠—no⁠—” she faltered. “I have never felt hatred⁠—” + 

And now she was very much afraid. + 

He saw it and smiled grimly: “Because, Maddalena, that is what I feel for those beasts at the Doric, I hate them; and now I am going to tell you something: that is how I hated Ugo Doria.” + 

She got up and tried to take him in her arms, feeling an overwhelming need to protect him against this thing that menaced. “Tell me, my blessing, tell me⁠—” she pleaded. “Tell Maddalena what has happened.” + 

Then he laughed: “What has happened? Why, this has happened; I see them exactly as they are, pigs at a trough with their noses in food, and when they are not gorging they are swilling! Perhaps you will wonder why I stay at the Doric? Well listen, mia donna, I will tell you. I stay at the Doric to make them eat more, to make them drink more; I coax, I persuade. I am all soft cajoling and smiles and politeness, for no one must know how intensely I hate them⁠—oh, I do my work well⁠—I am crafty, Maddalena, I do my work better than ever.” + 

She stared at him aghast: “You are ill,” she whispered. “You are surely very ill, Gian-Luca.” + 

But he pushed her away: “I am well, I tell you, I never felt better in my life. I am working like ten men; you ask them at the Doric, they will tell you I am working like ten men.” + 

At that moment he caught sight of his untasted breakfast⁠—and all of a sudden he was violently sick. + 

Nothing that Maddalena could say would persuade him to see a doctor. + 

“You want me to lose my position,” he told her. “No doubt you pity those pigs of the Doric for having Gian-Luca to tempt them.” He refused to see Teresa, or Mario, or Rosa, or indeed any member of the clan. “I am well, I tell you,” he kept on repeating. “Millo has not complained of my work⁠—I forbid you to go and discuss me with Rosa, or with anyone else, for that matter.” + 

And Maddalena, afraid to enrage him, must needs keep her great fear hidden in her heart. But now he was eating less and less, complaining again about the richness of her cooking. + 

“For the love of God, cook things simply!” he would say. “You disgust me with all your grease.” + 

Then Maddalena would try to cook simply, boiling his vegetables in water like the English; but even so he would always complain: “It is horrible, all this food!” + 

At the Doric he was finding it hard to eat a mouthful, for there the headwaiters must finish the remains of all those expensive dishes. They might help themselves freely from the buffet or wagons, feasting like kings, if they felt so disposed, on the very fat of the land. Gian-Luca would scrape off the rich yellow sauces and the soft white billows of cream, but everything he ate would have too strong a flavor; his nostrils would be full of the smell of the cooking and his ears of the sizzling and hissing and bubbling that came from the kitchens near by. But in case they suspected, he must try hard to eat, and this was a veritable torture; his throat would close up when he wanted to swallow; he would not know how to get rid of the food with which he had filled his mouth. + 

Daniele, who was still young, enjoyed the fine fare. “U‑m,” he would gurgle, “e molto buono! E buono, non e vero, signore?” + 

Then Gian-Luca must nod and reply: “Buonissimo!” in case Daniele suspected. And then there was Roberto who picked every bone, spitting out little bits of gristle; and he watched Gian-Luca with large, anxious eyes⁠—Roberto was always watching. + 

He would say: “Will you not eat your chicken, signore? Shall I go and fetch you some mousse⁠—or perhaps you would like a little ‘sole Mornay’? It is good, the ‘sole Mornay’ today!” + 

So terribly watchful he was, this Roberto, almost as watchful as Gian-Luca; almost as anxious to feed him, it seemed, as Gian-Luca was to feed the clients. Yes, but that was another terrible thing; it was not so easy any more to feed the clients, for whenever Gian-Luca must talk about food his stomach would heave and his head would grow dizzy⁠—God! how he loathed them, those hungry clients who would force him to talk about food! But he must talk. Oh, more than ever he must talk, in case any client suspected; in case Millo suspected, or Giovanni or Roberto⁠—did Roberto suspect already? + 

Night after night he would lie in bed sleepless, wondering if Roberto suspected. What should he do if Roberto told Millo? What should he do if Millo dismissed him? Ruined, he was ruined if Millo dismissed him, no one would give him a manager’s job⁠—perhaps no one would come to his restaurant if he bought it; they would all know that Millo had dismissed him. And his money; he would lie there and count up his money⁠—a good sum by now, but not nearly enough for him and Maddalena to live on; one of them might live on it perhaps, but not both⁠—two could never live in comfort on that money. He would hear Maddalena whispering her prayers, prayers to the Madonna, and one special prayer that began with: “Blessed be God.” + 

He would shake her: “Stop praying like that, Maddalena! Why must you always be whispering something? I can hear you, it gets on my nerves; do stop praying, I am tired, I want to go to sleep.” + 

Maddalena would lie there obediently silent, but Gian-Luca would know that she was praying in her heart. What was she praying about in her heart? Her silent prayers would begin to torment him, he would try to imagine those prayers in her heart and would want her to whisper again. In the mornings he would get up angry and weary, and there would be Maddalena. Then she too would watch him as Roberto watched him, following him round the room with her eyes; urging him to let her send for the doctor, urging him to eat his breakfast. + 

“Eat, amore!” she was always saying. “Try to eat something, amore.” + 

And one day his hand shot out and he struck her. Full in the face he struck Maddalena, then he struck her again because she said nothing but just stood there dumb like an animal who loves and is wounded unto death by its master. + 

VI + 

Terrible days indeed for Maddalena, but even more terrible days for Gian-Luca, who must struggle through his work at the Doric with a smile⁠—especially if Millo was watching. And now he felt certain that everyone watched him: Millo, Giovanni, Roberto, the clients. It came down like an avalanche on him, their watching; their watching was a thing, an intolerable presence that stood between him and his own will to watch, so that he could not see clearly. + 

“Dio!” he would groan, “will they never stop watching? Do they think I am drunk, or crazy or what, that they follow me about with their eyes?” + 

IV + 

I + 

One evening that June the Signora Rocca looked up from her sewing and said: “What a deplorable thing is pride, and how right I was when I warned the Bosellis not to send Gian-Luca to that heathenish Board School.” + 

Rocca took off his spectacles and swore, beyond which he vouchsafed no comment, so his wife continued: “I am sorry for Gian-Luca, as a Christian that is my duty⁠—but as the English say, and it is a good saying, ‘Pride cometh before a fall.’ I do not see what he has to be proud of, considering his unfortunate birth; however, it is clear that he sets himself above us; does he ever come here to see us these days? He does not, he treats us as though we were dirt, he is getting too big for his breeches!” + 

Rocca, for once, sympathized with his wife. Her words had opened the vials or his wrath so that he thumped the table; large angry thumps he inflicted on the table, as though he were thumping Gian-Luca. + 

“Giurabaccaccio! you speak truly,” said Rocca, “we are not good enough any more! Imagine it, a fellow that I dandled as an infant, a fellow to whom I had to give fruit-drops because he so feared my small goats! It is impudent indeed the way Gian-Luca treats me, I who fought at Custozza. I did not play waiter in an Officers’ Mess! No, no, I was only a poor, common soldier; I killed men in those days, not scraggy French chickens⁠—but then I was only a soldier!” Rocca spoke in great bitterness of heart, not for nearly five months had Gian-Luca been near him, and now, Maddalena would never come either⁠—grown proud, no doubt, like her husband. + 

Rocca was so angry that he went to see Teresa in order to tell her about it: “That grandson of yours has become swollen-headed, he ignores his old friends, he gives himself airs, he is what the English call ‘snob.’ My wife is offended and I am offended at the manner in which he treats us. We are humble but proud. I am only a butcher, but I fought in the battle of Custozza!” + 

Teresa shrugged her shoulders: “My excellent Rocca, I am not the keeper of my grandson⁠—he never comes here, I know nothing about him, and now his wife does not come either. Perhaps he has become what the English call ‘snob,’ or perhaps he is just very busy⁠—Millo tells me they are all very busy at the Doric⁠—but whatever it is I am busy myself, much too busy to run after Gian-Luca.” + 

“Only a fool throws away his old friends,” muttered Rocca as he turned to leave her. “As for you, I consider that he owes you a duty, in our country the family tie is sacred, and only a fool would copy these English, who care nothing for family ties.” + 

“That is so,” she agreed, “but on the other hand, only a fool would allow sentiment to stand in the way of his business. I do not resent the fact that my grandson is too proud or too busy to bother about me⁠—since I am too busy to bother about him, why should I feel resentment?” + 

But if Rocca was angry and Teresa indifferent, Mario and Rosa were wounded; so deeply wounded that they looked at each other and their kindly brown eyes filled with tears. + 

“He does not love us any more,” sighed Rosa, while Mario shook his head sadly. + 

“Yet he drank of your milk⁠—it is strange, my Rosa, for they say that much love flows in with the milk that is drawn from a woman’s breast⁠—” + 

Poor Mario was deeply depressed this summer, and he had good cause for depression, for now he was no longer the headwaiter of the Capo; his triumph had been short-lived, and his fall the more bitter because of that short-lived triumph. + 

The Padrone had said quite pleasantly one morning: “I have just engaged a headwaiter. Now that we have our full staff back again, and no more lazy, imbecile women, the Padrona and I think the time has arrived to have a headwaiter at the Capo. I shall have to reduce your wages, of course⁠—that will be only fair⁠—but even so you will be getting more money than you dreamt of before the war. Then again, there is always the question of your lameness, my wife was speaking of it only last week: ‘It is dreadful to see how old Mario limps, we must get a headwaiter,’ she said.” + 

Mario had stood with his mouth slightly open and his napkin drooping from his hand, for whenever the Padrone mentioned his lameness he certainly felt very old. He had been quite unable to trust himself to speak, so had hobbled away to the pantry; and there he had started biting his nails⁠—what could he do but start biting his nails? Give notice? Ma che! who else would engage him? He was only an old lame mule. + 

It was terribly hard when it came to telling Rosa, who naturally shed a few tears; “Geppe dead, and Gian-Luca so proud and now this⁠—” she whimpered, mopping her eyes. But then she noticed her husband’s grey hair, nearly white it had gone at the temples, and all that was brave in her leapt to his defense, the kind, patient creature that he was! “It is scandalous, you look younger than ever!” she lied. “And as for your grey hair, I like it; it is very becoming, it gives you distinction, a headwaiter looks better with grey hair.” + 

And this obvious falsehood really consoled him, at all events for the moment, since the hearts of some men are the hearts of small children⁠—especially when they ache badly. + 

Nerone, however, was not nearly so tactful. “It is all that infernal bunion!” he shouted. “Why do you not get the damned thing cut off? Are there no hospitals in England?” + 

But at such a terrific suggestion as this, Mario turned very pale: “I do not like operations,” he babbled, “one cannot know what they will do to one’s body; one is helpless like a pig about to be slaughtered. I have heard that they wish to experiment on one, I have heard the most terrible things⁠—” + 

In his fear he began to plead for his bunion: “No, no, Babbo; no, no, I have had him for years⁠—I will paint him with iodine night and morning, I will get some new boots many sizes too big, I will try to limp less⁠—it is only a habit, one gets into the habit of limping⁠—” + 

“Fool!” bawled Nerone. “They cut off my leg, and the students amused themselves with it! Did I care if the students played football with my leg? Well then, why need you care what they do with your bunion? Sacramento! one would think you were proud of the thing! Perhaps they would put it to float in a bottle, and then you could keep it in your bedroom!” + 

After which Nerone must mourn his own fate; he would have to stay in England, he declared. How could he give up his miserable business when his daughter would obviously starve? In vain did they both try to reassure him; Mario was not so ill-paid, there were no children now⁠—why, Berta was quite rich, with her Albert promoted to buyer⁠—there was no need to worry, there was no need to stay, Nerone could go when he pleased. Of course he must go if he still felt so homesick⁠—poor Babbo, of course he must go! But Nerone shook his head and glared hotly at Mario, which was certainly rather unfair, for it was not the thought of his daughter that held him, but those pretty silver shillings that winked back from the till; prolific past all expectations they were being, because of the Italian exchange. + 

There was someone, however, who could never do wrong, according to old Nerone, and this was Gian-Luca, whom he loved more than ever for the sake of his dead friend Fabio. He said to Rosa: “You make a great fuss, always sniveling and dabbing your eyes⁠—Dio Santo! One would think that Gian-Luca had been hanged, whereas he is only trying to make money. He is making good money, and so he has no time to come paying you foolish visits. But apart from all this, he is not well, I think, that is why I called on Maddalena. As for Rocca, I have told him quite plainly that he lies when he says that Gian-Luca has grown proud. That Rocca is making me sick with his talk of his courage, and his wounds, and his battles. Custozza, ma che! that was all very well, but my grandson died on the Isonzo! Leave Gian-Luca alone, he will come home to roost, he will want to see his old Nerone. Did he not call me ‘Nonno’ that day, and make Fabio so terribly angry?” + 

“Magari,” murmured Rosa, which meant nothing or all things, according as you chose to interpret. + 

Meanwhile Gian-Luca still held aloof, feeling strangely unwilling to see them. They would talk, about eating and food and the Doric. Oh, he knew them, they thought about nothing but food, they were almost as bad as Millo. When he got his day off at the end of June, he wanted to spend it alone, but of course Maddalena must begin about Rosa⁠—she was always reproaching him now about Rosa whom he had forbidden her to visit. + 

She said precisely what he had expected: “Do let us go and see Rosa⁠—she is very sad, caro, she misses her Geppe, and you are her foster-son.” + 

“Dio!” he complained, “must I never forget that I drank of that good woman’s milk? I do not wish to see Rosa or the others. I am tired, I am not getting up at all this morning, do leave me in peace, mia donna.” + 

She left him, and he lay in bed trying to doze; he was feeling very weak, he discovered. He had noticed lately that when he stopped working, his body ran down like a clock. At half-past one Maddalena brought his dinner all neatly arranged on a tray. He sat up in bed and glared at it frowning. + 

“Is it not good?” she inquired with a sigh. “I have tried to cook everything simply.” + 

“Ma si!” he muttered, “it is probably good, but do not stand watching, Maddalena. How can a man eat his food when you watch every morsel he puts into his mouth?” + 

So she went down again to her own lonely meal, which was little enough to her liking, being cooked as the English cook most things, in water, and never a touch of good butter with the beans or the dreary-faced boiled potatoes. And as she sat eating the unappetizing fare she remembered her father’s trattoria, and from this her thoughts strayed to the far-off Campagna, and then she felt homesick, terribly homesick⁠—very lonely she felt and unhappy. For the longing to live among her own people had been growing in Maddalena lately, the longing for blue sky and wide, quiet places, where the sheep all wore little bells. She would think of that wonderful day when Our Lord had left His Footprint in stone, and would wonder if He too had loved the Campagna⁠—if indeed that might not well have been Our Lord’s reason for blessing the humble stone. Then her heart would begin to yearn over Gian-Luca, who laughed when she spoke of such things⁠—perhaps if she got him away to the sunshine he too might receive the blessing of faith. Some day she would show him that Footprint in stone, after which he must surely believe. + 

II + 

Late that afternoon Gian-Luca got up and went for a walk alone. He could feel Maddalena watching from the window, and for just a moment he paused on the pavement, but he did not turn his head. He wished that she would not stand there at the window, with her questioning desolate eyes⁠—the eyes of a woman who was doomed to be childless⁠—why must she always reproach him with her eyes, was it his fault that she was childless? His feet dragged a little as he walked on slowly, not caring much where he went. And now he was passing the Foundling Hospital⁠—queer to be living so near that place; why had he chosen to live near that place? The thought had never occurred to him before⁠—yes, it certainly was rather queer. + 

The foundlings appeared to be happy enough; they were playing out in the garden, not troubling at all about the problems of fate. At their age he had troubled very much about such problems⁠—oh, very much he had troubled! He looked through the tall iron gates, and marveled at the noisy, shouting children, remembering the pain of his own lonely childhood; remembering bitterly, cruelly even, wounding himself in the process. + 

“Go on, go on!” he said, staring at the foundlings. “Go on, go on⁠—but you will not escape it, it is waiting for you round the corner!” But when he would have liked to tell them what was waiting, he found that he did not know. “Ma che!” he thought dully, “what does it all matter; they play, they shout, they think they are happy⁠—oh, well, and why not? It will come soon enough, that thing that is waiting round the corner.” Shrugging his shoulders he went on his way, and quite soon he forgot about the foundlings; forgot about everything except Gian-Luca, for whom he was deeply concerned. “I am ill,” he muttered, “I think I am ill.” He laid his fingers on his pulse, and then he felt frightened and walked more quickly, just to prove that he was not ill. + 

One or two women glanced at him in passing, struck by the expression of his face; a pale, handsome face with its arrogant mouth and its queer, inscrutable eyes. And presently a woman came up and touched him, murmuring something in his ear. + 

“Go to hell!” he said roughly, and pushed her with his arm so that she fell back frightened. + 

The noise of the traffic began to grow louder; he was suddenly conscious of the noise; he found himself walking in New Oxford Street without knowing how he had got there. All around him were shabby, insufferable people, and they jostled him as he walked. He felt sick with disgust at the contact with their bodies, and squaring his shoulders he thrust them aside; he would gladly have trampled on them. The stench of the traffic was heavy in his nostrils, the hot, greasy smell of engines; of monstrous engines, all spewing and belching up oil and petrol, and poisonous fumes from the pipes of their filthy exhausts. He hated these engines as though they had life, as though his hatred could harm them. They were foul, greedy feeders, and they stank of their food like creatures with rotting stomachs. + 

Oh, but he was tired! He had gone much too far; he had not intended to go far. His legs were trembling, and his hands, and his lips⁠—Wait, he would smoke, that would steady the trembling⁠—he groped for a cigarette. He found one, but now he could not find his matches⁠—what had he done with his matches? He began to ransack all his pockets in a panic, so intent on this process that he passed a tobacconist’s without having noticed the shop. Now the urge to smoke was becoming a torment, he must stop that trembling of his hands. The cruelty of it, to have come without his matches! So harmless a longing, just to light a cigarette, and yet he had come without his matches! He stood still, staring round him in a kind of despair, with the cigarette lolling from his mouth; then he started to run forward; he had seen a woman who was selling matches at the corner. + 

“Give me a box of matches!” he panted. “Quick, give me a box of matches!” Without waiting, he snatched what he wanted from her tray and started to light his cigarette. + 

The woman was battered and dirty and dejected; her face looked humble yet sly; for hers was the face of the intolerably poor, of those who must cringe to the lash of Fate and fool him behind his back. But by her side stood a thin little boy who clung to her threadbare jacket, and his face, unlike hers, was wonderfully quiet. Resigned, too, it seemed, as only the faces of very young children can be. Something was terribly wrong with his eyes⁠—what was it that was wrong with his eyes? The closed lids were shrunken and flat and disfigured⁠—so woebegone somehow, they looked, those closed lids, in spite of that quiet expression. And Gian-Luca, who cared not at all for children, must gaze and gaze at this child as though he were suddenly suffering with him, as though in some curious way he belonged to those woebegone, sightless eyes. + 

He said: “That child⁠—who is he, what is he?” + 

And the woman answered: “ ’E’s mine.” + 

And the child stood very still as though listening, with his head a little on one side. + 

Then Gian-Luca said: “But his eyes, his poor eyes⁠—” + 

And the woman answered: “They’re gone. ’E ain’t got no eyes, they was both taken out, they was all diseased like, ’is eyes.” + 

She lifted the lids one after the other, showing the empty sockets; and the child never spoke, and neither did he flinch, nor indeed show any resentment. + 

Down the street came a jolting coster’s barrow, and the barrow was full of spring flowers. All the colors of heaven seemed to be passing, drawn by a mangy donkey. The sun came out from behind a cloud, making the flowers more lovely: and because of a child who could not see, Gian-Luca realized the flowers. Then he looked again at the face of the child, at that face of dreadful resignation, and all in a moment he had pulled out his purse and was emptying it into the tray. Something rose up in his throat and choked him, and suddenly he was weeping; the great tears went trickling down his cheeks and splashed on his coat unheeded. + 

The woman mumbled her words of thanks: “Thank yer, mister; God bless yer, mister.” She thought he was mad, but what did that matter, he had given her nearly five pounds! She pushed the child forward: “Just look at ’im, mister⁠—ain’t he a poor little feller!” For she hoped that this softhearted, weeping madman might be tempted to still further madness. + 

But Gian-Luca had turned and was rushing away; away and away from the sightless child, away and away from suffering and affliction, and the great, blind sadness of the world. And even as he ran something ran beside him, he could feel it close at his elbow. A quiet, persistent, intangible presence⁠—the great, blind sadness of the world. + 

III + 

When at last he got home he went to Maddalena, and he laid his head down on her knee, and he told her about the child without eyes, and all the while he was talking he wept; and over and over again he must tell her about the child without eyes. + 

She sat there gently stroking his hair, murmuring her pity for the little blind creature, murmuring her pity for the desolate man who crouched there sobbing at her knee. And when he had cried for more than an hour he looked up into Maddalena’s face. + 

“I struck you⁠—” he whispered. “I struck you, Maddalena.” And his tearful eyes were amazed. + 

She shook her head slowly: “It was only your hand⁠—you have never struck me, Gian-Luca.” And stooping, she kissed the guilty hand and forgave it and pressed it to her cheek. + 

Then he said: “I am very tired, Maddalena, and tomorrow I must go to the Doric; I think I should like to sleep for a little, only⁠—sit by me, Maddalena.” + 

IV + 

That night he dreamt about the beggar who sold matches, and about the child without eyes. And in his dream he thought that they looked different; curiously different, for although they were beggars, there was something noble about them. The face of the child was serene in its suffering, and wise⁠—oh, intensely wise; and the face of his mother was no longer as it had been; now it seemed to Gian-Luca to be full of high courage, a steadfast, enduring face. + 

She said: “This is my little son, Gian-Luca, who must bear so much for the world. Will you not see for my little son who must bear the blindness of the world?” + 

Then Gian-Luca wept afresh, in his sleep, for the eyes that were not there to weep. And hearing him, Maddalena woke him: + 

“You are dreaming, Gian-Luca⁠—wake up, amore, and tell me what you have been dreaming.” + 

He tried to tell her but somehow he could not⁠—he could not remember his dream. + 

“There, there,” she soothed, “it is all right, piccino.” And as though he himself were a child, she rocked him till he fell asleep again in her arms. + 

V + 

I + 

Gian-Luca was ill on the following morning, too ill to go to the Doric. + 

“I think you have caught a chill,” said Maddalena. + 

And he nodded: “Si, si⁠—it is a chill.” + 

He was patient, letting her minister to him, letting her wash his hands and face, letting her give him those simple old remedies so dear to her peasant’s soul. His pale eyes followed her round the room, wherever she went they followed; and always they held a look of surprise, as though they were seeing this grave, simple woman for the first time, and seeing her, marveled. And this poignant new seeing had little in common with the stately beauty of her body; her gracious body was only a cloak beneath which lay the suffering heart of Maddalena⁠—that was what he seemed to be seeing. + 

He said: “You are very unhappy, Maddalena. Is it I who have made you unhappy?” + 

“If you would only get well⁠—” she murmured. “If you would only try to eat⁠—” + 

Then Gian-Luca shook his head: “Come here, Maddalena; come here and stand by the bed.” + 

And she went to him slowly, turning her face, for she could not steady her lips. + 

He caught hold of her hand: “It is not that, Maddalena, it cannot be only my illness⁠—your heart feels so empty, so horribly empty⁠—you are lonely because of our unborn children, and because there is something lacking in me, something that I cannot give you.” + 

“No, no!” she protested. “No, no, Gian-Luca.” But her voice was heavy with tears. + 

And hearing that voice he sighed to himself and stared down at her trustful hand. + 

“It has always been that, Maddalena,” he said slowly. “I laid my loneliness on you; from the first day we met I have forced you to bear it⁠—and yet that was not quite enough, it seems, for I have remained very lonely.” Then he said: “You were made for great loving, Maddalena⁠—for great simple primitive loving; for the kind of love that knows no ambition, no anger, no bitterness, no doubts and no fears, that is selfless because of itself. Such a great love as that would have filled up your heart, so that if you had had no children, you would still have possessed the most complete fulfilment that life is capable of giving⁠—” + 

He paused, for now she was kissing his forehead, and her arms were around his shoulders. + 

“Get well⁠—get well, my beloved,” she whispered. “You are my only fulfilment, Gian-Luca, my little child and my husband.” + 

But Gian-Luca looked into Maddalena’s eyes, so faithful they were but so hopeless; the desolate eyes of a mothering doe whose young has been slain by the hunter. + 

“You have very much to forgive,” he said gravely. “Can you forgive, Maddalena?” + 

And she answered: “If I have much to forgive, then may God forgive me as I forgive you, and love me as I love you, Gian-Luca.” + 

II + 

To please her he drank up the good beef tea, and the milk and wine that she brought him; and when she took him his simple meals, he made her stand by him and watch while he ate, hoping to reassure her. + 

“Give me a little more fish,” he would say, then look up quickly at her face; and because of her smile he would praise the fish: “It is good, I must be getting much better, Maddalena, already I feel much better.” + 

By the fourth day of nursing he was certainly stronger; he was able to get up and dress. He was able to smoke too, an excellent sign, as he pointed out to his wife. And by the next morning he had grown rather restless, he wished to go out, he told her, he wanted to find that woman again, and the child who had lost his eyes. + 

“But why, amore?” Maddalena protested. “But why, when they made you so sad?” + 

“I must find out much more about them,” he answered. “Do not worry, I shall not be long.” + 

And something told her that he had better go, so she sighed and nodded her head. + 

In Theobald’s Road he got into a taxi and drove to New Oxford Street, stopping the cab when it came to the corner where the woman had sold him matches. He paid off the driver and stood looking about him, but the woman and her child were not there; and this gave him a little shock for some reason, so that he felt afraid. He went up and spoke to the policeman on point duty, describing the pair to him minutely. + 

But the policeman shook his head: “I’ve not seen them, sir, I don’t ever remember having seen them.” + 

Then Gian-Luca began to urge him to remember. “The child had no eyes,” he repeated. “Of course you have seen them⁠—a child with no eyes⁠—there cannot be many such children?” + 

“Well,” said the policeman, “maybe I have seen them, we’ve a good many beggars round here⁠—they don’t always stop in the same place for long⁠—but I can’t recall them at the moment.” + 

Then Gian-Luca inquired at a shop on the corner, but there also they could not remember. The street was so crowded, there were so many people⁠—a woman selling matches with a little blind boy? Yes, they thought they had seen her; or was it a man? They were sorry, they could not remember. Still intent on his search, Gian-Luca walked on until he came to High Holborn. There were several other beggars, one or two who sold matches, but not the beggars he wanted. + 

“If I could only find them,” he muttered, “if I could only find them!” Not that he knew what he would say if he found them⁠—what could anyone say? + 

And strangely now he had turned in the direction of home, still feeling afraid; for his eyes were full of that awful new seeing, so that he must pity the straining horses, and the men who crouched by their dingy loads, urging those straining horses. The stench of the traffic seemed more horrible than ever, and the throb and the roar of engines. In and out of the turmoil dashed tired, anxious people⁠—across the road limped a foolhardy cripple, swinging a perilous crutch. There were babies with incredibly old, suffering faces, bearing the sins of their fathers; there were women with blemished, disease-stricken bodies, bearing the sins of their men; there were men with blotched skins and small, hating eyes, eyes that were looking for vengeance; there were children who were full of a crude, horrid wisdom, learnt in the school of degradation. And then there were all the more prosperous citizens, wearing their liveries of business. Grey clothes, grey faces, grey minds, grey spirits; that blank, grey stare of preoccupation with the unrelieved greyness of the office. Such excellent, hardworking people these latter, such neat little wheels in the machine; so proud of the order to which they belonged, so contented⁠—yes, that was the worst of it, so contented to be neat little wheels in the machine. And then there were the idle who passed in their motors, which were constantly checked by the traffic. Inquiring faces would look through the windows; what a bore it all was, they wanted to get on! They wanted to go quickly, to go more and more quickly; they had nothing to do so they wanted to go quickly, in order the better to do it. And then there was Gian-Luca, seeing sadness in these things, disintegrating with pity, so that the years swept backwards to childhood, so that he muttered the words of a child: “Oh poor, oh poor, oh poor!” + 

What did it matter if the things that he saw were the work and the will of these people; all the hideous folly the work of their hands, all the hideous injustice the will of their brains; it was there, they had done it, they had built up the monster, and had called him Civilization. And now they were sweating great gouts of blood, or so it seemed to Gian-Luca⁠—rich and poor, idlers, workers, they were all sweating blood. Ay, and the patient beasts that must serve them, all sweating great gouts of blood. + 

He quickened his steps because of Maddalena, who would surely be watching and waiting; a quiet, patient woman, herself so much a victim; and his pity overflowed when he thought of Maddalena to whom he could never give love. If he could have realized anything to pray to he would surely have prayed at that moment; he would surely have prayed that he might love Maddalena, but his mind and his lips were both strangers to prayer. He could not find God in this anguish of pity, he could not find himself, he was utterly lost; he could not find high-sounding, resonant phrases, for only the words of his childhood came to him: “Oh poor, oh poor, oh poor!” + 

III + 

By the end of a week he was back at the Doric, a thin, grave man who now stooped slightly, and whose hands were not quite steady. + 

Roberto exclaimed in surprise when he saw him: “Ma, signore, have you been very ill?” + 

And Gian-Luca was silent; had he been very ill? Perhaps⁠—he was not quite sure. As he stood there looking at the anxious Roberto, he forgot all about his wine-waiter’s brave deeds; he could think of nothing but the little man’s eyes; such round, bright eyes like those of a bird, like the eyes of Nerone’s caged skylarks. But Gian-Luca must turn away to his duties, he must superintend all the preparations for the day, so that when the clients began to arrive he would be in his place by the door. The business of his life had begun for him again, the interminable business of feeding. + 

“Gian-Luca!” + 

“Si, signore⁠—” + 

“Do send me Roberto.” + 

“Subito, signore, I will tell him.” + 

“Maître d’hotel!” + 

“Permesso⁠—” + 

“I don’t like this salad!” + 

“I will change it at once, signore.” + 

And now there was no need to watch his clients, for he saw too much without watching; and all that he saw he seemed to see clearly, with a ruthless but pitiful vision. He saw Jane Coram, with her body of an athlete, and her eyes of a homesick monkey; a monkey that must prance to the tunes of the band, that must take off its cap and grimace and gibber so that fools might find pleasure in its antics. Her face looked sallow and slightly thickened as she sat in a patch of sunlight; and as though the presence of the sunlight confused her, she called for Gian-Luca to draw the silk curtains in order to shut it away. She was rather untidy today, Jane Coram, and her mouth was a little awry, for her uncertain hand had slipped with the lipstick, marring the shape of her lips. Behind those eyes of a homesick monkey Gian-Luca perceived something cowering; something that feared and hated the crowds, something that shrank from noise and applause, something that wanted to be all alone⁠—the soul of a Solitary. And seeing, he could not order the brandy. He said to Roberto: “She has drunk much already, they all have, that lot, poor devils! Go slowly.” + 

And Roberto answered: “I will do what I can, but you know what they are, they must have their brandy, otherwise they will go somewhere else.” + 

Then Gian-Luca grew infinitely sorrowful and humble as he looked about him at his clients. He had set himself up as their tempter and their judge, he who was surely the least among them, for had he not grabbed at their money with both hands, seeking to grow rich through their weakness? And now he must serve them in anguish of spirit, a dreadful, unwilling serving. + 

“Gian-Luca!” + 

“Signorina?” + 

“Another double-brandy!” + 

Then that horrible: “Si, signorina⁠—” + 

IV + 

The season dragged on, and whenever he could Gian-Luca went home to Maddalena. He clung to her now like a frightened child, eating without complaint the food that she prepared, in order to keep up his strength. Sometimes he would try to express his great sadness but his words would be inadequate and vague. + 

“I saw something horrible today,” he might begin, “a poor wretch in khaki grinding an organ⁠—” + 

“They are often frauds,” Maddalena would tell him. + 

Then he would stammer and would want to explain that this in itself was a reason for pity, only the words would fail him. He wanted to tell her about Jane Coram and the thing that cowered behind her eyes. + 

“Maddalena, it is lonely because of the crowds⁠—” + 

“But why must she drink as she does?” she would ask him. + 

Why indeed? He would stare at his wife, bewildered; somewhere deep down, he thought he knew the answer, but it always seemed to evade him. + 

There were days when his sadness infected Maddalena, descending upon her like a cloud, when all that she did seemed futile and useless; her very prayers lacked conviction at such times, as though there was no one to hear her. Then it was that in a kind of self-preservation she would speak to Gian-Luca of her Church. + 

“If only you belonged to the Church,” she would tell him, “you would know peace, amore, you would come to know God.” And the sound of her own words would comfort a little. “You would surely come to know God!” + 

He always listened patiently to her while she praised and glorified her faith, listened because of the burden he inflicted in making her share his sadness. But when she had finished he would shake his head: + 

“I cannot find God, Maddalena.” + 

“You have never looked for Him,” she would say reproachfully. + 

“Ma si,” he would tell her. “I have looked for Him lately, only I cannot find Him, and if I should find Him, Maddalena, I should have many questions to ask.” + 

“The Church would answer your questions, Gian-Luca, is it not God’s own mouthpiece?” + 

Then Gian-Luca would smile: “I do not feel God as needing a mouthpiece in that sense, piccina⁠—I feel Him as being too vast and aloof⁠—perhaps that is the trouble; your God is too aloof to notice poor, everyday things.” + 

But Gian-Luca was beginning to notice more and more those pitiful everyday things, so that now he could not pass one of the afflicted without a strong thought of pity. Sometimes it would be a long-suffering beggar who must earn a living by displaying the shame of a wretched, misshapen body; sometimes one of those dwarfed, consequential creatures who elbowed their way through the crowded streets with a kind of pathetic and impudent defiance, born of a conscious grotesqueness; sometimes it would be a man out of work, bearing military ribbons on his coat, or another performing some mean, dreary labor in the remnants of glorious khaki. And Gian-Luca would want to comfort such people, not weakly, but with the whole strength of his being, only he did not know how to set about it; he would feel inadequate, self-conscious and shy, and when he stopped to give money to a beggar he would flush with a curious feeling of shame, and as like as not would speak brusquely: “Be quiet, do not thank me!”⁠—for the thanks of the poor filled him with a sense of outrage. He had not yet learnt that Compassion, the divine, has a sister whose name is Gratitude, and that each must form part of the perfect whole that alone is capable of healing. + 

V + 

Gian-Luca made his peace with the clan very simply, by going one day to see them. And because of the deep sadness that they saw in his eyes, their warm hearts forgave him those months of neglect⁠—only Teresa’s heart held aloof, for her heart remembered his mother. Looking at Teresa, so stern, so much alone, Gian-Luca made one more effort to win her, returning in spirit to the days of his childhood, but offering now the pity of a man to this arrogant, defiant old woman. + 

He said: “I would so much like you to love me⁠—is it impossible, Nonna? I would like you to want me, to need me a little⁠—not because of my advice about the Casa Boselli, you have Millo to help you with that now⁠—but because I am your grandson, the only living creature upon whom you have any real claim.” Then Teresa stood up and confronted her grandson, and they looked at each other eye to eye: “I have only loved once in my life, Gian-Luca. Only one creature have I loved in my life, and that was my daughter Olga.” + 

His arrogant underlip shot out a little, and he felt a quick impulse to break her: “I am the child of your child,” he said hotly; “I am the flesh and blood of that Olga for whose sake you always hate me.” + 

“I do not hate you,” she answered quietly; “I neither love you nor hate you; but to me you have been as alien flesh; can I help that, Gian-Luca? I respect you, I am even proud of your success, but to me you are alien flesh. I saw your mother agonize and die in order that you might have life.” Then Gian-Luca nodded slowly, and his arrogant mouth grew gentle as he silently accepted her decision, for the unassuageable grief of the old stared at him out of those hard black eyes. He seemed to be seeing the heart of Teresa, a bitter, unforgiving but desolate heart⁠—all bleeding it was, with the sorrow and shame that his life had called into being. + 

“It must be as you wish,” he said very gravely, and turning away he left her; but it seemed to Gian-Luca that her sorrow went with him and followed him into the street. + 

VI + 

It was a very good thing that Gian-Luca’s under-waiters were a well-trained lot of young men, that indeed he had trained most of them himself to the standard required by the Doric. For the eyes of a headwaiter must only be all-seeing in purely material matters, and once they begin to see beneath the surface their owner is no longer really proficient, and this was what had happened to Gian-Luca. Gian-Luca the implacable, the perfect machine, with those long years of training behind him, was gradually becoming a mere obstruction. His voice would sound vague when he gave his orders, and the orders themselves would be uncertain, so that Daniele must ask him to repeat them, while Roberto the watchful would whisper to Giovanni: + 

“He is stranger than ever today, amico; we had better look out for trouble.” + 

And trouble there was on more than one occasion, especially with the Milady who was little and lovely and who liked her good food, and whose table Gian-Luca might forget to reserve, because he was worrying over Jane Coram or some other unfortunate creature. + 

“What is the matter?” the waiters asked each other. “He is going to pieces, our Signor Gian-Luca. He no longer takes command; a man cannot be certain of receiving an order correctly.” + 

But because of the splendid headwaiter that he had been, they rallied in something like pity. They who had borne his hard yoke for so long, whose smallest misdeeds had been severely censured, who had never expected mercy from Gian-Luca, must now show mercy and hide him from Millo; and in this they were led by the little Roberto⁠—he was loyal, the little Roberto. But it could not go on, and one day in September, Millo sent for Gian-Luca. + 

“Deceive Signor Millo? Ma che!” sighed Roberto, “he has eyes in the back of his head!” + 

“In the back of his head, do you say!” snapped Giovanni, who remembered his own short period of transgression; “he has even more eyes than a peacock’s tail! I am sorry for Signor Gian-Luca.” + 

Millo said: “Will you please to sit down, Gian-Luca, so that we can have a little talk? It appears to me that you work badly lately, indeed I may say that you do not work at all. For the most part you stand about doing nothing, and when you do make some sort of an effort you only confuse your waiters. Moreover, I have noticed a strange thing about you⁠—you look at our clients with pity. Now nobody comes to the Doric to be pitied; for the most part they come to amuse their stomachs, they come to forget the necessity to pity themselves or anyone else. Your waiters have been trying to shield you, I know, hoping that Millo would not see; but Millo sees all things pertaining to the Doric, and he sees that the restaurant is not what it was, and that clients grow angry because their orders are neglected⁠—is not that so, Gian-Luca?” + 

Gian-Luca bowed slightly, and Millo went on to check off a list of complaints. Milady’s table, it had twice been forgotten; the Duchess’s supper, she had ordered oysters and had been given smoked salmon instead; Jane Coram’s brandy⁠—moderation in all things, but Jane had not yet signed the pledge⁠—Gian-Luca omitted to order her brandy if Roberto was busy, and this made her fretful, and when she was fretful she was like a spoilt child, complaining of all sorts of things. And then there was Gian-Luca’s uncontrolled face, which looked pitiful and gloomy by turns. He no longer smiled, and all clients expected a perpetual smile from their waiter. + 

“Dio Santo!” exclaimed Millo, “they pay for our smiles, and we make them pay high at the Doric! A smile will often cover an omission, a smile will often make good food taste better, a smile is the best appetizer in the world, and do not forget that, Gian-Luca.” + 

Gian-Luca nodded but found nothing to reply, for Millo was speaking the truth. + 

“Here we have no time for moods,” he was saying; “the man who feels moody is a nuisance at the Doric; you have been a fine waiter, but now you are a nuisance. What is the reason, Gian-Luca?” + 

Gian-Luca said slowly: “It is something, signore, that I find it hard to explain⁠—a kind of great sadness has come over me lately⁠—” And he looked at Millo with his strange light eyes as though he felt sorry for him also. + 

Millo frowned and tapped on the desk with his fingers: “Your nerves are out of order,” he said firmly. “What you need is a rest; you have worked hard for years, you worked like ten men before you went to France, while possessing only one body.” He paused, then went on: “I have seen Maddalena. I went to see her last week, and I want you to go to my doctor at once; you will please go not later than tomorrow. I have spoken to Daniele, he can manage quite well, at all events he must manage,” and he scribbled something on a half-sheet of paper. “Here is the doctor’s address, Gian-Luca; I have made an appointment for tomorrow at eleven. In the evening I will come and see you and Maddalena⁠—I shall not expect you to come back to work until I have seen you again.” + 

VII + 

The next morning Gian-Luca went to see the doctor, who pronounced him to be suffering from a bad nervous breakdown. He was much too thin for a man of his height, his pulse was thready and unduly fast, he must eat nourishing food⁠—plenty of it, said the doctor⁠—the more he could eat the better. As for his depression, that was easily explained, it was simply the outcome of weakness. But overstrained nerves were not things to ignore, Gian-Luca must try to get some months of rest; a thorough change of air and scene was what he needed, but above all he must not worry. + 

“You know what I mean,” said the doctor soothingly; “get your mind off troubles, and don’t worry about lire. Go somewhere jolly, but don’t overdo things, and rest in the middle of the day.” + 

Gian-Luca thanked him, and received a prescription containing valerian and bromide. After which he was able to go home to Maddalena and assure her that he was quite sound. + 

VIII + 

In the evening Millo arrived as he had promised. + 

“Nerves⁠—all nerves⁠—as I told you,” he said kindly. “The doctor says that you need a long rest, at least three or four months, and I think he is right. While you are away I propose to pay your salary, you can look upon that as a retaining fee, Gian-Luca. And now I want to know where you two will go, have you made up your minds?” It seemed that they had not, so Millo continued: “Well I have a suggestion to make; you should go to Italy with Maddalena, you should give the blue sky and the sunshine a chance. After all, Gian-Luca, you are an Italian, and yet you have never seen our fine sunshine.” Then he laughed, “I too must try to have a breakdown, I have not been home for ten years!” + 

Gian-Luca thanked him, and Millo talked on in order to cheer Maddalena. It was not his way to do anything by halves, and once having made up his mind to be generous, he spared neither money nor kindness. “You will see, he will come back a lion, Maddalena!” he said cheerfully, patting her shoulder. + 

After he had gone they looked at each other: “Italy!” murmured Maddalena; and all the ineffable longing of the exile was in that name as she spoke it. Her anxious brown eyes were pleading with Gian-Luca, asking him to take her home. + 

He nodded: “Yes, we will go, Maddalena⁠—” + 

“Blessed be God!” she whispered. + 

They sat on discussing ways and means. It was nearly the end of September. Maddalena said they could be ready in two weeks, they would board with her cousins who lived near the coast on the Riviera di Levante. Her cousins were always writing, these days, urging her to go out and see them; they were anxious, it seemed, to know Gian-Luca, of whom she herself wrote so often. It would not be Rome and the wonderful Campagna, but then, it would be cheaper than Rome; if they went to her cousins they could live very cheaply, especially with the exchange. + 

“I would like to go to your cousins,” said Gian-Luca, “they live in the country away from people; that is what I long for, to get away from people, there are too many people in the world.” + 

Then Maddalena told him about her cousins; he had heard it all many times before, but he let her talk on because it made her happy, since it was talking of home. Her cousins lived in a good-sized farmhouse on the hills behind Levanto. Sisto was a person of some importance, fattore, he was, to Marchese Sabelli. An excellent position to be fattore to such a noble estate. Lidia his wife was a simple creature, but kind, oh! intensely kind. They had a fine son in the Bersaglieri, and a younger son who must now be sixteen, and who helped his mother on the farm. They would get there in time for part of the vendemmia; the Marchese owned most of the neighboring vineyards⁠—all day they would sit on the hillside in the sunshine⁠—they would hear the peasants laughing and singing as they stooped to gather the grapes. She talked on and on, and Gian-Luca, as he listened, began to catch something of her joy, so that his eyes grew as bright as Maddalena’s. + 

“I have not yet seen our country,” he said thoughtfully, and as he said this he felt suddenly hopeful. “A man might find peace in Italy,” he murmured; “do you think that I shall find peace?” + 

Then Maddalena laughed in her infinite contentment; “Is it not your own soil, Gian-Luca? You are homesick for the sunshine and the big blue sky; long ago I told you that your eyes looked homesick; that was when I first met you, amore⁠—” + 

“Yes,” he answered, “I think you are right⁠—I think I have always been homesick; only⁠—” he hesitated a moment, “only I have never felt perfectly certain where I am homesick for, Maddalena.” + 

Then she kissed him and began to play with his hair, twisting it as though he were a child: “For us there is only one home that we long for, and that is the home of our people, beloved.” + 

And because he so very much wished to believe her, he kissed her too, acquiescing. + 

VI + 

I + 

There are some experiences that remain in the mind as possessing a charm all their own, so that no matter what may follow after, they stand forth unblemished as something to remember with a sense of deep gratitude. And of these, the first glimpse of that lovely coastline that curves like a sickle round the Genoese Gulf is surely not the least, for nothing more perfect could ever be wedded to sunshine. + 

The train had steamed out of Genoa station and was moving slowly by the side of the water, now into a long dark rumbling tunnel, now out into the glorious sunshine again, the rich, orange sunshine of mid-October. The sea and the sky were incredibly blue, and the peace of the sky stooped down to the sea, and the peace of the sea reached up to the sky, and the drowsy, motherly peace of autumn encircled them both, as with arms. + 

Gian-Luca stood in the corridor of the train with Maddalena at his side; they were holding each other’s hands, and their faces were steadfastly turned to the window. The peace had got into Maddalena’s eyes so that they were full of contentment; from time to time they rested on her husband, and then she must murmur in a voice of rapture: “Com’ e bella, la nostra Italia!” + 

Gian-Luca silently pressed her hand, his heart was too full for speech at that moment. All the beauty and the wonder of this first homecoming had filled him with a kind of reverential awe. He was conscious of a queer sense of things familiar, he felt that he knew the little white houses with bright-colored garments flapping from their windows, and the pergolas covered with strong green vines, and the jars of rioting red carnations that stood along the sides of the roofs. There were people, too, in the tiny gardens, women with handkerchiefs bound round their heads; men lolling back on chairs in the sunshine; children who played on the hot, virile soil, and whose bare arms and legs were the color of copper, so that they seemed to be part of the soil, part of the eternally patient Mother from whom sprang all fruitful things. And Gian-Luca felt that he too was a child, but one who had grown very weary; and he wanted to lay his cheek close to this earth and let all the strength of it go throbbing through him, and all the joy of it make him feel young, until he forgot about suffering and sorrow, and cared for nothing at all but the sunshine and the glory of being alive. + 

Presently he said: “This will make me quite well, this is the thing I have been needing.” + 

And hearing him, Maddalena rejoiced, and she praised the Mother of God in her heart. + 

All the way, curving gently southward, the splendid blue water went with them; and the sun and the warm air came in at the window, touching Gian-Luca as though they felt happy to welcome this tired son home. And every few miles the leisurely train would stop at a wayside station, and the names of such places would be soft on the tongue, so that Gian-Luca must speak them aloud for the pleasure he took in their beauty. There were Nervi, Rapallo, Zoagli, Chiavari, Sestri Levant, Moneglia; and all these small hamlets were bathed in sunshine which the walls of their houses caught and gave back, and the vines and the flowers that clung to the walls, and the eyes and the faces of the children. + 

Very soon Maddalena was waving from the window, for the train was coming into Levanto, and there on the platform stood Cousin Sisto patiently waiting for the train. + 

“Eccoci! Here we are!” called Maddalena. + 

The Cousin Sisto waved too: “Maddalena, but this is splendid!” he shouted. “And Gian-Luca, but this is splendid!” + 

Cousin Sisto was a broad, squat person of fifty. His grey hair was cut en brosse, giving to his large head a square appearance, and the hair itself was very stiff in texture; you felt, indeed, that if you held him upside down, it would polish your parquet floors. His clothes were suggestive of Sundays or funerals, and belonged by rights to the latter; for Cousin Sisto had lost his Mamma a year ago at the age of eighty; and now, although he had gone out of mourning, his best suit survived, so he wore it for galas, enlivened by a bright yellow necktie. Cousin Sisto’s watch-chain was a thing to remember; it was made of an opulent red gold. The links were enormous and unusual in pattern; they ended in a species of curtain ring, which was clipped through his buttonhole. And now Cousin Sisto took out his watch, and the watch was of tarnished white metal; it was rather a shock after seeing that chain, but then, as its owner was wont to say, smiling: “Non importa, he lives in a pocket!” + 

“It is late, this train,” remarked Cousin Sisto, in a voice of incredulous surprise; “nearly one hour and a half of delay!” And he hurried them off to retrieve their luggage which was being hurled out of the van. + 

Then he gave an order to Carlo, the porter, who groaned and sighed loudly as he heaved the small trunks on to his antiquated truck. At the entrance to the station stood Sisto’s conveyance, a species of market-wagon. A lean, white mare was drooping in the shafts, too languid to twitch the flies off her ears, where they clustered in blue-black blotches. + 

“Sacramento!” swore Sisto, “I forgot about the chickens and now the train has departed! Oh, well, never mind, they must wait until the morning. Carlo, come here and help me!” Carlo looked even more languid than the mare, and considerably less sweet-tempered. He dropped the handle of his truck with a frown, and together he and Sisto disinterred the chickens, banging their crate on the pavement. The crate appeared to be filled to bursting, judging by the heads that protruded, and those that could not find an opening to protrude from were firmly pressed against the slats. The fowls shuffled and squatted on top of each other in a futile effort to get ease; from time to time they clucked rather weakly, and tried to shake out their feathers. + 

Carlo examined the address on the label: “No train before ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” he announced, staring crossly at the crate. + 

“Allora? And what then?” demanded Cousin Sisto. + 

“It is big, it will take up much room in the station,” muttered Carlo, ignoring any inconvenience that might accrue to the chickens. + 

Sisto waved his objection away. “Climb up beside me,” he said to Maddalena, “Gian-Luca will not mind if he sits on the luggage? He knows that we are only simple country folk. Get in, Gian-Luca; are you ready? Va bene, and now we will make for home.” + 

He found his imitation panama hat, and pressed it down on his head. “Ee-yup!” he encouraged, cracking his whip, and the mare moved stiffly forward. + 

Gian-Luca refrained from looking at the crate, but he wondered if Maddalena had noticed. Perhaps she had not; now, at all events, her eyes were turned to the sea. He followed the direction of her gaze, determined to think of nothing but the sunshine; before him there stretched a calm little bay in a semicircle of hills. The sun had begun to drop down westward, and whatever it touched it gilded; the half-furled sail of a skiff in the harbor looked as though cut out of cloth of gold, while the windows of the villas that lay back from the water were all afire with the sunset. + 

Sisto turned inland and drove through the town, where people sat outside the café; some of these people were drinking Amarena, and Gian-Luca thought of Nerone. And now they were out on a white country road, a long straight road that sloped upwards; and down the road came the tinkling of bells and the sharp clip, clip of home-going mules, laden with loads of herbage. On their right lay a very ancient smithy where a youth was working the bellows; with each downward sweep of the rough, wooden pole, the fire glowed softly through the gathering dusk, and the blacksmith’s hammer clanged on the anvil in harmony with the mule-bells. They passed a pair of tall iron gates, above each gate was a crown. + 

“Guarda!” said Sisto, pointing with his whip; “the estate of my master, the Marchese.” + 

Gian-Luca could just glimpse a big, untidy garden from which came a mixture of sweet scents, and sweetest of all, the scent of hot earth, steaming a little under dew. + 

“He is rich, very rich,” Cousin Sisto was saying; “I will show you his villa, Maddalena. Just now he has gone to Milan on business, and it is I who must see to all things in his absence; I have very much to do at this time of the vendemmia, they are terrible robbers, our peasants.” + 

The road had begun to climb upwards in good earnest, and the mare was stumbling and straining. Her sides were going in and out like the bellows at the blacksmith’s down in the village. + 

“Ee-yup! Ee-yup!” commanded Cousin Sisto, in the voice of him who must be obeyed. + 

But the mare, unable for the moment to go farther, stood still, ignoring Cousin Sisto. + 

And now Gian-Luca forgot about the sunset, and could think of nothing but the mare. “We are much too heavy for her,” he protested, “she looks as though she would drop between the shafts; if you wait for a minute, I will get out and walk.” + 

“Neanche per sogno!” laughed Cousin Sisto, “she would never understand it; you will see, she can go very well when she wishes.” + 

“But her flanks are all dripping with sweat,” said Gian-Luca, “her flanks are quite grey with sweat!” + 

Then Sisto heaved a sympathetic sigh and glanced over his shoulder at Gian-Luca. “She is old, very old, poverina,” he said sadly, and proceeded to lash her with the whip. + 

“Stop!” shouted Gian-Luca, “my wife and I will walk. Come down, Maddalena, we will walk!” And he jumped out and held up his hand to Maddalena, where she sat beside Cousin Sisto. + 

Obedient as always, she climbed down from her seat and stood beside her husband in the road. Then Gian-Luca went to the back of the cart and tried to ease the wheels forward. Meanwhile Cousin Sisto stared round in amazement. + 

“But what is the matter?” he demanded. “Ma guarda, she is twenty years old the good mare, do you expect her to fly?” + 

The cart had begun to move slowly again, but nothing would induce Gian-Luca to get in; so he and Maddalena tramped on through the dust, which sprayed up over their ankles. + 

Cousin Sisto felt annoyed. “He is mad!” he was thinking. “He makes his wife walk for a horse!” and he looked down on Maddalena with pity, “Povera disgraziata!” he muttered. + 

Still walking, they arrived at the gates of the farm, where Lidia was standing to receive them; a plump, comely woman with wavy brown hair, and small, very even white teeth. But seeing Maddalena tramping through the dust, she held up her hands and exclaimed: + 

“Madonna! What has happened?” she inquired in agitation. “Has there been an accident, Sisto?” + 

“It was only our Giuseppina,” said Sisto; “she pretended that the cart was too heavy.” + 

“The Giuseppina is sly,” smiled Lidia; “she is old, and the old grow crafty. But to walk, that is too bad, and on your first evening! However, you are safely arrived, God be thanked; and now do come in, I must get to know Gian-Luca, I am happy in having a new cousin.” + 

II + 

Early the next morning they went out on the hills, and Gian-Luca saw the vendemmia. He was walking through a region of wide, green vineyards in which worked an army of peasants; their strong, slim bodies arched over the vines as they stooped to gather in the grapes. Here and there stood huge baskets overflowing with fruit that glowed purple-red in the heat; for the sun was already gathering power, pushing the mist away from the hilltops, pushing the light clouds away from the sky that stretched widely, fervently blue. The paths between the vines were strewn with crushed grapes, and the air was heavy with a queer, intense odor of fermentation and sweating human bodies; it smelt of fertility, virility and women, all steaming together in the sunshine. + 

The peasants were quick to observe a stranger; they glanced at Gian-Luca from under their lids, and whenever they stood up to ease their backs, they stared quite openly at him. Their eyes were the eyes of curious children, of the very young of the earth; they were not the eyes of those bygone Legions who had flung out the straight, white roads. For some reason Gian-Luca appeared to amuse them, perhaps it was his English clothes; but whatever it was, no sooner had he passed than they started laughing and talking loudly, calling him “forestiere.” Once or twice he spoke to them in Italian, but at this they seemed rather nonplussed, as though something in the fact of his knowing their language struck them as embarrassing. He observed that with Maddalena, however, these people were perfectly at ease; and quite soon her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and there she was, one of them, gathering grapes. Then Lidia followed suit, and Gian-Luca was alone with Sisto and his son Leone. + 

Leone was a lumping lad of sixteen, his expression was bovine and surly. Like his father, he wore his hair en brosse, but in his case, the top of his pate was so black that it looked like a monster pen-wiper. His thick throat was bare, he was wearing no collar, and his shirt was unfastened for coolness; round his neck hung a little gilt crucifix and a medal of the Virgin Mary. He spoke seldom, eyeing Gian-Luca with suspicion, but his voice when he did speak was gruff; his voice was already that of a man, and his lip was well shadowed with down. He appeared to be curiously unobservant except in regard to beetles; butterflies also attracted his attention, which was rather unfortunate for them. The little, round beetles crept out of the vines, disturbed by the busy peasants, and whenever a beetle came the way of Leone, Leone crushed it with his foot. His hand would swoop out to afflict flying things, a game at which he was unusually dexterous, and the palm of his hand would be covered with powder from the wings of his unfortunate victims. Gian-Luca looked once or twice at Sisto, who however, seemed to be quite unperturbed by the unpleasant pastime of his offspring, and presently Leone wandered away, muttering something about chickens. + 

Then his father turned to Gian-Luca with a smile. “A fine fellow, no? He is useful on the farm; my Claudio is a soldier in the Bersaglieri, but this one shall be a fattore.” + 

Sisto was making a great effort to be friendly, despite the unfortunate incident of the mare; he was very disappointed in Maddalena’s husband; however, they must make the best of him. He had said to his wife on the previous night: “He is queer, Maddalena’s husband. Imagine it, making a poor woman walk because of a beast⁠—and then our Giuseppina⁠—I remarked: ‘She is twenty years old, Giuseppina, do you expect her to fly?’ ” + 

“He is very handsome,” his wife had replied; “a fine figure he has, but too thin; and how little he eats⁠—such an excellent supper, such good ravioli, and the melanzane ripiene. All that I could lay my two hands on I cooked, and then he must come and eat nothing!” + 

Sisto had shrugged his shoulders in disgust: “He is hardly a man, my Lidia; and as for not eating, he ate many grapes, and figs, and much bread; but such stuff is for children, I think he is hardly a man!” + 

However, he had always been fond of Maddalena, so that now he was trying to be friendly. “Are you feeling the heat?” he inquired of Gian-Luca. “You English are not used to the heat.” + 

Gian-Luca looked surprised: “But I am not English; I thought you knew I was Italian.” + 

“Ma no, you are English,” laughed Sisto, amused. “You speak fine Italian, but your manners are English, and then, who but an Englishman pushes a cart that has a good horse to draw it?” + 

Gian-Luca was silent, this was quite unexpected. So Sisto regarded him as English! But at last he said firmly: “You are quite wrong, Sisto, I consider myself an Italian⁠—there are many Italians living in England.” + 

“All the same, you are English,” smiled Sisto. His round, brown face looked incredibly stubborn. “One can see that you are English,” he persisted; “your clothes, your behavior, your manner of eating⁠—” Then he hastened to add: “They are nice folk, the English, we like them, they bring us much money.” + 

How many times in his life had Gian-Luca listened to similar words: “The English are rich, they bring us much money.” Yes, and how many times had he himself said them! He stared at Cousin Sisto in exasperation. + 

“One gets sick of this talk of their money,” he muttered. + 

“Caspita, I do not!” chuckled Sisto. + 

And now Cousin Sisto wished to hear about London, and above all about the Doric. Did it pay? Was the food good? What sort of a man was Millo? Had Gian-Luca grown rich? His Nonna must be rich; it paid well, a salumeria! Gian-Luca tried to answer all these questions politely, and after a little, to his infinite relief, Sisto began to talk of the Marchese, who he said was a person of vast importance, owing to his very great wealth. Now Sisto must puff himself out and grow pompous; was he not the fattore? And the watch-chain protruded on his round little stomach, and a long coral horn, worn against the evil-eye, swung to and fro from the watch-chain. + 

“It is I who do all things,” he told Gian-Luca, “a very responsible position. The Marchese is merry, he admires pretty women, and he has a dull wife. She is good, poverina⁠—too good; it is said that she longs to be a nun. The Marchese says: ‘Sisto, I leave all to you, take care of my grapes, and see that you weigh them.’ And I answer: ‘You may trust me, Signor Marchese, not the pip of a grape shall be stolen.’ Which reminds me,” went on Sisto, glancing at his watch, “that the hour has arrived for the weighing of the grapes; it is time that we hurry home!” + 

They turned and went back to the courtyard of the farm, in which had been set up an immense pair of scales. The peasants had begun to arrive with full baskets balanced on their heads or their shoulders. Sisto eyed them with open suspicion and made notes in a thick black notebook. + 

“Avanti!” he ordered peremptorily, and the weighing of the grapes began. + 

Each peasant in turn must empty his burden on to the giant scales; Sisto weighed it, then the grapes were tipped back into the basket, and off went the basket down the steep little track that led to the Villa Sabelli. + 

Sisto rumbled a good deal under his breath: “Due cento sessanta kili,” he rumbled, and presently: “Cinquecento ottantatre e mezzo⁠—va bene!” And he made some fresh entries in his notebook. + 

And now the whole courtyard was redolent of grapes, the rough stones were slippery with them. The hands of the peasants were stained and sticky, while the sweat from their labor stood out on their arms, beading the coarse, black hairs of the men, and the smooth, olive skins of the women. Gian-Luca was rather surprised to notice that several large baskets made their way into the farmhouse, the others, he knew, had gone down to the villa to await the treading of the grapes. But Sisto waved a nonchalant hand in the direction of his cellar; then he made some very elaborate calculations, called for Leone to take away the scales, hummed the “Marcia Reale,” winked once at Gian-Luca⁠—and that was the end of the weighing for the morning. + 

III + 

That afternoon Sisto took them to the villa. “You will like to see how we make our good wine,” he said pleasantly to Gian-Luca. “The Marchese is very fond of good wine, and why not? He is young and merry!” + 

The Villa Sabelli was a low, white building with a large coat-of-arms above its door. The paint on this door had once been bright green, but now it was faded to a soft bluish-grey, and its surface was webbed with many little lines, owing to the heat of the summers. An old stone court with a marble fountain stretched to the right of the entrance; but the fountain was usually tongue-tied and dry, because of the shortage of water. At each corner of this crumbling, silent fountain, grew a splendid cypress tree, thrusting its roots far under the flagstones, digging in the dark with relentless fingers and lifting the stones in the process. Wherever a stone had been slightly dislodged, something humble had found an asylum; for all things might prosper to repletion in this garden, and the will to grow was a positive frenzy; weed or flower they all throve very much alike, and remained undisturbed for the most part. Everything needed thinning out or pruning, everything was arrogantly fruitful, and everything was indiscriminately watered from the three deep vasche near the lodge. But the glory of the garden was its grove of orange trees, already beginning to color very faintly; a grove that was planted in symmetrical lines that stretched for more than a mile. Sisto pointed it out with great pride, as well he might, thought Gian-Luca, for this was a miniature forest of fruit, in which presently every green globe would turn golden. + 

“This is where our Marchesa walks reading her prayers, the poverina,” whispered Sisto; “just now she is making a retreat near Rome. She is doubtless praying for the soul of the Marchese; she is good, very good, but Santa Madonna, our Marchese is only young!” + 

He led them round to the back of the villa and down a wide flight of stone steps; then he knocked on a massive oak door with his stick. Through the chinks of the door came the same acrid odor that Gian-Luca had noticed in the vineyards. The door was opened by a very old man. + 

“Beppo!” announced Sisto grandly. “He is old, you will say, but he still treads more grapes than anyone in the paese.” + 

Beppo was wearing a dingy cotton shirt that clung to his body with sweat; his trousers were rolled back over his thighs, and the flesh of his hairy old legs had shriveled, leaving a cordage of sinews. His legs and his broad gnarled feet were stained and moist from the juice and skins of the grapes; his toes were beaded all over with grape pips, and soiled with dirt from the floor. He was toothless, and so he spoke very little, preferring to nod and grin, and after he had carefully closed the oak door, he climbed back into his vat. + 

There were three outside cellars at the Villa Sabelli, that were connected with each other by arches. Their ceilings were vaulted, their floors and walls of stone, and just now they conveyed a strong impression of a church given over to some pagan ritual. The vats were a species of glorified barrel standing on a rough wooden platform; they were high, they were wide, four of them to a cellar; and in each vat a man was prancing and stamping, raising his knees with a rhythmical motion grotesquely suggestive of dancing. The cellars were full of the soft, slushing sound made by the grapes in dying; a sound half solid, half liquid, that mingled with the grunts and the heavy breathing of the men, and the creaking of the age-old barrels. The fumes in these cellars were well-nigh overpowering, for Beppo was frightened of chills; all that he would allow was a half-open lattice high up in the farthest wall. It was said that a man could get drunk on such fumes; there was something wicked about them. Wicked but merry, no doubt⁠—like the Marchese, whose excellent wine was in the making. + 

From time to time someone crawled out of his vat in order to stretch his legs; and his toes would be stuck with grape pips like Beppo’s, and after he had padded about for a little, with the dust and refuse of the floor. Then someone must pause to have a good spit⁠—for habit will defy most conventions⁠—and if he was dexterous he spat clear of his barrel, but if not⁠—oh, well, then the juices of the body would be mingled with the juices of the vine! + 

Sisto looked on in apparent satisfaction, and after a while it was time to go home. “Come, Maddalena,” said Sisto smiling; “to you this is nothing, you have seen it all before; we came for your husband⁠—in England, of course, one could not see such a fine sight. When he gets back he can tell them about it; he can tell them how we make our good wine.” + 

And Gian-Luca said politely: “I will certainly tell them, it has been very interesting, Sisto.” But his head felt heavy with the fumes of the cellars, and he longed to get back into the clean, open air and the health-giving blessing of the sunshine. + 

Maddalena took his arm as they walked through the garden: “It is better than this in Romagna,” she whispered; “this vendemmia is so small; but I would not tell Sisto, he wishes very much to impress his new cousin, he is proud of his little paese.” + 

VII + 

I + 

Sisto continued trying to be friendly because of Gian-Luca’s wife. Lidia was friendly because of Gian-Luca; she liked Maddalena’s tall, quiet husband; but even Lidia was not at ease with him, he struck her⁠—indeed, he seemed to strike them all⁠—as being a “forestiere.” + 

The Englishman’s home may well be his castle, but the home of the Latin is his fortress, and seldom may the stranger hope to penetrate beyond its outermost portal. Thus Gian-Luca, while sharing their family life, had a sense of being always just outside; they were never completely natural with him, he suspected a number of subtle reserves, and this made him stiff and shy in his turn, shy of asserting his claim. + 

Moreover, he resented their superior air, their complacent conviction that every alien was either a madman or a fool; he had met such convictions before, it was true, but in Old Compton Street they had not affected him, whereas here they appeared to affect him directly, and the injustice of this made him restive. Then these people differed very much from the clan in one all-important respect; these people had no need to assert themselves, they were in their own country and could afford to be generous, they were not compelled to keep memories green in the constant fear of absorption. What had been excusable in Nerone and the others⁠—a kind of virtue in a way⁠—was irritating in Lidia and Sisto, and more irritating still in Leone. And then there was the question of veracity; poor Mario was not strictly truthful, of course; he must always say, for instance, that the little round tins were entirely unknown at the Capo; as for Nerone, he would swear by his gods that his Macedonias were fresher than fresh, and this in spite of the fact that the tobacco poured out of their ends like dry chaff. Oh, undoubtedly lies were told by the clan, and the clan was grasping over money; but its lies were pure white in comparison to Sisto’s, and if its members loved money they worked hard to get it, whereas Sisto was both grasping and lazy. + 

Sisto was quite a new type to Gian-Luca, a man devoid of any ideal as far as his work was concerned. The ambition of the exiles was completely lacking in him; he cared not at all how he ran the estate, provided that he ran it to his personal advantage with as little trouble as might be. His pride of office never went beyond words, and even in words it could not be maintained, for at one moment he would brag of the trust imposed in him, and the next he would wink a large eye at Gian-Luca, explaining at great length and with many a chuckle some underhand piece of sharp dealing. Nothing was too mean or too puerile for Sisto, so long as it brought him gain. + 

“Ma guarda,” he would laugh, “a man has to live! What do you say, Gian-Luca?” And Gian-Luca, finding nothing appropriate to say, would observe that Sisto looked offended. + 

Very unwilling indeed was Gian-Luca to become the confidant of Sisto, but Sisto could never resist for long the pleasure of expounding his cunning. Yet after having poured out these revelations, he would usually assume the grand air, becoming very pompous and rather distant; then Lidia and Leone would also become distant, and Gian-Luca would be given to understand once again that he was only a stranger. He realized more and more every day how little he had in common with these people, how little they had in common with him, and this realization came as a shock; he had journeyed a very long way to discover that a man could feel foreign to his country. + 

Maddalena, who saw what was happening, grew anxious: “They are still rather shy, give them time,” she would plead, and then she would add: “But you are so much better, therefore what does anything matter!” + 

And this was quite true, he was certainly better, beginning to feel almost strong. But he would think: “It is queer, I am always a stranger⁠—I felt like a stranger among the English, and out here I feel even more like a stranger⁠—” And then he would try not to mind very much, because he had been warned against worry. + 

Yet all the same, he must say to Maddalena: “I have come home too late, donna mia⁠—a man may come home too late to his country⁠—” + 

And she, in her turn, could find nothing to reply; she could only gaze at him sadly. + 

II + 

The gulf had widened when Gian-Luca’s new cousins discovered that he never went to church. Sisto and his household were excessively pious, and their chagrin was great when they found that their guest refused to accompany them to Mass. Sisto had so many sins to confess that he needed the Church very badly; indeed, he used it as a spiritual lifebuoy to keep his soul from total immersion. Lidia, who had very few conscious sins, had a great many superstitions⁠—so many, in fact, that her life was a torment⁠—and these she must deluge with much Holy Water, in order, conversely, to submerge them. As for Leone, he was made to serve Mass⁠—every Sunday morning he must serve it. His thoughts on the subject were not inquired into, but he had so few thoughts about anything at all that this was of small importance. What was of importance, and very grave importance, was Gian-Luca’s unorthodox behavior; he claimed to be Italian, yet refused to go to Mass. Very well, then he must be a secret Freemason, or if he was not a Freemason he was worse, he belonged to the Socialisti, and this for Sisto, who served a Marchese, was a matter of no small moment. + 

“But is he not even baptized?” inquired Lidia. + 

“He has been baptized⁠—” Maddalena admitted. + 

“That makes it far worse,” announced Sisto firmly, “the insult to our faith is the greater.” + 

And all this made Maddalena unhappy; unhappy and a little ashamed, so that she said to Gian-Luca one Sunday: “They cannot understand why you never go to Mass.” And he knew from her voice that she felt ashamed, and then he too felt unhappy. + 

Sisto, returning newly shriven from confession, would often look askance at Gian-Luca, for at such times he suffered from much pride of spirit; then Leone would quickly emulate his father, and he too would try to look prim and disapproving, while Gian-Luca, considerably better now in health, would be longing to kick them both. A nice frame of mind, indeed, for a man who had just been restored to his people. + 

Maddalena, however, felt at home with her cousins, for hers was not an analytical mind. She accepted their faults as things familiar; she had seen them all before, and while she deplored them, she could not find it in her to be overcritical. Moreover, she was growing very fond of Lidia; it was pleasant to have another woman to talk to, and the everyday duties of the household were pleasant, performed as they were in bright sunshine. Maddalena loved also to talk to the peasants, because then she could play with their babies. She enjoyed the red wine and the rich peasant cooking, but above all the blue sky and glorious weather⁠—she expanded, growing younger and less careworn every day, a fact not lost on Gian-Luca. For Maddalena’s sake he endured her cousins⁠—the last thing he wanted in the world was a quarrel⁠—he had promised to remain at the farm for four months, and Sisto’s disapproval of his lack of religion had not been extended to his money. So Gian-Luca took to being much alone and would wander for hours in the mountains. His muscles grew firm and his cheeks less sunken, while the sun tanned his skin and nourished his body. As for food, he need eat only simple things⁠—bread and cheese and much fruit, with occasional pasta, when Lidia had not drenched it in butter. + 

Yes, his body responded readily enough, for his body was young and strong; but his soul still doomed his eyes to their seeing, and now they must see yet a new cause for pity⁠—on all sides they must see it, wherever man dwelt and compelled the dumb beasts to serve him. Never before had Gian-Luca realized the helplessness of those who cannot speak, for the English, on the whole, are too just to be cruel⁠—a quiet, unemotional people, it is true, but possessed of a great sense of fairness. And Gian-Luca decided that by living among them, this sense of fairness was unconsciously acquired, for he could not conceive of any member of the clan doing what these peasants did. Rocca had hung his small goats upside-down, but at least his goats had been dead, whereas here they were carried bleating to slaughter with their legs tied together over a pole, and their heads all but bumping against the pathway⁠—a brutal, unnecessary torment. Nerone kept his birds in small cages it was true, and believed that his skylarks were happy; but at least he gave them clean food and fresh water, and their cages were as palaces compared to those that Gian-Luca now saw in the paese. Horrible, punishing, heartbreak cages, filthy with excrement and slime; their water green and stinking from neglect, their one narrow perch encrusted with droppings, their inmates disheveled and bare in places from the constant rubbing of the bars. + 

Wherever he went he saw the same thing, an absolute disregard of dumb creatures, a curious lack of human understanding, of the realization of pain. But more than anywhere else, perhaps, he saw it on Lidia’s farm; for Lidia was a pleasant and kindly woman, and yet she had taken Leone to help her, and Leone did not lack understanding of pain⁠—on the contrary he liked to inflict it. The farm consisted principally of chickens, and these Leone could crowd into crates, or better still, he could wring their necks slowly, taking a long time about it. He could pluck out their feathers before they were dead, or swing them about by their claws⁠—there was no end to what he could do to the chickens, and no end it seemed to Lidia’s indifference; that was what so amazed Gian-Luca. + 

In addition to the chickens, there was one doleful cow, a half-grown calf, and a few lousy sheep; these lived all together in a species of damp cavern, hollowed out of the rock near the farm. A slatted oak door had been fixed at the entrance, admitting a modicum of light and air; but the beasts very seldom got a glimpse of the sky, and practically never of the grass, it appeared, for as Lidia explained to Gian-Luca one morning: “If our cow saw the grass, she would be so delighted that she might well forget to give milk!” The cavern reeked of filth and ammonia, causing the beasts’ eyes to stream; when they came into the light they must half-close their eyes⁠—especially the calf, who was young and unaccustomed, and who suffered from conjunctivitis. Gian-Luca would lie in bed sick with pity for the patient, enduring creatures. + 

“Can you not sleep?” Maddalena would ask him. + 

And then he must tell her about the cattle. + 

“I know, I know⁠—” she would answer, sighing, “but thank God, they do not suffer as we do!” + 

Gian-Luca would sit up and stare into the darkness. “How do you know?” he would ask her. + 

And one night she answered quite naturally and simply: “Perché non sono Cristiana.” + 

Then Gian-Luca felt that his wife was slipping back in mind and in spirit to her people; that her country was luring her, drawing her away, since she, who was all tender mercy and compassion, could repeat this crude blasphemy of the peasants. + 

“Inasmuch as your Christ had pity,” he cried hotly, “so must every poor beast be Christian!” + 

But Maddalena hid her face on his shoulder. “No, no, Gian-Luca!” she protested. “God is good, He would not allow them to suffer⁠—I have asked the Parroco, and he says the same; the beasts do not suffer as we do.” + 

Gian-Luca sighed, and taking her hand, he tried to explain more gently: “The priest is a peasant himself,” he told her; “and he thinks and speaks very much as they do⁠—but listen, mia donna: the dumb things do suffer, if you look you will see it in their eyes.” He could not go to sleep, and she had perforce to listen while he pleaded the cause of the dumb: “They cannot tell us,” he kept on repeating; “they can only trust us, Maddalena.” + 

And now Maddalena was almost weeping, yet he knew that she was only half convinced. + 

“God is good, God has always been good!” she pleaded. + 

“He is merciful, then,” said Gian-Luca. + 

III + 

The creature Leone loved best to torment was a little Sardinian donkey; in size it was not much bigger than a dog, and its hoofs were easily avoided. A favorite pastime was twisting its tongue, and one day he kicked it in the stomach⁠—just by way of letting it know that he was there⁠—and the donkey stood still and shivered. But Leone was as cruel as death to all beasts, and all beasts knew it and feared him, and he it was who helped on the farm⁠—yet Lidia was a kindly woman⁠ ⁠… Gian-Luca’s eyes sometimes blazed fury at Leone; Leone would see this and snigger. + 

“Non sono Cristiani!” he was always saying, because this tormented Gian-Luca. + 

And Gian-Luca would have to walk away quickly in case he should be tempted to strike, for he too was a Latin, in spite of his pity, in spite of his newfound seeing. But where could he turn to be rid of this seeing? There were days when he knew despair: “A country as lovely as Paradise and as cruel as Hell!” he would mutter. + 

Under the very window of his bedroom hung Marchese Sabelli’s richiami⁠—ortolans used to decoy their fellows⁠—there were eight of them, each in a tiny cage not much more than six inches long. They were fairly large birds, so that only with an effort could they stand half upright or turn round; and their calling would wake Gian-Luca every morning: “Dio!” he would think, “those miserable creatures!” And perhaps he would bury his head in the bedclothes so as to shut away their calling. + 

At last he spoke to Lidia about them. “I will buy you much larger cages,” he told her. + 

But she answered: “They are wild, the wildest of all birds⁠—in a larger cage they would beat themselves to pieces, one must always keep ortolans in a small cage. These belong to our padrone the Marchese.” + 

Then Gian-Luca lifted up his voice in protest, and his protest was far from polite. He said: “May your damned Marchese go to hell, and may he be kept there in a cage as small for him as these cages are for his poor tormented birds, and may he remain there forever and ever; I hope he will never get out!” After which, Cousin Lidia was naturally offended, and she went and complained to Maddalena. + 

One morning Gian-Luca could bear it no longer; he stole out of bed at dawn, and his long arm shot out to each cage in turn, and he opened their doors, and the birds flew away, too astonished to thank Gian-Luca. + 

Oh, what a hubbub when a couple of hours later Sisto saw all those empty cages! His oaths far exceeded Rocca’s at their best, he attacked the Madonna from every point of view, nor did he omit to mention the Mass, which he lingered over in great detail. + 

“Who has committed this outrage?” yelled Sisto. “They are gone! The Marchese’s richiami!” His voice sounded almost tearful with rage, he was literally dancing with passion. + 

Gian-Luca unfastened the window and looked down. “Of course they have gone,” he said, smiling serenely; “of course they have gone; I opened their cages⁠—the birds were not fools, you can tell your Marchese!” + 

“You⁠—you⁠—?” stammered Sisto. “Che vergogna! What an outrage! They were specially trained richiami⁠—you are mad, mad, mad⁠—you behave like a madman⁠—” + 

“I like being mad,” said Gian-Luca, quite gravely, after which he closed the window. + 

Maddalena had risen from her bed and was staring at her husband in horror: “What have you done, Gian-Luca!” she exclaimed. “They were trained richiami. The Marchese will be furious, he will surely punish our miserable Sisto⁠—he will surely make Sisto pay for the birds!” + 

“I hope so, indeed,” said Gian-Luca. + 

Then Maddalena’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, but what shall I say?” she demanded. + 

“Tell them that your husband is mad but harmless.” And Gian-Luca laughed softly, thinking of the birds away by now in the mountains. + 

What his wife really said Gian-Luca never knew, but nothing could have made any difference, for Sisto and Lidia were firmly convinced that they harbored a lunatic. When Gian-Luca went down to breakfast that morning, they eyed him timidly a moment without speaking; then Lidia inquired if he would not prefer to have his breakfast upstairs. He thanked her, but said that he would go for a walk in order to ease his poor head; his head had been paining him lately, he told her, and at that she glanced quickly across at Sisto, and Sisto looked at Maddalena. But Gian-Luca’s enjoyment was somewhat damped when he saw Maddalena’s face; it was red with shame and embarrassment. + 

“It is all right,” he whispered, “I will pay them for the birds.” But his wife turned suddenly away. + 

IV + 

The weeks passed, and still they stayed on at the farm; Maddalena was loath to go, for Gian-Luca seemed almost well again, cured by the fine air and sunshine. Her cousins quite openly said that he was mad, but because of his affliction they forgave his behavior. + 

“If he is not mad, then he is English,” declared Sisto, “and, that after all, is very much the same thing!” + 

His solitary habits lent color to the rumor that Gian-Luca was one of God’s afflicted; he would wander all over the countryside, never speaking to the peasants, unless it were to urge them to show some mercy to their beasts. Those days spent out in the open air had given new life to his body; but his compassionate mind was weary unto death, and his heart was filled with a great loneliness, and his soul had begun to long intolerably for something⁠—only, he could not tell for what. He would look into the eyes of the saddle-galled mules, and the stumbling, ill-cared for horses; for he felt that they held a message, those eyes, and he tried very hard to understand that message, talking to the dumb things gently. But one day he must look into the eyes of cattle that were being driven to slaughter. + 

He had wandered a very long way from the farm and was climbing a steep salita; and there at the summit of the pathway stood a cross, and the Christ on the cross looked straight down the pathway. Then over the sharp, loose stones came stumbling those terrified driven cattle: their eyes were filled with a knowledge of disaster, for their sensitive nostrils had scented death from the slaughterhouse halfway up the hill. Long festoons of slime were swinging from their lips, and they tried to turn back into safety; then their drover struck them on their anxious faces, and on their bowed heads and their quivering flanks; and he cursed them, while the blows fell heavy in his fury, so that they had to go forward. + 

On they must stumble to Calvary as Another had stumbled before them; poor, lowly, uncomprehending disciples, following dumbly in the footsteps of God who had surely created all things for joy, yet had died for the blindness of the world. And because the sky was so radiantly blue His cross stood out darkly defined. Looking up, the drover suddenly perceived it, and he signed his breast with the emblem of compassion; then he struck yet again at his bullocks. But Gian-Luca saw neither the cross nor the sky, he saw only a creature’s eyes⁠—for he thought that a poor beast looked at him in passing, seeming to accuse him as he stood there helpless, so that he too bowed his head. + 

Nor was this all that he must witness that day, for going home in the evening he heard a bird singing at the door of the cobbler in the village, near Sisto’s farm. He had never heard such singing before, it was indescribably lovely, and behind the song was a spirit of hope so poignant that it seemed to be racking the bird’s body. The bird was singing in an agony of hope that came very near to despair. + 

The cobbler nodded and smiled at Gian-Luca: “Buona sera,” he said politely, “you admire him? He is new⁠—he has a fine song.” + 

“A marvelous song!” said Gian-Luca. And then he must make his eternal request: “Let me buy him a larger cage.” + 

But the cobbler shook his head: “If you did, signore, he would not find his food, he is blind.” + 

“Blind?” said Gian-Luca, incredulously. + 

“Si, signore, that is why he sings so finely; we often blind them to make them sing, it seems to give sweetness to their notes.” + 

His voice was neither pitiful nor cruel, only lacking in understanding; he chirruped to the blind bird as though he liked it, and going into the house he fetched some lettuce, which he pushed between the bars of its cage. The bird felt the cool, green stuff against its wing, and burst into a torrent of song; as it sang it shuffled its claws on its perch, swaying from side to side. Then Gian-Luca put his hands up to his ears and started to run down the street, and as he ran he remembered the beggar and her child who had lost his eyes. The child and the bird seemed to merge together, no longer two separate creatures; the suffering of the one was the suffering of the other, and the suffering of both was the suffering of Gian-Luca. And although he had covered his ears with his hands, he thought that he could still hear that singing. + 

V + 

It was February when the crisis was reached; they were nearing the end of their stay, and Gian-Luca’s resentment towards Leone had got well-nigh beyond his control. As for the boy, he hated Gian-Luca and went out of his way to enrage him; the weapon he used was the little brown donkey, who must suffer accordingly. Yet as sometimes happens, a very small incident led to the final explosion; Gian-Luca came on Leone one morning thoughtfully tweaking out the donkey’s mane⁠—a painful proceeding, but as heavenly balm when compared with the other torments. For one long minute Gian-Luca stood quite still while Leone looked up and grinned: + 

“Sai che non sentono niente⁠—” he began. Then he stopped abruptly, for Gian-Luca had swooped forward and seized the discarded whip. + 

It was all so sudden that Leone knew nothing until he was swung off his feet and the whip was crashing down on his shoulders; over and over again it crashed down and, with every fresh blow Gian-Luca recited the woes of the little donkey. + 

“Take that for twitching out his mane!” he shouted; “and that for twisting his tongue; and that for prodding the sore on his shoulder; and that for the kick you gave him in the stomach; and that for keeping him all day without water; and that for working him when he was lame. Take that! and that! and that, you young swine! And now you know what it feels like!” + 

But Leone was yelling as though half-demented, and fighting to get away. The sound of his yells and Gian-Luca’s shouting brought Lidia running with Maddalena, and when Lidia saw the plight of her last-born, she too must start yelling as though she would go mad, and even Maddalena had to lift up her voice: “Gian-Luca! Gian-Luca! Santa Madonna, what are you doing, Gian-Luca?” Lidia was tearing at Gian-Luca’s arm, which was taut and as hard as steel, then she started to thump with inadequate fists, and finally buried her small teeth in the hand that was gripping Leone’s collar. For this comely-faced woman was like something possessed in her fierce defense of her offspring; a primitive thing, a tigress at bay, driven crazy by the howls of her cub. And now Maddalena was reaching for the whip, and she got in the way of the blows; Gian-Luca must either strike her or stop beating, so he had to release Leone. + 

“Oh, oh! Oh, oh! Oh, oh!” wailed Leone as he dropped in a blubbering heap. + 

“Well, I am glad that you know what it feels like,” said Gian-Luca; and he turned on his heel and left them. + 

Lidia knelt down by her cowering son and gathered him into her arms, then her eyes blazed up at the silent Maddalena. “The pig! the devil! the madman!” shrieked Lidia. “To beat my Leone because of a donkey!” And many other things she said in her wrath that are not, as a rule, recorded. When Leone had stopped sobbing and had got to his feet, Lidia pointed to the gates: “Take that madman out of my house!” she babbled. “Go quickly before Sisto comes home to kill him⁠—the outrage, the scandal, to lay hands on our son because of a miserable donkey!” + 

What could the poor Maddalena answer? It was true that Leone had been thoroughly thrashed, it was also true that the cause of the thrashing had been a Sardinian donkey. And who should know better than Maddalena the pride of the Latins in their children? Gian-Luca’s sin could never be forgiven⁠—he had sinned against the deep-rooted, primitive instinct of personal reproduction. + 

“My husband and I will go⁠—” she faltered, then her loyalty suddenly came to her aid. “But,” said Maddalena, “we are not afraid of Sisto or of anyone else on earth!” And now she was full of her old, quiet courage, and she looked very straight at her cousin: “Before I go, Lidia, I will tell you what I think: if my husband speaks truly and the beasts feel as we do, then your son is more cruel than the devil himself, and Gian-Luca was right to defend the small donkey who cannot complain when he suffers.” + 

She turned and went slowly into the house, regardless of Lidia’s abuse. In their bedroom she found a placid Gian-Luca⁠—he was quietly packing their clothes. + 

He looked up with a smile: “We will go, Maddalena, but I wish we could take the little donkey!” + 

“We cannot do that,” she told him gravely, “but I am glad that you beat Leone.” + 

When they came downstairs half an hour later, dragging their trunks behind them, there was Cousin Sisto waiting in the hall⁠—presumably to kill Gian-Luca. But Cousin Sisto was not very large and moreover he dreaded a scandal; the whole village was talking already, it seemed, for a passing peasant had heard the uproar: the news had reached Levanto no doubt by now, to say nothing of the Villa Sabelli. The Marchese was coming home the next day, and he was almost as queer as Gian-Luca, he protested quite freely⁠—when he was not too lazy⁠—about horses and mules and all sorts of creatures; he had even forbidden the caging of richiami, which Sisto had caged all the same. No, Sisto was not particularly anxious for his master to visit the farm⁠—he was merry and he loved pretty women, the Marchese; but once he had stopped to talk to the donkey, and had pointed out the sore on its shoulder, speaking quite sharply to Sisto. So Sisto forbore to slay Gian-Luca, and merely puffed out his cheeks. + 

“Go!” he said haughtily. “You have outraged my house; you reward hospitality by beating my son. I give you all, all that my poor house can offer, you take it and then beat my son!” + 

But at that Maddalena became purely a peasant, and a peasant’s memory is long. “And very well we have paid you,” she told him. Then she checked off their numerous payments on her fingers, and, declaimed with much fervor as Maddalena declaimed them, they sounded extremely impressive. + 

Sisto had ordered a fly from Levanto, anxious to be rid of his boarders, so Gian-Luca got the driver to help him with the luggage; then he and Maddalena were driven to the station, where they waited for the Genoa train. + 

VI + 

Maddalena was very silent on the journey, and Gian-Luca knew that she grieved, so he too was silent, for how could he console her for this unhappy ending to their visit? + 

When they came near the frontier at Modane the next day Gian-Luca looked at his wife; Maddalena was gazing out of the window and he saw that the tears were rolling down her cheeks⁠—she, who so seldom wept. Then he took her hand and stroked it with his fingers, while the other passengers pretended to read⁠—they were all English people who were fond of Italians, and they thought this a quarrel between lovers. + 

Gian-Luca said gently: “Listen, donna mia, I know that this thing had to be⁠—I came as a man who longed for a country, but I go as a man who no longer needs a country, for no country on earth could give me what I need⁠—what I must some day find.” He did not know what he meant by the words, did not know, indeed, why he spoke them; but he went on gently stroking her hand, and now he heard himself speaking again: “It is you that I pity, you are patient and loving, and always you share my misfortunes⁠—but try not to cry; you will go back, I know, you will go back to the Campagna⁠—” and he added: “Just think of the white mule, Umberto, who was such an old robber of grapes!” Then Maddalena must smile through her tears, remembering the wicked Umberto. + 

“And the sheep all wear little bells,” said Maddalena. + 

“Si, si,” he consoled, “they all wear little bells⁠—and your Christ left the print of His foot in the stone⁠—and at sunrise the mists look purple and golden⁠—you have often told me about it.” + 

She said: “But will you come with me, Gian-Luca?” + 

And he answered: “Rome is the cradle of your faith⁠—would you not like to see St. Peter’s again, after all these years, Maddalena?” + 

“Yes, yes⁠—but you will come with me?” she persisted. And he answered: “It is very wonderful, St. Peter’s⁠—all night and all day they burn eighty-nine lamps, and the faithful kneel down and pray at the tomb⁠—you have often told me about it.” + 

Then her eyes grew reminiscent, and she started to tell him many things about the churches of Rome: San Pietro in Vincoli⁠—old, very old, and containing the chains of St. Peter; Santa Prassede with its bones of the martyr; Santa Bibiana, with its stump of a column at which the good saint had been scourged. And as she talked on he nodded and smiled and continued to fondle her hand. + 

“Ma si,” he murmured, “I am glad that you are Roman⁠—it must feel very fine to be Roman, I think⁠—so many brave deeds behind you, Maddalena⁠—and you too are brave, one can see it in your face; and now, look, you have quite stopped crying!” + 

The train had jolted itself into Modane, and all was noise and confusion. Shouting officials running backwards and forwards, dignified English folk talking Italian learnt from inadequate handbooks. There were people snatching a hasty sandwich or an orange, or an apple, or a bun⁠—not a fat currant bun, but its thin Latin cousin containing no currants at all. Presently the train was ready to start: “In vagone! In vagone! Partenza!” + 

And that was how Gian-Luca left the land of his fathers, taking Maddalena with him. + 

VIII + 

I + 

On his return Gian-Luca went to Millo and tendered his resignation. This he did very simply, giving no excuse, for indeed he had none to offer. “I cannot come back to the Doric,” he told Millo. “I cannot any longer be a waiter⁠—all I can do is to thank you from my heart for your very great kindness and patience.” + 

Millo, who had long since ceased to be surprised at any queer happening in this queerest of worlds, said: “Allora⁠—and what then?” + 

And Gian-Luca answered: “I myself am waiting to know.” Then he handed Millo those four months’ wages that had been his retaining fee, but at this Millo made a sound of impatience: “Do not be such an imbecile, Gian-Luca! You can give the money to Maddalena⁠—at all events I do not want it.” + 

“I have not earned it,” Gian-Luca persisted, “for I cannot return to your service.” + 

“Well, never mind all that⁠—” grunted Millo; then he added curiously: “You have left my service⁠—whose service will you be in next, I wonder?” And he stared with interest at Gian-Luca. + 

Gian-Luca shook his head, and his strange, pale eyes looked past Millo and out beyond. “That I cannot tell you⁠—” he said very gravely. “I must try to find myself first, signore⁠—I am utterly lost⁠—I must find myself again⁠—and something else that I need.” + 

Millo sighed; he was going to sustain a great loss, he was losing his finest headwaiter. He had hoped against hope that Gian-Luca would come home quite cured of his curious condition. And then he was genuinely fond of this man who had served him faithfully for years, genuinely worried regarding his future⁠—for Millo knew life even as Teresa knew it, a ruthless, intolerant business this life, in which there was no room for dreamers; so he said: + 

“You must do what you think best, Gian-Luca, but for God’s sake get rid of your illusions! Remember that the world is a very greedy place⁠—it is only an extension of the Doric. To keep pace with the world one must wink at its follies and if necessary pander a little; there is no room for those who want to dig beneath the surface, we are too overcrowded, we are too civilized, we object to the disturbance and the dirt of excavations⁠—and in any case, no one has time for much spade work, our everyday needs are too numerous.” Then he suddenly held out his hand to Gian-Luca, for he himself was very busy: “Well⁠—I think that is all⁠—take care of yourself, and remember I am here, if you need me.” + 

Gian-Luca grasped the strong, friendly hand: “I cannot find anything to say⁠—” he faltered. + 

“No need,” Millo told him. “We part as good friends⁠—and I hope you will prosper, Gian-Luca.” + 

Gian-Luca left him and went to the restaurant, where the early morning work was in progress; and there he found little Roberto and Giovanni and Daniele, and several of the others. He said to them all: + 

“I am leaving the Doric, I have come here to say goodbye.” And the words sounded ominous and sad to his ears, so that his heart misgave him. + 

But now they all gathered round talking at once: “Ma, Signor Gian-Luca! you are leaving the Doric? No, no, it cannot be possible!” + 

And seeing their surprised and incredulous faces, he realized that his faults had been forgotten, and only his virtues remembered. Then it was that he knew that he was fond of these men, especially of little Roberto; and he let his gaze rest on each of them in turn as though he wanted to remember their features⁠—as though they were worthy of being remembered, these patient, uncomplaining servers. After he had drawn them all into his mind, his eyes wandered round the room, the room in which he too had patiently served⁠—and the room seemed full of his own past emotions, of his longing for money, his restless ambition, his ruthless will to succeed. And all these things came at him gibing, deriding, tormenting, so that he trembled a little; for now they were striking as enemies, whereas once he had thought of them as friends. A shaft of pallid February sunshine was touching a table that stood just through the archway⁠—the table at which Ugo Doria had feasted beside the little Milady. But all that seemed a long time ago, and the pain and the anger of it⁠—and there near the door was Jane Coram’s table; someone had decked it with large hothouse roses, while the table itself had been widened and extended⁠—perhaps she was giving a party. + 

Roberto was speaking: “We shall miss you, signore, it will not be the same here without you.” And his eyes of a skylark looking through bars were dim with something very like tears. + 

Gian-Luca pressed the little man’s hand: “I must thank you all⁠—” he said slowly. “I must thank you for what you did when I was ill⁠—and if I have sometimes been over-severe, I must ask you all to forgive me.” + 

But at this there arose a great hubbub of protest: “Ma no, ma no, Signor Gian-Luca!” + 

“You have always been perfectly just,” said Daniele. + 

“Davvero, that is true!” they agreed. + 

When at last he had said goodbye to his waiters, he made his way to the basement; for he wished to seek out the good-natured Henri and the dignified Monsieur Pierre Martin. As he went down the tortuous steel-rimmed staircase, he was met by a blast of hot air, for the great, greedy monster was stirring to action, and its breath was already heavy with the food that fumed on its tables of fire. He found the culinary King very quickly, but the King seemed preoccupied; he glanced up from a sizzling copper saucepan as though impatient of distraction. His eyes held the brooding, inward expression of a poet pregnant with song, and his white linen crown, which was slightly awry, had slipped to the back of his head. For Monsieur Pierre Martin was in the throes of a very real inspiration, he was busily inventing a dish of his own that would some day be called: “⁠⸻ à la Martin.” + 

However, the French are proverbially polite, so he bowed as he greeted Gian-Luca: “Ah, Monsieur Gian-Luca, you are better, I hope?” But his gaze returned to the saucepan. “Encore de la crème, vite, vite!” he called sharply. “Bon Dieu! must I stand here all day?” And now he was frowning, and breathing quite hard, as a man breathes in moments of peril. + 

“I am leaving the Doric for good,” said Gian-Luca. “I have come to wish you goodbye.” + 

“Tiens⁠—” murmured Monsieur Martin; and then again: “Tiens!” as he stirred with a delicate motion. + 

But now a young chef had returned with the cream, and the air was heavy with portent. “Excuse if I do not offer my hand⁠—” said the great man, seizing the cream. + 

Henri was in his pantry as usual, and today he was cutting up veal. “Blanquette de Veau” would appear on the menu as one of the plats du jour. + 

“Ah! so you have returned,” he said, smiling at Gian-Luca, and he offered a greasy paw; then he tried the blade of his knife on his thumb and continued to cut up the veal. + 

“Yes,” said Gian-Luca, “I have returned⁠—but only to say goodbye.” And he told the good Henri that he was leaving, that he was no longer a waiter. + 

But at that Henri laughed and looked very wise. “Once a waiter always a waiter,” said Henri, “and once a chef always a chef, mon ami⁠—we can never get away from food. By the way,” he added, “our storeman leaves too, he is going back to Como to run a hotel. I for one am not sorry, a disagreeable fellow⁠—I never could support Agostino!” + 

They talked on for a little about Agostino, then Gian-Luca bade Henri goodbye. + 

“This is only au revoir,” said Henri, smiling. “We shall soon have you back at the Doric.” + 

Gian-Luca went thoughtfully up the stone staircase and passed through the wide entrance hall. He pushed the swing door that led out into the street, and the door closed noiselessly behind him. He stood quite still on the pavement for a moment, staring down at his shoes; then he raised bewildered eyes to the Doric, sighed, and turned towards home. + 

II + 

That evening Gian-Luca told Maddalena that he could not go back to the Doric. She accepted his decision quite quietly, uttering no word of complaint. + 

“You are good to me, Maddalena,” he said. “You do not reproach me for what I have done.” + 

“Why should I reproach you?” said Maddalena. “All I want is that you should be happy.” + 

He gave her the money that Millo had refused, and together they went into accounts, while he tried to explain their simple finances in a way that she could understand. All this he did with great care and patience, making her answer questions like a schoolgirl, making her add up long rows of figures, then pointing out her mistakes. + 

“You will soon understand about it,” he told her, “for you have the sound money-sense of our peasants. I shall never buy that restaurant now, Maddalena, so my savings had better be invested.” + 

At the back of his mind an idea had been forming, but as yet it was nebulous and vague; it had come to him first that day in the train when he had tried to console Maddalena. And because of this vague and nebulous idea he was thinking now of her future. + 

“Are you listening, piccina?” he said almost sharply when he thought her attention was straying. + 

“But why should I know all about these things?” she asked him. “It is you who decide such matters.” + 

“One can never be certain, Maddalena,” he answered. “I prefer you to understand.” + 

So to please him she tried to be more attentive, frowning and biting her pencil. + 

He stared at her thoughtfully; she was not looking well, and her eyes had grown dull and weary, and all this he knew was because of his burdens⁠—too heavy for her to bear. He pictured her back on the wide Campagna in the sunshine among her own people. + 

He muttered: “Where the sheep all wear little bells⁠—” + 

And half hearing, she looked up and smiled. Then he said: “if you go home again, Maddalena, it is you who must help the poor beasts, for the peasants do not look upon you as a stranger, they will listen to you who are one of themselves⁠—you will try to help, Maddalena?” + 

She put down her pencil and looked at him closely: “Why do you speak so, Gian-Luca?” + 

“I was thinking of your Campagna,” he told her, “that is where you seem to belong.” + 

“I belong to you,” she said gently but firmly, “wherever you are is home.” + 

But he shook his head: “I belong nowhere, piccina⁠—” + 

“You belong in my heart,” said Maddalena. + 

After that they were silent for quite a long time, while she went on doing her sums; and all the while he was staring at her thoughtfully, thinking of the wide Campagna. Presently he made her put away the books, and they drew their chairs close to the fire. + 

“I must get work,” he told her. + 

And she asked him what work, but he seemed at a loss how to answer. + 

Then he said: “I have such a strange feeling lately⁠—as though something were calling me away, as though something were waiting for me to find it, something very splendid, Maddalena.” + 

She did not understand, and her eyes looked frightened. “Calling you, Gian-Luca?” she said slowly. + 

He nodded: “It is something that is waiting to be found⁠—” Then because he could see that her eyes were frightened he tried to reassure her: “It is nothing, cara mia, it is only my fancy⁠—Now come, go to bed, it must be getting late.” And he kissed her and patted her arm. But as she turned away his heart ached with pity. “Do not be afraid,” he comforted. + 

III + 

But Maddalena felt terribly afraid, and now she would never leave her husband; when he went out she must always go with him. He had not the heart to oppose her in this, yet he knew that he needed solitude, for he who had always so feared loneliness now craved it with all his being. He tried to make some sort of plans for their future, but somehow he could not think clearly. The noise of the traffic, the presence of people, the constant presence of Maddalena, these things bewildered; so the weeks slipped by and still he had come to no decision. He would walk about the streets with his wife at his side, or sit gazing out of the window; and a great urge would rise in him, filling him with longing⁠—an urge so insistent that he wanted to cry out⁠— + 

“I am coming!” he would mutter, and then grow afraid, not understanding his own words. + 

He was filled with an intolerable, homeless feeling⁠—he felt like an atom cast into space⁠—he wanted to stretch out his hand and grasp something that was infinitely stronger than he was. + 

He would think: “There is something greater than life⁠—perhaps even greater than death⁠—” + 

And then he would wonder if this thing might be God, and then he would wonder how a man might find God who was greater than life and death. But when he tried to think of God in this way, he would always grow appalled by God’s vastness, for his heart was aching for simple things; yet the simple things were terribly finite, or so it seemed to Gian-Luca. + 

There were days when his mind would be clouded and numbed by a deep sense of personal failure; when he saw his past life as a road that had led nowhere, when he saw his present as a kind of chaos in which he was involving Maddalena; and even more hopeless did he feel about the future, for when he looked forward he could not find the future, and this made him terribly afraid. + 

“What must I do?” he would sometimes mutter; and then again: “What must I do?” + 

He grew anxious about money and would sit for hours poring over his account books; yet all the while he would feel strangely detached, as though none of this mattered to him. Maddalena, it was, that was always in his mind, and how best he could provide for her; even his savings were not his, he felt, nothing was his any more. His clothes were growing shabby, the time had arrived when he usually ordered a new suit, but nothing would induce him to go to his tailor’s, for in all sorts of personal ways he was saving, depriving himself of the small luxuries to which he had been accustomed. And seeing this, Maddalena protested almost crossly. + 

“You cannot wear that suit, Gian-Luca!” For she took a great pride in her husband’s appearance, and she felt like weeping to see him these days, so disheartened and hopeless and shabby. + 

Gian-Luca would be thinking: “It is Maddalena’s money, I must spend as little as I can.” But to her he would pretend to take the thing lightly: “Ma guarda, mia donna, this suit is almost new⁠—there are years of wear in it yet.” + 

But quite apart from the question of money, he felt bored when he thought of his tailor; bored too when he looked at his personal possessions⁠—quite a number they were, he found to his surprise⁠—for such barnacles collect on the keels of most ships as they plough through the sea of life. + 

“Too many useless trifles,” he would think. And one day he started giving them away to beggars that he met in the street, avoiding Maddalena and slipping out alone, intent on this unusual proceeding. + 

Maddalena might exclaim: “Your silver cigarette case⁠—I cannot find it, Gian-Luca!” Or: “Those little gold cufflinks, where have they gone? I see that you are wearing your mother-of-pearl ones.” + 

And then he would look sheepish and would have to confess this new folly that he had committed, wondering as he did so why he had not sold the things and given the money to his wife. + 

She would say: “But, amore, what are you doing?” + 

And he would not know how to answer, for when he saw the surprise on her face he would suddenly grow very shy. + 

One possession, however, he still clung to firmly, and that was his collection of books; for he felt that his books should be able to help him⁠—they were so wise, his books, and their range of subjects was so varied, so wide and so learned. He began to turn more and more to these friends, asking them to solve his problems, yet somehow the problems remained unsolved⁠—a new cause for fear in Gian-Luca. + 

“I cannot find it⁠—” he would say, bewildered, staring up at Maddalena. + 

“Find what?” she would ask sharply, and then she would sigh, knowing that he could not answer. + 

He said that he must see the Librarian again, because he would tell him what to read; so one day they walked to the public library, but when they got there Maddalena stayed outside. + 

“I do not want to come in,” she remarked firmly; “you will talk about things that I cannot understand⁠—I would only be in the way!” + 

The Librarian was sitting with his arms on his desk; the library was quiet and empty. + 

“So you have come,” he said rather gravely. “I have waited a long time, Gian-Luca.” + 

And Gian-Luca remembered that he had not been near him or written for more than two years. + 

They talked for a little, then Gian-Luca said: “I want you to tell me what to read⁠—there must be some books that explain our existence, that explain all the sorrow and the suffering around us⁠—I cannot be the only creature who sees it, others must have seen it before me.” + 

“So you have seen it at last!” said his friend. + 

“Too much I have seen it,” frowned Gian-Luca. + 

“It was bound to happen,” the Librarian told him. “I have known that for a long time past. Why, I knew it when you were quite a little boy⁠—” Then he smiled at his recollections. “You were rather a greedy little boy, I remember⁠—Swiss roll with apricot jam⁠—” Then he said more gravely: “You ask me for books that will help you to face your life; well, the world is literally snowed under with books, and nearly all books are written about life⁠—but not one of them can help you with your life, Gian-Luca; that book you’ll have to write for yourself.” He saw something very like terror in the eyes that were eagerly searching his face. “Why are you so much afraid?” he inquired. + 

And Gian-Luca answered irrelevantly: “Because I am feeling so terribly lonely⁠—and yet I want to be alone.” + 

“No one is ever alone,” said the Librarian, “but of course it needs solitude to prove it.” He got up stiffly, for now he was old, and he found a few well-worn volumes. “Take these,” he said; and Gian-Luca stared at them⁠—he had given him fairy tales. The Librarian laughed softly: “The wisdom of belief⁠—the wisdom of children⁠—” he murmured, “learn to believe in a fairy tale and the rest will certainly follow.” + 

But Gian-Luca had laid the books down on the desk and was turning slowly away. + 

“You don’t believe me?” the Librarian said gently. + 

“No,” answered Gian-Luca. “I do not believe you.” + 

“Oh, well,” sighed the Librarian, “perhaps you’re too young⁠—or not yet young enough, Gian-Luca.” + 

Then Gian-Luca held out his hand with a smile, for he thought that his friend might really be in earnest; but he could not help wondering whether the Librarian was approaching his second childhood. + 

IX + 

I + 

There was consternation in Old Compton Street when the clan learnt that Gian-Luca had left the Doric, even Nerone’s firm faith in him was shaken. “Dio! he must have gone crazy!” he exclaimed, chewing the ends of his moustache. Rosa and Mario were almost speechless for the moment, so great was their horrified amazement. “The Doric⁠—the Doric⁠—the Doric⁠—” murmured Mario, and then he could get no further. + 

Rocca shook his head as he sharpened his knives with a long, slow, experienced movement. “Mad!” he muttered, “completely mad!” + 

“Well, what did I tell you?” broke in his signora. “This is all the fault of that Board School!” + 

But old Teresa said nothing at all, as was often her way when very angry, and this reticence greatly annoyed the clan, who could talk of nothing but Gian-Luca. + 

“I do not wish to discuss him,” she told them; “my grandson is no longer a child⁠—if he wants to ruin himself and his wife that concerns neither you nor me.” + 

“But I love him!” wailed Rosa, whose tongue had to wag in defiance of old Teresa. “Our little Gian-Luca, I love him, I tell you! And so elegant and handsome he looked in his fine clothes. He had such an air as a piccolo even; Mario remembers when he lit his first match for a young lady’s cigarette⁠—tell her, Mario, how Gian-Luca lit his first match for that young lady’s cigarette.” + 

Then Mario, nothing loath, and with many wide gestures, told how the youthful Gian-Luca had lighted his first match, and from that he must go on to tell other glories concerning Gian-Luca’s career. + 

“A marvelous waiter he was,” declared Mario. “He had all that a waiter should possess⁠—alacrity, dignity, persuasiveness and charm; and his smile was enough to turn sour cream to sweet, and his wonderful eyes when they rested upon you would convince you that old cat was chicken.” + 

“Ma, per carita, leave me in peace,” snapped Teresa, who was struggling to pick up a difficult stitch; after which she just sat and said nothing at all, so what was the good of their talking? + 

However, when Millo arrived it was different, for even Teresa could not disregard Millo. “I have come to discuss your grandson,” he announced, so Teresa was forced to discuss him. “This nonsense has got to stop,” declared Millo. “Gian-Luca has a bee in his bonnet. Now you, cara signora, must chase out that bee; you must send for him at once and find out what is wrong, and the sooner you do so the better, I think; it is April, and Gian-Luca left me in February, and ever since that the man has been idle⁠—something is terribly wrong.” + 

Teresa’s defiant black eyes met his wise ones, and those wise, kindly eyes looked quite stern. “He is your grandson, after all,” he said firmly; “Maddalena is weak, she cannot control him, it is time that you took a hand.” + 

“As you will,” she replied, smoothing her knitting; “but my grandson is not easy to manage⁠—he has always been strangely unlike my people⁠—I do not suppose he will listen to reason. However, I will certainly see him.” + 

“You too have a will of your own, signora⁠—” Millo told her, smiling slightly. “But when you have seen him,” he continued more gravely, “I should like to hear about his plans for the future⁠—I am anxious about him, he has served me too well for me not to feel a certain affection⁠—” + 

Then he laughed, for Millo always laughed at himself when he heard his heart talking to him. + 

After he had gone, Teresa’s mouth hardened, and her hand shot out for her stick⁠—a constant humiliation, this stick; but the winter had brought her bad pains in her knees, rheumatism according to the doctor. She got up slowly, grunting a little as she did so, and made her way into the shop. Standing quite still, she surveyed those possessions which she now shared with Francesco Millo. + 

The Casa Boselli was crowded that morning, people must wait to be served, and this in spite of the eight smart assistants who ran hither and thither dressed in white. Beside the cashier stood a stern-faced young person in a golf coat, and the young person’s locks had been shorn. In the top buttonhole of her knitted jacket showed one or two tiny war ribbons. This young person was very proficient in all things; she could add up long rows of complicated figures by merely flicking her pen, she could type with a speed that made you feel giddy⁠—she had shorthand, Italian, French and some German, and just now she was keeping an eye on the cashier who had only been recently engaged. She was hard, she was clever, and Millo had secured her, scenting a valuable find. + 

As Teresa surveyed this importation of Millo’s, her lips grew exceedingly grim, and she forced her old knees to assume a straight angle, and she swung the offending stick under her arm⁠—just to show that she did not need it. But down it must come, that accursed stick, because of the weak left knee, and the capable young person left the cash desk⁠—for among other things she had nursed in the war⁠— + 

“You shouldn’t stand more than you can help,” she remarked, fetching a chair for Teresa. + 

Teresa thanked her coldly, refusing the chair; and Teresa must thank her in English⁠—for she would not admit that this capable young person could really understand good Italian. + 

“You are now doing, what?” inquired Teresa abruptly. + 

And the young person slightly raised her eyebrows: “I’m showing Miss Gibson the ropes at the moment⁠—don’t forget your medicine, will you, signora? And I’m quite sure the doctor would want you to rest⁠—” That was how she answered Teresa. + 

The Casa Boselli! The dear Casa Boselli! The beloved Casa Boselli! with its hams and its paste and its cheeses and its olives and its coils and bolsters of salame! The friendly, dark, odorous Casa Boselli, smelling of Chianti and oil; smelling of sawdust and pickles and garlic, of sour brown bread and newly-ground coffee; of split peas and lentils and pods of vanilla⁠—of people and Fabio’s boot-blacking. Who would have known the old Casa Boselli in this large, overlighted, over-ventilated store; this brass-bound, marble-faced, red-tiled emporium⁠—three shops it was now, that had been turned into one, the top floors supported by green marble columns in place of the party walls. Why, Fabio would have gasped at his resurrection, had he happened to wander in mistaking it for Heaven, and perhaps he would have turned tail and hurried out again, preferring his purgatory. + 

Teresa surveyed the fruition of her dreams, leaning on that hateful black stick. Her dreams? Oh, no, the realities of Millo, aided and abetted by the clever young person, who received a large salary for whisking her pen over figures that could just as well be added on the fingers! And every Saturday this clever young person must play hockey or lacrosse or squash rackets, and⁠—Santa Madonna! she proposed to play football dressed like a man, in short breeches! When Teresa had asked her abruptly one day why women were doing these things, the young person had laughed: + 

“We’ve got to keep hard, we’re not just breeding cattle, signora.” + 

Teresa Boselli went back into her parlor, at the door of which progress had stood still. Like Moses of old she had rolled back the waves, and the hot little parlor was just as it had been⁠—it smelt of the years as dried herbs will smell of the dust and sun of past summers. Teresa Boselli sat down in her parlor, resting her head on her hand; and the bitterness of old age was heavy upon her, the bitterness of those who no longer belong, who have outlived the thoughts and the feelings of their time, and their bodily strength as well. And when she had closed her defiant black eyes for a moment, in order to rest them, what must she see but a low-ceilinged bedroom with a figure stretched out on the crazy wooden bed, and over the figure a bright patchwork quilt, the work of Teresa’s hands. In her ears was a shrilly protesting sound, the sound of an infant wailing; and across the room on the opposite wall, the smiling face of the Mother of God⁠ ⁠… + 

Teresa sprang up with a low cry of anger, then she groaned because of her knee. Nevertheless she ignored its stabbing and started to pace the floor. Shame and sorrow? + 

Change? Progress? Old age and its ailments? Away with them all! they could not break the strong. + 

“Miss Dobell!” she called loudly to the clever young person, “be good enough to bring me that invoice!” + 

II + 

Two days later Teresa sent for her grandson, and he went the same afternoon, but he would not allow Maddalena to go with him, suspecting why he had been sent for. + 

Even Teresa must exclaim when she saw him standing in his shabby old clothes. “You are not yet a pauper,” she began sharply, then she shrugged her shoulders. “But why do I talk? You will do as you please, Gian-Luca.” + 

He drew up a chair, then he noticed her stick: “What is that?” he inquired, surprised. + 

“It is nothing,” lied Teresa. “I have sprained my left knee.” And she threw the stick on to the sofa. Then she said: “I have sent for you to come here, Gian-Luca, because Millo asked me to do so; as for me, I do not want to see you at all, you are idle and I have no patience with the idle. But that is beside the point, I suppose, since Millo wishes to know of your plans for the future.” + 

Gian-Luca said calmly: “I have not got any plans, so far I have not made any.” And his mouth looked willful, as when long ago a small boy had confronted Teresa. + 

“Then do you propose to let Maddalena starve?” inquired old Teresa, quite as calmly. + 

He smiled: “She will never do that, I think, Nonna⁠—she has Aunt Ottavia’s money to fall back on, and besides, there are all my savings.” + 

“I see,” said Teresa, “and what of yourself? You propose to live on your wife?” + 

He shook his head: “No, I am spending very little, as little as I can of my savings.” + 

“So I observe from your clothes,” she said dryly; “you are obviously spending nothing.” + 

Then he suddenly wanted to stop this useless fencing, and he tried to explain his situation; but try as he would he explained it very badly, because put into words it sounded foolish. + 

As Teresa listened she tightened her lips, and her black brows met in a line: “It is not I who will tell all this nonsense to Millo, you had better write yourself, and not later than tonight.” + 

He nodded: “Va bene, I will write to him, Nonna⁠—” he told her, “and now you would like me to go⁠—” + 

“It is true that I have nothing more to say,” she answered grimly, “and all that I have said has been wasted.” + 

She tried to get up but her weak knee gave way because of that discarded stick; and going to Teresa Gian-Luca raised her gently, but as soon as she could stand she leant on the table, unwilling to let him support her. + 

Yet he thought: “She is gallant indeed this old woman, see how she tries to stand alone!” For nothing she did could make him resent her, and this had been so all his life. + 

But before he went he must pause in the doorway, and take a last look at Teresa, and she looked back at him with deep scorn in her eyes, and Gian-Luca saw that scorn. Then all of a sudden the light of her scorn had kindled a lamp in his mind; and his mind grew clear and calm and illumined, for his vision stretched far beyond old Teresa, and he knew the thing that he must do. + 

“Remember, you have always got Maddalena, that is if you need her,” he said gravely. + 

After he had gone she stared at the wall as she had done many years ago, and now as then, she was thinking of his hair, and his curious, alien eyes. + 

Gian-Luca walked down the street to Nerone’s, and there he saw Mario and Rosa. Nerone he saw, and Berta’s twin daughters who were paying a visit to their Nonna. Albert had gone to Paris, it seemed, and Berta had wanted to go with him: “Look after the kids, there’s a dear!” she had said⁠—so Rosa looked after the kids. + 

The twins were as alike as twins ought to be, it amused Gian-Luca to see them, for not contented with looking like each other, they were also the dead spit of Albert. They had greasy, blond hair, which however was bobbed, and they spoke with a strong Cockney accent. Of Italian they knew nothing, for Albert despised it, and Berta had not bothered to teach them. They most unexpectedly hated each other, and this always shocked the poor Rosa, for as Rosa would say: “What can God do more? He makes them as one, yet they wish to be as two⁠—they hit and they kick, and if one of them says ‘yes,’ then the other will say ‘no.’ It cannot be right, I am sure our dear Lord is offended.” + 

But on this particular afternoon the twins were comparatively peaceful. They eyed Gian-Luca with china-blue eyes, then one of them said: “Please give me sixpence,” but the other said: “Give me a shilling.” + 

“Now, now,” protested Rosa, “you run up di sopra⁠—up the stairs you go quickly!” she translated. + 

“I will give you some sweeties if you do,” bribed Nerone, an inveterate old spoiler of children. + 

The twins disappeared, and presently Mario must hobble away to the Capo; then Rosa unburdened her heart to Gian-Luca, while Nerone listened and grunted. + 

It was terrible now at the Capo, it seemed, for the new headwaiter was a devil. He was infinitely worse than the Padrone, said Rosa, and his oaths and his tantrums all fell on poor Mario, because he was lame and ageing. He yelled names at Mario in front of other waiters, and hissed them in front of the clients, until Mario had threatened to stick a knife in him, so unspeakable were those names. Rosa was sure that the low-minded porco meant to get her husband dismissed. + 

“He is only waiting his chance,” sniveled Rosa, wiping her eyes with her finger. + 

So full was Rosa of Mario’s troubles that she forgot to cross-question Gian-Luca, and for this her foster-son felt very thankful⁠—he did not want any discussion. As for Nerone, he only grunted, thinking of all his own grievances, and when he suddenly remembered Gian-Luca, and began to look stern and rather aggressive, Gian-Luca saw what was coming in his eye, and hastily got up to go. + 

He said to Rosa: “I will not forget Mario, I am going to see what I can do.” And he called her “Mother” for the first time in his life, and at that she burst out crying on his shoulder. + 

“Mio bimbo!” she murmured into his coat, as though he were her little baby. + 

And now he kissed her fondly on both cheeks, and told her to cheer up and stop crying; then he went to Nerone and kissed him on both cheeks, according to the custom of their country. + 

When he had left them, Nerone said to Rosa: “Why did he kiss me as he did?” + 

“It was strange,” said Rosa, “it was certainly strange⁠—just as if he were going on a journey.” + 

III + 

That evening Gian-Luca wrote the letter to Millo, but he wrote for the old lame mule. Of himself he said little, having little to say, beyond thanking Millo yet again for his kindness. + 

“If you could try Mario Varese,” he wrote, “I think he would give you satisfaction. He would make an excellent storeroom keeper, for there his lameness would not affect him, and, moreover, he knows a great deal about food, its price, and how to select it. He is honest and sober, and a very hard worker; he has had to work hard all his life, and although he is not as young as he was, he must be as young as Agostino.” + 

Gian-Luca went out and slipped the letter in the postbox, after which he returned to Maddalena. For a moment he looked at her without speaking⁠—she was darning his socks by the fire. Then he called her and made her sit down beside him, and he took the darning from her hand, while she stared at him silent and always fearful, wondering what he would say. As gently as he could he told Maddalena the thing that he knew he must do. He must go right away all alone, he told her, he must try to find God in great solitude⁠—he must try to understand this thing she called God; for only in that way would he ever understand the reason and the meaning of life, and only in that way could he find Gian-Luca, the man who had lost himself. He wanted to understand pity, he told her, and the suffering that had called it into being, and why the beggar had lost his eyes, and why the singing bird had been blinded. He wanted to think out the problem of death and where it must ultimately lead, but above all the problem of God concerned him. + 

“Because,” he said slowly, “if your God does exist and is good, as you think Him, Maddalena, then all these big problems must come right in the end⁠—but supposing you are wrong and God does not exist, is there any hope for the world?” Then he said: “I have always been a good fighter, and now I am fighting again. I am fighting to get to your God, Maddalena; I am like a poor sailor who looks for a light that will get him to port in a storm. I have never uttered a prayer in my life, for I felt that I had nothing to pray to. All my life I have depended entirely on myself, but now I have not got myself to depend on⁠—because I have lost myself.” + 

And all this time she had sat there quite silent, speaking never a word, and Gian-Luca appeared not to notice her strange silence, for he went on to tell her of his plans. He would take very little with him, he told her; whatever he needed he could buy on his journey⁠—but then he would need scarcely anything at all, for he meant to live very simply. At the end of his journey he would send her an address to which she could always write, and he too would write, but their letters must be brief: “I am well, Maddalena.” “I am well, Gian-Luca,”⁠—though if either of them were in sore need they must say so; only, he begged her to wait for that need before she summoned him home. And now he made yet another condition: she must not let anyone know his address, nor must she come herself, trying to find him, for he wanted to be quite alone. + 

He said: “I shall not forget you, Maddalena, and I promise that I will come back⁠—while I am gone I shall think out our future, and what I must do to earn my living, and if I find God it will all be so simple, for of course He will show me the way.” + 

Then he groped for her hand and tried to hold it, but she wrenched it free with a cry; and now she had risen, and he too had risen, staring at her aghast. For Maddalena’s face was white to the lips, and her gentle, mothering eyes were on fire, and all of her shook with a kind of fury, and her voice when it came was choked with passion, so that he scarcely knew it. + 

“You will never come back, Gian-Luca,” she said wildly, “you will never come back any more⁠—and as God is my witness I will not let you go⁠—you belong to me only, and God gave you to me, therefore He cannot take you away⁠—not like this, not while you still live, Gian-Luca. I need you, I need you far more than God does. He has got the whole world, I have only got you⁠—” + 

“It is I who need Him,” said Gian-Luca. + 

“The Church⁠—” she began. + 

But he held up his hand, and a strange, new authority looked from his eyes: “I am told to find God in my own way, Maddalena. I am told to go now and find Him.” + 

“You are told?” she said loudly. “Who has told you, Gian-Luca?” + 

And he answered: “I do not know; but I mean to obey that summons, Maddalena⁠—I will not ignore it any longer.” + 

Then all that lies dormant in the heart of woman rose up and gripped Maddalena. The long years of civilization slipped from her, and she stood forth a naked, primitive thing, and she crushed down her spirit and she called on her body to help her in her fight for this man. + 

“I love you, I love you!” she whispered fiercely, and her arms were around his neck. Her soft, ample body was pressed against him, so that he could feel the warmth of her body; all that was gracious in it he felt, and the deep, happy comfort of her breasts. Her lips were on his, insistent, compelling, while she murmured the words of her love; and her love swept the years away from Maddalena, so that she seemed like the splendid young virgin who had walked that day by the side of her lover into the woods at Hadley. + 

“Stay with me⁠—stay with me, amore,” she pleaded, “you cannot leave Maddalena⁠—you have so often slept with your head on her breast⁠—” and she lifted her hand and pressed down his head, as she had done long ago in the woods. + 

For one moment he let his cheek rest on her shoulder, kissing her strong, white throat⁠—for was not this wife of his a woman made more lovely through her love for him? But then he must push her away very gently⁠—pitiful and almost ashamed. + 

He said: “If you love me, have mercy, Maddalena.” And he knelt down before her and prayed for her mercy⁠—prayed her to let him go forth in peace on this journey in quest of God. + 

Then the passion died out of Maddalena’s eyes, and the motherhood came back and possessed them entirely⁠—and her eyes filled with gentle and most blessed tears, to see him kneeling before her. She stooped, and he grasped at her outstretched hands as she drew him up from his knees. + 

“May God go each step of the way beside you, and may you feel Him and know Him, Gian-Luca, and may He give you the thing you most need, which is surely peace,” she murmured. + 

Then they kissed each other very gravely and sadly and they looked into each other’s eyes, and Gian-Luca said: “God must exist somewhere, since you exist, Maddalena.” + 

X + 

I + 

The greatest adventures in the lives of men will sometimes be embarked on very simply, and that was how Gian-Luca set out on his journey⁠—taking no heed for the morrow. To please Maddalena he must carry a suitcase in which she had managed to pack some warm flannels, and his raincoat she had strapped to the side of the suitcase, adding thereby to its bulk. For the rest he would take nothing but what he stood up in, and this for a very good reason; he intended to tramp to his destination, wherever that might ultimately be. A great longing for freedom of movement possessed him; he wanted to be quite untrammeled; he would not be restricted by so much as a map, far less by timetables and trains. He felt blessedly vague regarding his plans, though he meant to reach Staines by the evening; after that his road should be left to fate. + 

“Some place must be waiting for me,” he thought, “some place is always waiting⁠—” + 

His clothes were quite as vague as his plans; he was wearing what had first come to hand⁠—an old tweed suit, some well-worn brown shoes, and a shabby grey Homburg hat. To all Maddalena’s protests he had answered firmly: “I can buy what I need on the journey”; so what could she do but put up a prayer that the fine warm weather would hold? + 

He wandered along New Oxford Street, carrying that tiresome suitcase, a ridiculous encumbrance for a very long walk; he must buy himself something more practical, a knapsack⁠—but he felt rather tender towards the suitcase, thinking of Maddalena. + 

“Just for a little I will keep it,” he mused, filled with his gratitude towards her, and filled with a certain sense of guilt also; he had not told her that he meant to tramp: “I will let you know where I am when I get there,” he had said, allowing his wife to suppose that he meant to get there by train. + 

The first part of his journey was dull and uninspiring, Bayswater, Shepherd’s Bush, and then Chiswick High Road; mile upon dreary mile of London⁠—he felt as though the city were stretching out its coils, trying to trip him, to impede him. + 

“It will not let me get out!” he muttered, gripping his suitcase more firmly. + 

But now he was passing Kew Bridge Station, and this reassured him a little; he paused and stood gazing towards the bridge, with his eyes filled with recollection. + 

“Such a very long time ago,” he was thinking; “It was all such a long time ago⁠—” + 

Mario and Rosa, Berta and Geppe, and the little Gian-Luca with his hamper⁠—the sudden blue and coolness of bluebells, a child who had pushed them roughly with his foot because they had made him unhappy, because for some inexplicable reason they had taken the comfort from his motto. A gallant motto it had been in its way, so simple, too: + 

“I have got myself⁠—” + 

“Yes, but no one has really got himself, that is the trouble,” thought Gian-Luca. “Come on, avanti! There is not much time!” Mario limping with his bunion⁠—“Come on, avanti! There is not much time!” and yet Mario was still at the Capo di Monte, and there he would remain unless Millo took pity and rescued the old lame mule⁠—. Mario had never had time to admire things that lay right under his nose, such as a flowering magnolia tree, or prunias in blossom, or a patch of cool bluebells⁠—he had only had time for enormous longings that had stretched to Land’s End and beyond. And supposing he should ultimately reach his Land’s End⁠—why then he would still say: “Avanti! Come on, avanti! There is not much time, we have no time to look at the sea!⁠ ⁠…” + 

Gian-Luca began to walk forward again, and quite soon he had come to Brentford, a detestable place always smelling of gasworks, its streets always fouled by its grimy, black wharves and the grimy boots of its workers. Yet in Brentford it was that the first romance of his pilgrimage touched Gian-Luca; for a steep little hill led down to the water, and there on the water lay a battered old barge, and that barge with a blue swirl of smoke from its chimney was Romance⁠—yes, even in Brentford. But just past the canal he saw a wonderful thing, a tiny orchard in blossom. In spite of the grime and the squalor, it was blooming⁠—a brave little remnant of that army of orchards that must once have marched almost through Brentford itself, filling the air with their good scent of growth and the eye with their heavenly whiteness. Gian-Luca suddenly caught his breath, for a deep new craving was upon him⁠—the craving to bless because of that orchard. + 

“Not God,” thought Gian-Luca, “for I have not yet found Him⁠—” so his grateful heart blessed the orchard. + 

Hounslow he passed, and then Neals’ Corner, after which the tramlines ended. Sturdy quick-hedges began to guard fields, real fields that looked placid and consciously green in the pale April sunlight of the morning. Now he was coming to the open country, and meadows with streams and willows he came to, and a widening stream that spread as it rippled brown over last year’s leaves. A great number of birds were piping and singing⁠—blackbirds and thrushes, with here and there a robin; many other birds also, whose songs were unfamiliar to this man for whom England had meant London. + 

He thought: “It is like a very kind garden where everything goes unmolested.” And he marveled at how little he knew this garden. “I must always have been too busy,” he mused, beginning to loiter a little. + 

He walked down a pathway that led to the stream, and, undoing his suitcase, he got out some food. Maddalena had included hard-boiled eggs in the menu: she had rolled them up carefully in a grey flannel shirtsleeve, and this made him laugh when he found them. But when he discovered what else she had done, his eyes grew pitiful and tender, for lavender sprigs had been laid among his flannels⁠—two little bunches tied up with blue ribbon⁠—and although his bread and butter had a lavender flavor, he consumed it gladly for her sake. + 

It was pleasant under the trees by the water, and he stayed there resting for quite a long time; and as he rested what should he hear but the first insistent call of the cuckoo, that strangely alluring, mysterious call to something that lies always just beyond. + 

Presently he got up and trudged on again, passing through Bedfont, and loitering once more to look at the church, with its tall clipped yew and its curious, squat wooden steeple. By now he was beginning to feel very tired indeed, and the suitcase grew heavier and heavier. Seeing him, one or two people wondered, for the stigma of the city was still upon him in the cut of his suit, in the lightness of his shoes, but above all, perhaps, in his pale, thin face that had lost its Italian sunburn. Footsore and weary, he trudged into Staines and stared dully about him for an inn. He must lodge very cheaply, having brought little money; every penny he had belonged to Maddalena. But he finally selected an inn quite at random, because he liked the look of its signboard⁠—a friendly white lion with the face of a sheepdog. + 

And that was the end of the first day. + 

II + 

Next morning he bought a capacious knapsack with wide webbing straps for the shoulders. His suitcase he left with the landlord of the inn: “I will call for it on my way back,” he promised, not considering where that might lead him. + 

For that matter he did not know his way forward, but he took the road to Egham. He felt rested, he was stepping out quite briskly with his knapsack, and, after a little, Virginia Water was lying on his right, through the trees. Now he was passing small woods and parklands; there was bracken, too, with its questioning fronds like green marks of interrogation. The sun was turning the water to silver, as though it lay bathed in moonlight; but all these fair things were behind iron fences, and none of them seemed quite happy or free. + 

“I have not yet found what I need,” thought Gian-Luca, slowly shaking his head. + 

The road grew more thickly wooded beyond Virginia Water, and he fancied that the trees were tramping beside him⁠—beech tree and ash tree, holly and chestnut; and their branches swept forward a little in the wind as though pointing the way to Gian-Luca. + 

“Where are you taking me to?” he asked them, and for answer the trees swept forward again. + 

All day he tramped on, forgetting his luncheon, and the trees never left him for long. Sometimes he would pass through a town or a village, but the trees would be waiting on the far side to meet him, while the gentle, green pastures with their gentle-eyed cattle would be drowsing beyond the trees. This was the day on which he saw his first lambs; quite new they were, and unbelievably clean. Being strong little lambs, they played a great deal, but without any sense of direction. On their stiff, hoop-stick legs they wore fluffy black gaiters; their faces were black, too, so the rest of their fleece seemed exceedingly white by contrast. After their babes walked the careful old ewes, nuzzling, pushing, calling. From time to time a lamb stopped abruptly, ducking its head for the comfort of its mother, and the ewe would stand patiently gazing into space while the lamb drank in life from her body. + 

How pleasant they were, these wide English meadows, happy with flocks and herds. The sky and the green grass belonged to their creatures, but Gian-Luca, remembering Lidia’s poor beasts, must turn his eyes away from these meadows, filled with a reminiscent pity. + 

Towards evening he came to a quiet inn standing at the end of a village, a low black-and-white building with timbers and gables; and because a huge elm tree guarded its entrance, he decided to stay there for the night. He ate his supper at a rough wooden table that stood just under the tree; he could hear the perpetual talking of leaves, and, whatever it was that they talked of, it soothed him, for their sibilant words sounded patient and hopeful. + 

And so ended his second day. + 

III + 

Gian-Luca fell in with a tramp the next morning who was going in his direction, a dusty fellow with a hole in his shoe, and the restless eyes and shuffling gait that belong to the Brothers of the Road. Gian-Luca himself looked scarcely less dusty, and he too was shuffling a little, for those who walk far must economize force⁠—they very soon drop their goose-step. A two days’ growth was on Gian-Luca’s chin, for he had not troubled to shave. + 

“I will let my beard grow,” he had said to himself, and now it was obviously growing. + 

But this unkempt appearance did not deceive the tramp, who had taken in Gian-Luca’s clothes. “A toff,” thought the tramp, “and ’e’s tryin’ to look shabby. Lordy, ain’t people amazin’!” + 

“Good morning!” said Gian-Luca on a sudden impulse; “it looks like being a fine day.” + 

“Yus,” grunted the tramp noncommittally, and proceeded to scratch his head. + 

After that there was silence for several minutes while he eyed Gian-Luca with suspicion; he had certainly met this type before, he decided⁠—swells, and loonies, and suchlike, doing the simple; they generally tried to find out all about you, then wrote a lot of rubbish to the papers. + 

“Are you going very far?” inquired Gian-Luca, breaking the awkward pause. + 

“Middlin’,” he was told, and again there was silence as they trudged along side by side. + 

“This road leads to Basingstoke, I think,” remarked Gian-Luca. + 

“ ’Ook comes fust,” growled his Brother. + 

“Oh, does it?” said Gian-Luca. + 

“Yus, it do,” snapped the tramp; “ain’t yer looked at the signposts? Don’t yer know where yer goin’?” + 

Gian-Luca smiled at him: “Well, no, not exactly, but every road must lead somewhere in the end.” + 

And now the tramp felt thoroughly suspicious: “I suppose yer’ve come walkin’ out ’ere for fun; yer one of them crack-brains wot wants ter live simple. Blimey! you try it! It ain’t so darned simple to live no’ow, to my way of thinkin’.” Then he added quickly: “Or maybe yer a writer, one of them as writes for the papers.” + 

But Gian-Luca informed him that he had once been a waiter, and at this his companion looked a little more friendly: “A waiter, was yer? That sounds all right ter me⁠—so nice and ’andy to the food.” + 

“I suppose so. I have thrown up my job quite lately. I used to be at the Doric.” + 

“Gawd!” muttered the tramp, “that swell plyce in Piccadilly? Yer spoilt, that’s wot you are; some folks never knows their blessin’s, not till they’ve lost ’em.” + 

Gian-Luca examined the man’s face more closely, noticing the restless eyes. He said: “You would never tolerate four walls⁠—” + 

“Now then, wotch’yer gettin’ at!” scowled the tramp, glancing at Gian-Luca with annoyance. + 

At Hook the tramp bethought him of food, and he paused beside a shop window. The window was full of cold meats and pork pies, interlarded with rock cakes and apples. + 

But the tramp shook his head: “No, thanks,” he remarked. “I ain’t got the price of the Doric terdye, nor yet of the Berkeley neither⁠—” + 

“You may choose!” said Gian-Luca. + 

“Go on!” said the tramp. + 

“You may choose; I mean it,” laughed Gian-Luca. + 

The tramp chose a couple of large pork pies and a goodly portion of beef. Gian-Luca chose bread and cheese and some apples. + 

“Well, I never!” scoffed his companion. + 

Farther on down the street Gian-Luca bought beer, then they hurried along through the town. + 

“Come on!” urged the tramp. “I knows a nice spot fer a picnic!” and he grinned with amusement. + 

Out beyond the town they came to a meadow; a large board was affixed to its gate: “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” read the board, but the tramp wormed his way through a gap in the hedge, and after him went Gian-Luca. + 

The tramp was soon mellow with pork pies and beer, his eyes grew more steady and friendly; and now he was talking of the life of the road as though he were talking to a Brother. Gian-Luca heard about the hard law of trespass, and how it might best be evaded; he learnt how a man could find comfort at night, in what type of barn it was safe to take refuge, what formation of hayrick provided good shelter, what species of watchdog was most to be feared, and what words were most likely to calm him. All these things he learnt and a great deal besides, including the right houses to beg at, for mystical signs would be found on gateposts, chalked there by considerate Brethren in passing; some were danger signals, some the other way round; every tramp understood these signals. Then just as his guest grew most eloquent down came a sharp April shower; Gian-Luca completely forgot his raincoat, as his wife might have guessed that he would do. When the shower had passed over, the tramp collected sticks from the sheltered side of the hedge, and choosing a nicely secluded corner, he proceeded to light a fire. + 

“Got to be careful of fires,” he said gravely; “getch yer into trouble, they does. Alwers let yer smoke blow away from the ’igh road, that is if yer can⁠—see, mate?” + 

But Gian-Luca was not attending to the words; he was watching the creating of the fire from three paper bags, and a few dryish sticks collected on the lee-side of the hedge. There in that rain-soaked English meadow the prehistoric ritual was performed⁠—the ageless ritual of the calling of fire to the help and service of man. Like a priest of old, the tramp stretched forth his hands in a gesture of command and benediction, and the flames leapt up to the summons of those hands. + 

“Kind of attrac’s it, flesh do,” he explained, looking up at Gian-Luca. + 

Then they crouched beside the fire and let themselves steam, glad enough of the warmth and comfort; and the clouds broke apart, leaving rifts of blue sky, while the fire did its best to dry them. + 

Presently they sidled out through the hedge, having carefully stamped on the glowing ashes, and they walked as far as Basingstoke together, where the tramp said goodbye to Gian-Luca. He was going to pick up some work at a farm that lay two miles away down a lane. + 

“Just enough to keep me goin’ fer a bit, so I’ll ’ave to wish yer good afternoon, mister.” He had suddenly grown suspicious again, too suspicious to call this man “mate.” + 

Gian-Luca said: “If I keep to the high road, where shall I come to in the end?” + 

The tramp considered: “If yer keeps right on this way, yer’ll be bound to come to the Noo Forest.” + 

“The trees were right, then,” murmured Gian-Luca; “I felt that they were trying to lead me⁠—” + 

“Gawd!” laughed the tramp, “you are balmy, aren’t yer? Well, goodbye, mister, and thank yer.” + 

Gian-Luca strode forward along the road, while the afternoon passed and the shadows lengthened; but still he strode forward, not pausing to rest, for his thoughts ran before him to the forest. At King’s Watney, however, he must stay the night, for his feet were aching and swollen; indeed, he was aching a little all over, having tramped that day for twenty-five miles. Securing a room at the Horse and Ploughman, he gingerly took off his shoes and socks, only to discover that his heels were both blistered and the skin of his feet very tender. He bathed them, remembering old Fabio in the process. Fabio would have recommended rubbing with soap, and since he did not know what else to do, Gian-Luca tried his prescription. He finally rolled into bed with a sigh, and was lying between sleeping and waking; then his mind saw a picture quite clearly in the darkness, a thing that had not happened for years. There were wide, placid spaces and running water; but something more lovely than this he saw⁠—a quiet and very beautiful gloom, green from the leaves that made it. + 

“They have come to me again, my pictures,” he murmured. + 

And that was the end of the third day. + 

IV + 

Gian-Luca was up betimes the next morning, and his feet⁠—thanks perhaps to Fabio’s prescription⁠—were certainly much less painful. In Winchester he stopped to buy provisions, which he stuffed away in his knapsack; then he started to tramp again in good earnest, lured on by the thought of the forest. He had never been in this part of the country, and he noticed many pleasant things about it; all the cottages, for instance, were heavily thatched, and one cottage that he passed had a queer little window shaped like an eye, just under its hair, which gave it an inquisitive appearance. The walls, too, were thatched, the thatch sitting astride them, jauntily riding their tops. + 

The road became increasingly lovely; it was bordered once more with trees. “They look strong and proud and happy!” thought Gian-Luca, and he wondered if they felt the nearness of the forest, and if that was what made them look so happy. + 

He came to the sleepy town of Romsey, which he left by way of the old stone bridge that spans the River Test; the water was chuckling softly to itself, swollen by April rains. At the top of a steep hill he sat down to rest, eating his food by the roadside. A gipsy caravan crawled up towards him, and its inmates nodded and smiled at Gian-Luca; they had very bright eyes, like Nerone’s skylarks, only their eyes looked free. Smoke was coming from the chimney of their small house on wheels; no doubt they were cooking their breakfast. A whiff of fried bacon reached Gian-Luca, and two lean lurcher dogs dashed backwards and forwards, barking in anticipation. + 

“Where are you going to?” shouted Gian-Luca. + 

And the driver waved a brown hand: “To the forest,” he shouted loudly in his turn, in order to be heard above the barking. + 

Gian-Luca lay back and smiled in the sunshine, repeating the happy words; then he thought: “They will not have it all to themselves, for Gian-Luca is going there too.” + 

He got up quickly and shouldered his knapsack, following in the wake of the gipsies. The aspect of the country was very subtly changing, though the change was not easy to define. The trees grew no thicker, nor were there more of them, yet the whole landscape seemed suggestive of trees⁠—for the strange, mysterious spirit of the forest hung over it like a spell. Past the village of Ower, plantations of young firs stood ankle deep in heather that was waiting to purple; and just about here Gian-Luca first saw the little wild New Forest ponies. + 

Brothers of the Road were passing him now, a tattered and feckless army; aye, and Sisters of the Road, looking even more tattered⁠—one sallow-faced Sister held an infant to her breast, suckling it as she walked. Some of the Brethren pushed improvised handcarts⁠—sugar-boxes lashed to old perambulator wheels⁠—and these vehicles contained a variety of oddments, from babies to worn boots and rusty tin cans; while in one lay a bundle of decomposing rags upon which sat a blear-eyed puppy. Here and there a Brother, more fearless than his mates, had kindled a fire by the roadside. + 

“He will surely get into trouble,” thought Gian-Luca, remembering the warning of his tramp. + 

But such fires smelt pleasantly of dry leaves and pine wood, and their soft, smoky glow was alluring, so Gian-Luca must toss one old sinner a shilling, feeling like an outlaw himself. + 

Cadnam! The name of an unimportant village, having neither interest nor beauty, yet for those who pass through it in search of dreams the name of a deeply-enchanted gateway, for just beyond lies the softly-breathing forest⁠—still dreaming after eight hundred years. + 

Gian-Luca went through that enchanted gateway, and even as he did so, it seemed to close behind him, and he looked at the forest, and the forest looked back out of drowsy, thoughtful green eyes. The road still led forward so Gian-Luca still followed, curbing his eagerness, tasting anticipation like a lover on the eve of ultimate fulfilment. But when he had passed the little town of Lyndhurst the greenness clamored more loudly; he could hear that clamor in the beating of his heart, in the strong, anxious beating of his pulses. The damp, pure smell of the earth in spring travail⁠—the moss smell, the leaf smell⁠—laid hold on his senses; while those drowsy, thoughtful green eyes of the forest followed him down the high road. + 

Then suddenly Gian-Luca could resist it no longer, and he turned and plunged into the forest, stumbling against the trees in his haste to thrust farther and farther inward. Now he had left the road far behind him and had come to a wide green glade. The glade was full of the singing of birds, the grass was dappled with sunshine and flowers⁠—clumps of anemones. He sat down under a gracious beech tree, pressing his cheek against its smooth bark; he was tired, and he suddenly felt rather drowsy, sitting there under the beech tree. He stretched his long legs with a sigh of contentment, then his head nodded forward on his breast⁠—that night Gian-Luca slept out in the forest. + 

And that was the end of the fourth day. + 

XI + 

I + 

Just as the world had once possessed Gian-Luca, the world of the Doric and all that it stood for, so now the forest had begun to possess him. The simple, innocent life of the earth, upon which he wandered or rested or slept, became a part of this man’s life also, until gradually, when he looked about him, he could not conceive of any other. He was faithful to his promise to his wife, however, and once every week he sent her a letter, at the same time calling for her letter to him, addressed: “G. L., The Post Office, Lyndhurst,” in accordance with his written instructions. + 

He wrote always the same thing: “I am well, Maddalena.” + 

And she answered: “I am well, Gian-Luca.” + 

They got to know him by sight in Lyndhurst⁠—a tall, thin man, with a little cleft beard⁠—some said he was an artist, some a writer, some a crank, and some thought him mad but harmless. But nobody really knew anything about him, except that he was living in the forest; and since he apparently did no damage, they allowed him to live there in peace. Apart from that weekly visit to the Post Office, he only went into the town to buy food; and just at first for another reason also, in order to get his hair cut. But after a little he began to feel shy, for his clothes very soon grew worn and earth-stained, so he chopped at his own hair as best he could, sitting with a small looking-glass on his knees. + 

He had dropped all set rules and all method in his life, shedding them as easily as threadbare garments. He wandered about when and where he listed, sleeping out in the forest, like the beasts and the birds, he got up at dawn, and lay down to rest when the light failed. He washed his body in some secluded stream at sunrise, and again at nightfall; there were many such streams in the forest, he discovered, where a man could bathe unmolested. The washing of his clothes was a far greater problem, yet he managed to accomplish this also; he would soap and then rub them on a smooth stone or boulder, rinsing out the soap in the clear running water, as the peasants in Italy had done. He dried his clothes in the sun when he could, but sometimes it was necessary to kindle a fire, and after the first few abortive efforts he became quite an expert fire-builder. Very crafty he grew in judging the wind, its direction, and where it would carry his smoke⁠—there were woodmen and keepers patrolling the forest, and the lighting of fires was forbidden. Nevertheless it was done pretty often by the passing Brothers of the Road, and from such folk Gian-Luca learnt many harmless ruses for evading the arm of the law. The forest itself was his staunchest ally⁠—so vast that a man might escape detection; and one day he discovered a charcoal-burner, who was kindly and willing to befriend him. + 

The charcoal-burner was the last of his kind to carry on that very ancient craft; from father to son it had been handed down, but this man was the last of a long line of burners who had earned their living in the forest. + 

“Me brothers don’t seem to fancy it somehow⁠—looks as though this job would die out with me,” he told Gian-Luca, who was thankfully drying a flannel shirt by his fire. But when Gian-Luca inquired with interest whether it was love of the forest that held him, the charcoal-burner looked rather bewildered. “Maybe,” he answered; “who knows?” + 

He was always as black as a chimney-sweep, but black with the sweet, pure ashes of the wood; his grey eyes looked out of his round, dusky face like kind lamps shining in darkness. There was skill in his work, very great skill indeed, as Gian-Luca discovered when he watched him. A huge mound of faggots he must build, this small man, and the mound must be dome-topped, and ten feet in height; at its base it must be at least twenty feet wide⁠—no mean funeral pyre for the trees. The whole must be covered with dry forest litter, then thickly powdered with charcoal dust; many hours would be spent in this careful preparation for the ultimate sacrifice. The dome had a deep depression in the middle, like a monster navel in the stomach of a giant, and here it was that the fire would be started, to burn slowly into the entrails. Up and down his old ladder climbed the little black adept, spacing his faggots to admit of a draught; and last, but not least, came the large iron shovel filled with red crematory embers. Then the air would grow fragrant and cloudy with wood smoke, the scent of it reminding the homeless of home⁠—the dear, warm, ingratiating scent of logs burning, so companionable always to man. + 

Sometimes Gian-Luca would sit watching for hours, lending a helping hand when it was needed; and the charcoal-burner would welcome this stranger, for his was a solitary life. Sometimes he would tell Gian-Luca old legends, old tales of the forest and its pioneer squatters, never forgetting to mention William Rufus, whose body had been carried in a charcoal-burner’s cart. + 

II + 

Gian-Luca adopted the glade where he had rested on his first day of entering the forest; he made it his own, a kind of headquarters, shared only with the beasts and the birds. A spring of clear water bubbled up close at hand, and this was the spring that he drank from. His knapsack he would hide in the hollow of an oak tree, and since he had no other worldly possessions, the glade made a charming hostel. + 

During his first few weeks in the forest he was always losing his way, but as time went on he developed new senses⁠—an acuteness of instinct rather than of sight, and much other subtle, inexplicable wisdom that he shared with the lower creation. Thus, he knew when a woodman was somewhere about, feeling the presence of a man before he heard it; the coming of rain or of wind he knew also, though the sky might be cloudless at the moment. And now he was very seldom lost in his wanderings; he would find himself walking back into his glade without quite knowing how he had got there; with the homing instinct of a bird or a rabbit, Gian-Luca would return to his home. The humbler creatures got used to his presence⁠—they began to eye him with interest; while he, in his turn, would offer them friendship, moving gently among them with a kind of politeness. + 

“You were here before me,” he would say very often; “it is kind of you to make me feel welcome.” + 

His desire for the beautiful had grown into a craving which the forest constantly augmented, for the great trees were lovely in rain as in sunshine, especially the beeches with their small pointed leaves⁠—glossy leaves, surrounded by a gossamer down which Gian-Luca liked to touch with his finger. One splendid old beech tree he took as his friend, and every morning he would stand close against it, with his back to its trunk and his arms extended on either side of his body. His hands would be held very still, palms upwards, for morsels of food would be lying on his palms, and presently he would whistle softly to the birds that were watching from the branches. So it happened that Gian-Luca, who had served all his life, continued to serve in the forest, waiting upon the simplicity of birds as he had upon Milady’s caprices. One by one the birds would come flying down, blackcap and greenfinch, goldcrest and linnet; and with many small twitters and flutterings and circlings the birds would feed from his hands. Then Gian-Luca’s pale eyes would look out and beyond, seeming to see all things clearly; for all that he saw at such moments as these would be lit by a deep sense of love. + 

“Is this God’s love or mine?” he would wonder, conscious of the quiet whirring of those wings. + 

But quite soon the birds would have finished their feasting, and Gian-Luca’s empty hands must drop to his sides; then the light would die out and his vision become darkened. + 

“I have not found God,” he would mutter sadly, “and yet I came here to find Him.” + 

He took to talking to the beasts and the birds, not as good St. Francis who had preached them the Word, but rather as a fellow-creature, who must suffer because of their suffering. For even here, in the quiet green forest, suffering and sorrow had pursued him; he had come on a tortured rabbit in a trap, its neck deeply wounded from the wire snare that held it. Sick and sorry, he had stooped down and killed it with his hands, releasing it from its pain; but its pain had lived on in Gian-Luca’s spirit, a shadow on the glory of the forest. One night he had heard the sound of a shot, and the next day he had found the traces of that shooting; a hare with a gun-shattered leg had passed him, trailing the leg behind it. Gian-Luca had started to follow the hare, bent on his errand of mercy, and the wild thing had hidden itself from his pity⁠—knowing him for a man. + 

But the rabbits and the hares played fearlessly at sunrise, and again in the cool of the twilight, so then it was that Gian-Luca talked to them, “Have you got a God?” he would ask them gravely. + 

The creatures would continue their artless gambols, apparently not hearing Gian-Luca; or, if they heard him, they would scamper away. + 

“They do not know either,” thought Gian-Luca. + 

There were times of innocent happiness, however, when he would feel like a schoolboy; as, for instance, when he first saw a herd of red deer in the northern part of the forest. He had wandered a long way that afternoon, and he chanced on the herd at sundown; the deer stood all together in a wide, open space, with their antlers black against the sky. Their magnificent heads were raised questioningly, their eyes looked attentive and fearful; but Gian-Luca had hidden himself behind a tree, scarcely daring to breathe in his surprise and excitement, for these beasts could seldom be taken unawares⁠—they were hunted and had therefore grown wise. He stood so still that the deer began feeding, bending strong, chestnut necks; Gian-Luca could hear the crisp noise of their cropping and the muffled sound of their lazy movements as they pushed their way through the grass. Then he must have shifted his hand a little, for a twig snapped under his fingers, and up went every head, while the herd wheeled abruptly⁠—in a moment it had bounded away. + 

Gian-Luca gradually grew familiar with nearly all the beasts of the forests⁠—stoats and weasels, both thoroughly hard-hearted hunters with colossal appetites for birds’ eggs; moles and hedgehogs, and the queer little plush-coated shrewmice with their long, prehistoric-looking noses; foxes and badgers, who were seen for the most part soon after the evening star; squirrels, who were seen at any old time; and the shy, wild ponies who were timid at first, but who afterwards came to know Gian-Luca, so that sometimes the mares would bring him their foals, born in the forest overnight. And birds! Were there ever so many under heaven, or such a variety of songs? All day there was singing, and all night as well, for nightingales sang in the beech trees in June, and Gian-Luca must lie awake under the stars because of their splendid music. He learnt to know the songs and the habits of the birds before he discovered the names of the singers. + 

“That must be the fellow who shivers while he sings,” he would think, as he listened to the tremulous trill of a wood-wren swinging just above him. Or: “That must be the bird with the little white chin⁠—he always sounds cross like that when he feels frightened.” And sure enough out would bustle a whitethroat, furiously angry with Gian-Luca. + 

And then there were all the creeping things; the long, graceful grass snakes, very self-conscious and fearfully embarrassed by a stranger; the hot-tempered adders, who were better avoided because of their unregenerate nature; and the harmless but unprepossessing slow-worms, very stupid, nearsighted and inept. There was also a goodly company of beetles, and these varied in disposition; some were peaceable, others quite quarrelsome at times, and one of their number was a veritable fiend⁠—a species of Nero, but with ten times his courage and more than ten times his cunning. + 

Gentle and fierce by turns was the forest, like a great, throbbing human heart. Its gentler thoughts came to life in its bracken, in its delicate mosses and silvery lichens, in its little wild berries⁠—the food of the birds⁠—in its pools and its glades and its flowers. Gian-Luca had come at the time of the bluebells, but out in the forest they had not depressed him; and because he had once pushed them roughly with his foot, he had knelt down beside them and buried his face in their dewy, ineffable coolness. Anemones and cuckooflower had been blooming, and quite soon the hawthorn had followed. Now it was June, the month of dog-roses, the month of the kingcup in damp, boggy places, the month of forget-me-nots growing along streams or clustering beside quiet water. The days held the nights imprisoned in their brightness, for the dawns broke early and the twilights were long; the darkness, when it came, must perforce reflect light in an endless faint afterglow. Long before the big moon was ready to vanish, the sun would be eyeing her out of the east; then the night and the morning must love one another in a tangle of leaves and birds’ wings and stars. + 

Below in the forest Gian-Luca would be lying with his face turned up to the sky; and the soul of the forest, always wrapt round with peace, in spite of that heart fierce and gentle by turns, would come timidly touching the soul of Gian-Luca⁠—trying to tell him something. Then Gian-Luca would lie very still and would listen, but after a little he would sigh. + 

“I cannot find God⁠—not yet,” he must answer; and perhaps he would get up to look for his God, meeting Him face to face in the sunrise, but passing Him by unseeing. + 

III + 

That July Gian-Luca fell in with some gipsies who were camping in a clearing near a pine grove; and, because by now he looked rather like themselves, the gipsies took kindly to him. The family consisted of three generations, a very old man with his very old wife, their buxom, brown daughter, their tall son-in-law, and an odd assortment of children. In addition to these latter there were three dogs, two horses, a large caravan, and some dilapidated tents; and⁠—low be it spoken⁠—when Gian-Luca surprised them, there was also a fire in the clearing. + 

“Hullo!” said the young man, whose name was Sylvester. + 

“Hullo!” said Gian-Luca smiling. Then he sat down beside him where he squatted near the fire, and all of a sudden he was friends with this man⁠—friends as one tree may be friends with another through sharing a common soil. + 

The gipsies, it seemed, were remaining for some weeks; they talked quite frankly to Gian-Luca. They were busy, they said, making brackets and flower-stands from wood collected in the forest. These objects they would sell later on at the fairs; but they had many other occupations. At swarming time they made beehives, for instance; in the autumn they collected beech-mast and acorns, for which there was quite a good market. Sometimes they would go hop-picking for a change; this, they said, was great fun for the children. + 

“Gives ’em a chance to see a bit of life,” smiled Sylvester, glancing at his litter. + 

During the time that they stayed in the forest Gian-Luca was often with these people. They had strangely good manners, a kind of natural breeding which forbade them to express their curiosity about him. + 

“Grand place, the forest⁠—” was all Sylvester said, as though that in itself explained Gian-Luca. + 

They were not over-clean, and their animals were thin, but never unkindly treated. The gipsies’ worst crime was the snaring of rabbits; but this crime Gian-Luca only suspected, for even Sylvester, so frank in most matters, ignored the existence of rabbits. He was something of an ornithologist, however, and from him Gian-Luca learnt the names of the birds, their migratory habits, their matrimonial codes, the months in which they mated, the construction of their nests⁠—this latter often touching and amazing. Sylvester, on the whole, possessed a very kindly heart, and if he killed he did so to eat; he had the woodland instinct of hunting for his young, which instinct he shared with the wild creatures. + 

Their names were very musical, these brown-faced, nomad people⁠—Sylvester, Claretto, Morelia, Clementina; but their children were just plain Jim, and Bill, and Maggie; there were also a Syd, a Jennie and a Bobbie⁠—the latter a baby at the breast. For, according to Morelia, their very ancient grand-dame, the traditions of the race were fast dying; it was all the fault of towns and motors, said Morelia, and those devilish flying machines. Their language was now dead, she told Gian-Luca sadly, and the Romanies were passing away⁠—then Morelia spoke some soft-sounding words to Gian-Luca, in the beautiful lost language of her people. + 

Gian-Luca learnt a great deal from this wise old woman who was only too glad to find anyone to listen. The unwritten laws of the wanderers he learnt, and the unwritten laws of the roads and of the forests; the virtues of herbs, and what berries might be eaten and the seasons in which to find them. Then one day he must ask her what she thought about God; did she think that He really existed? But at this Morelia could only shake her head; she had never thought much about such things, it seemed. She had had nine children, she explained rather grimly; four of them were alive, but five of them had died⁠—one way and another she had not had much time, what with their father and all. Then Gian-Luca must ask her what she felt about death, for had she not lost five children? Did she think that the soul lived on after death? Did she think that her children still existed? + 

“Who knows?⁠—it don’t seem likely,” she told him; “leastways, it don’t to me.” + 

But Gian-Luca was curious; now he wanted to know the Romany word for death. He who had always been a lover of words was trying to pick up their language. + 

Morelia surveyed him out of rheumy old eyes; “Merripen,” she said gravely. + 

“And for life?” he inquired. “What is life in your language?” + 

And she answered him: “Merripen.” + 

One day the gipsies were no longer to be found when Gian-Luca went to the clearing; they had slipped away like shades in the night⁠—only their wheel-tracks remained on the turf, and the guilty ashes of their fire. So now once more he had the forest to himself, except for the charcoal-burner, and he felt half glad and half sorry in his heart; he had liked that companionable, guilty fire, and Sylvester, and the old Morelia. He had felt at peace with these vagabond people whose problems were all so simple; for the aged, the quiet waiting for death, without hope, without fear, without questioning; for the young, the mating of the man with his woman, the passing on of life to their children. He envied this placid acceptance of the world as they conceived it to be, and their courage⁠—what was it that gave them such courage? The courage to ignore, the courage not to fret⁠—was it, perhaps, belief after all, a kind of unrecognized belief? + 

IV + 

The heat of the summer lay heavy on the forest in spite of its splendid trees. The air was often a-shimmer with heat, and small, winged insects would dance in the shimmer or scud across the surface of the pools. The nights were disturbed by the hooting of owls, flying on their wide, soundless wings; but the streams grew less noisy, and by noontide the ponies must draw in to shelter from the sun. Gian-Luca continued to feed his songbirds while forgetting to feed himself⁠—for now there was no Maddalena to remind him, and his distaste for food had been growing again lately; he never felt really hungry these days, which was strange considering his life. It began to irk him to walk into Lyndhurst⁠—and of course the less one ate, the less one needed; there were always berries to be found in the forest, so sometimes he lived on berries. But food he must buy because of his birds, and because of a wild roan pony⁠—a fierce little fellow, very handy with his hoofs, very anxious not to sell his free soul. And yet, as is often the case with his betters, curiosity would overcome his shyness; he could not keep away from the strange fascination of this man-thing who followed him with carrots. Once a week, when Gian-Luca went in to the post, he would purchase his frugal supplies; carrots for the pony, bread and seed for the birds, and occasionally something for Gian-Luca. His clothes were worn out and his shoes needed soling, very badly indeed they needed soling; but out in the forest he had ceased to wear shoes; he went about barefoot for the joy of the earth, and his love of the forest was increased by this contact of his naked feet with its soil. + 

His possessions were gradually dwindling away, and somehow they never got replaced. He had given his raincoat to a woman one evening, drenched through she had been, that poor Sister of the Road, and it always hurt him to see such women battered by the wind and the rain. Their faces were sunken or heavily bloated, their tired feet dragged slowly or shuffled to keep up with the shuffling stride of their men. They were miserable, heartsick, homesick creatures, the outcasts of cities, the outcasts of life. + 

“Men can exist without roots,” thought Gian-Luca, “but not women; they need roots, like the trees.” + 

He would sometimes give away his food to such people, and then he would have nothing to eat; and his money he gave them because they were ill-clad, more so than he was himself, he fancied. They took all that he offered, and sometimes they thanked him, but sometimes they would look at him askance. + 

“I have not stolen the money,” he would tell them, and would know that they did not believe him. + 

His head had begun to ache badly at times, and at times he felt giddy and stupid; too stupid almost to think about God or to ask his eternal questions. But standing against his calm friend the beech tree, feeding its trustful birds, he could still recapture that sense of oneness with something that belonged to the birds and the beech tree, to the smallest particle of soil in the forest, to the humblest flower that sprang from that soil⁠—to the pity in the heart of Gian-Luca. Then the moment would pass, and back he would come to earth with a kind of mental thud, with a sense of desolation more poignant than pain, so that he must sometimes cry out very loudly in his bitterness: “God, where are You?” + 

The birds, grown startled, would all fly away, deserting Gian-Luca for that morning; then he would sit down and begin to cry weakly, begging the birds not to leave him. + 

“Can it be that you are frightened of me?” he would reproach them. “Are you frightened of Gian-Luca, who feeds you?” + 

Then one day who should come but the little roan pony, and it took a carrot from his hand, and it lipped his hand, which meant: “Thank you, Gian-Luca,” which meant: “I am your servant⁠—this had to be so, for my people are born servants of men.” + 

After that it took to following Gian-Luca about, letting him twist his fingers in its mane; and Gian-Luca loved it and would walk beside it, fondling its silky nostrils. + 

“Oh, well,” he would say, “I have not found God, but I have found you, little friend of the lonely⁠—” Then the pony would sometimes nuzzle his hand, as though it had understood him. + 

He began to sleep badly, for his body had grown feverish, so sometimes he would get up and wander to a stream; undressing, he would plunge straight into the water, which would strike cold against his thin body. He was always doing foolish things like this lately, grown careless of his physical welfare; he scarcely troubled to think about illness, so busy was his mind with its problems. And then there was something that was always coming nearer⁠—nearer and nearer he would feel the thing coming, and for some strange reason this began to console him. + 

“Is that You, God?” he would whisper. + 

He would often be haunted by the memory of a poem, the memory of the “Gioia della Luce.” The great, beautiful stanzas would go rolling through his brain until the words seemed to be a part of the forest, a part of its hope, and of other blessed things; and one night as he murmured the poem, half asleep, he thought that the words were part of God. Thus it was that Gian-Luca, all unknowing, ratified his peace with Ugo Doria. + 

V + 

The hunting of the red deer began in July, and Gian-Luca would hear hounds giving tongue; a curious, half-plaintive, half-merciless sound, as they broke away on the scent. The faint blast of a horn would echo through the forest, the faint cry of the huntsman, the faint cracking of whips, and then, strangely enough, something quite unregenerate would stir to life in Gian-Luca. He would throw back his head and stand stock-still and listen, thrilling to that pagan music, the music of men and beasts taking their pleasure in the hot, steaming bloodlust of death. Then Gian-Luca would know that the passion of the chase lay somewhere deep down in every male creature, from the stoat who hunted his scurrying rabbits to the man who hunted his deer. He would know that death stalked abroad in the forest, even as he had done on the battlefields of France, when Gian-Luca, held in leash at the Officers’ Mess, had fretted for his outraged manhood. These thoughts would give him fresh cause for speculation, fresh cause for bewilderment and sadness, and then he would remember a Romany word: merripen, meaning death, merripen, meaning life, and, turning away, he would wonder⁠ ⁠… + 

One morning a splendid red stag dashed through the thicket directly in front of his face; its flanks were heaving, its eyes staring wildly, there was blood on its lips, and it swayed as it bounded, for the creature was nearly spent. + 

The stag paused an instant as though grown stupid, then off it went to the left; but the hounds did not follow, the forest was silent. + 

“They have lost the scent,” thought Gian-Luca. + 

But presently he saw a couple of horsemen pressing forward through the trees. + 

“Seen him?” they asked quickly, observing Gian-Luca; and they urged on their beasts, leaning sideways as they did so, the better to hear his reply. + 

Then Gian-Luca lied, pointing in the wrong direction. “He went off there to the right,” he told them; “he was travelling pretty fast, too, when I saw him.” + 

“Oh, he’s game all right!” remarked one of the riders as they swung round and galloped away. + 

XII + 

I + 

It was early in September when they caught the roan pony, and they caught him as he stood beside Gian-Luca. A farmer and his boy came quietly forward, and the man slipped a halter on to the pony. The beast looked surprised, but not really resentful, because he now trusted men. + 

The farmer nodded, grinning at Gian-Luca. “Strong little devil,” he remarked, “got plenty of work in him, look at his loin; no trouble with him either, it seems.” + 

Gian-Luca’s heart gave a bound of fear. “You are taking him away?” he faltered. + 

“Yes,” said the farmer, “his turn’s about come; we’ve all got to work for our living.” + 

The pony began to pull back on the halter, edging towards Gian-Luca. + 

“Come up!” ordered the boy. + 

“Steady now!” coaxed the farmer, patting the pony’s neck. + 

Gian-Luca said: “Where are you going to take him?” + 

“I’ve sold him,” the man replied; and he eyed this scarecrow of a tramp with interest. “Are you keen on horses?” he inquired. + 

“Yes, but where will he go to?” Gian-Luca persisted, laying his hand on the pony. + 

“To the mines,” said the farmer; “they most of ’em go there, that is, when they’re small enough.” + 

For a moment Gian-Luca stood as though turned to stone, then he threw up his arms with a cry. “No, no!” he babbled; “not the mines. Oh! for God’s sake⁠—he will never see the light in the mines⁠—he will go blind! I cannot let him be taken to the mines, the creature has been my friend.” He spread out his hands and pointed to the trees. “Look, look!” he went on wildly; “all this beauty and freedom, all this greenness and joy⁠—the mines, they are dark, all his life in the darkness⁠—his body full of sores from straining at the trucks, his eyes filming over for want of the sunshine, his heart breaking because he has known the forest, because he remembers and remembers⁠—” And now he was clutching at the farmer’s arm. “Listen! per amore di Dio, but listen! I will buy him, I tell you I will buy the beast’s freedom, only tell me how much and I will buy him!” + 

“You!” growled the farmer, pushing him off, and staring skeptically at him; then his eyes grew more kind: “Poor devil, you look starving⁠—what’s the matter, you’re lightheaded, can’t you find work, or what?” His hand went quickly down to his pocket: “Here, take this,” he muttered, producing some silver; “take this and buy yourself a square meal.” And he handed Gian-Luca three shillings. + 

Quite firmly but gently he thrust out his arm between Gian-Luca and the pony. He gave the rope of the halter to the boy. “Get on with it!” he ordered. “Come along, now, look sharp!” + 

And the pony went with them, giving no trouble, because he had learnt to trust men. + 

Gian-Luca threw himself down on the ground, burying his face in his hands, and he spoke to the earth, asking it to show pity. + 

“Let him die, let him die, let him die!” he entreated, as though the earth had ears wherewith to hear, as though it were a mother who must surely feel compassion for the creatures her bounty had nourished. + 

Then he told the earth, in low, broken words, of the life of the ponies in the mines; all that he knew of that life he told it, and all that his half-distraught mind must picture. + 

“He trusted them because of me,” moaned Gian-Luca; “I gave him his faith, and yet I cannot save him⁠—he is little but he has a heart full of courage⁠—he will work until that heart breaks!” + 

He stopped speaking as though he were waiting for an answer, then a most peculiar thing happened; Gian-Luca heard a voice inside his own head, quite loudly it spoke, with a kind of precision. + 

“Merripen,” said the voice, “death is life, Gian-Luca⁠—it is only for such a little while.” + 

Gian-Luca sat up and pressed his fingers to his temples. “I must be going mad,” he muttered. + 

II + 

The forest was turning scarlet and golden, touched by the first sudden frosts of autumn, and Gian-Luca felt terribly cold these nights, so that sometimes he must get up and walk. The fever had left him, its place being taken by an ever-increasing weakness, yet the thought of four walls that would shut him in, the thought of a roof that would shut away the sky, and above all the thought of leaving the trees, filled him with misery. + 

“If I eat more I may feel less cold,” he reasoned; so whenever he felt able he went into Lyndhurst, and while there he would try to pull himself together, smiling as he purchased his food. “If they think I am ill they will catch me!” he would mutter; “and of course I am not really ill⁠—” + 

But when he had tramped slowly back to the forest, he would find that he could eat very little after all; his stomach had grown unaccustomed to food, and some days he suffered great pain. + 

“It must be that I do not need it,” he would argue; “everyone eats too much!” + 

The fine weather broke and it rained a good deal; strong winds swept over the forest that October, the beech trees sighed and groaned under the storms, while Gian-Luca got wet to the skin. He must always be lighting fires, and this distressed him, for now he lived in the dread of getting caught; keepers and foresters were after him, he fancied, waiting to shut him up between walls. In the end he grew desperate, preferring to go wet than to risk getting caught by those keepers. + 

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,” he would sometimes think, smiling ruefully; and then he would wonder where these words had come from⁠—surprised when his memory failed him. + 

His money was running very short by now, he had only about three pounds left; but he firmly resolved not to write home for more, he was not going to rob Maddalena. + 

“When it is gone I must find work in the forest, perhaps with the charcoal-burner,” he thought vaguely. “If I cannot find work, well then, I must beg.” And he tried to remember what the tramp had once told him regarding those signs chalked on gateposts. + 

He began to have a queer feeling in his heart, his heart was constantly moving. “Keep quiet!” he would tell it, pressing his side. “Ma che! you behave exactly like a wild thing.” But his heart would continue to change its position, for that was what it felt like to Gian-Luca: “Are you in bed that you have to turn over?” he would ask. “Do not beat like the caged richiami! You turn over and then you beat with your wings⁠—yet I am not cruel like Sisto⁠—” + 

Whenever he saw the wild ponies now, he pitied, thinking of the horror of the mines; and whenever he pitied his sick heart grew restless, beating like Sisto’s richiami. Then one evening he came face to face with himself, as he walked slowly back to his beech tree. Towards him came walking another Gian-Luca, a gaunt, ragged fellow with a little cleft beard. + 

“Ah!” said Gian-Luca, “I have found you at last; I have looked for a very long time!” Yet even as his arm shot out to detain him, this other Gian-Luca vanished. “Never mind,” thought his twin, “I shall see him again; he lives, as I suspected, in the forest.” + 

But this strange apparition had reminded him of God, who still remained to be found; so now he went scouring the thickets for God, and the glades and the long, green rides. + 

“God!” he would call softly, as he called to the ponies, “come here, I have something to give You! I will give You Gian-Luca⁠—he is not very grand, he is not the smart fellow who served at the Doric; but that, as You know, is because he came to find You.” And then he would hold out his hand. + 

“Magari!” Gian-Luca would presently mutter, having failed to coax God from His hiding: “Magari! I am dirty, and my clothes are in rags⁠—perhaps that is why He avoids me.” + 

They were saying in Lyndhurst that Gian-Luca must be starving, judging from his haggard appearance. + 

“Well,” said the baker, “he certainly looks queer, but he seems to have money enough to buy bread; I changed a pound note for him three days ago.” + 

“He’s some ‘new-religion’ crank, I expect,” suggested the girl from the Post Office. + 

III + 

A week later, when Gian-Luca called for his letter, the girl eyed him curiously. “An unpleasant change in the weather⁠—” she began; but Gian-Luca had thanked her and had hurried away before she could get any further. + 

He shuffled along in his battered old shoes, which now felt too small for his feet; as he went he kept staring down at the letter⁠—it seemed heavy, he thought, it was thicker than usual⁠—and his fretful heart thudded against his side because the letter looked thicker. + 

He opened the letter under the beech tree, sitting with his back against its trunk. “No wonder it was thicker than usual,” he murmured as he drew out the closely written pages. + 

“I am well, Gian-Luca,” the letter began⁠—Maddalena never stooped to deception⁠—“I am well, Gian-Luca⁠—” but the rest of those pages were covered with the ache that was in her. + 

“All that I have promised I have done,” wrote Maddalena; “no one knows this address that I write to. They worry, they question, Rosa and the others, and I answer: ‘Gian-Luca writes that he is well, he has gone away to think over our future, I expect him home any day now.’ I pray to the Madonna every night and every morning⁠—she must surely be weary of my poor prayers, amore. I say: ‘Do whatever is best for Gian-Luca, whatever will bring him happiness,’ I say. And I pray the Madonna to give you her peace, and the peace of her blessed Son. But oh, Gian-Luca, I am only a woman, I am not brave and holy like Our Lady of Sorrows⁠—I am only Maddalena, who was born on the Campagna, just a poor, loving, ignorant peasant⁠—” + 

Then Maddalena wrote as a woman will write to the man she has taken for her mate⁠—all the love and the longing of her soul and her body; all the emptiness of days and the loneliness of nights; all the difficult, hopeless, yearning frustrations of a mother-of-men without child. The letter was terribly truthful and simple, as simple as the law of the forest: “Come back to me, Gian-Luca, amore, come quickly. You are all I have in the world.” + 

Gian-Luca folded Maddalena’s letter and slipped it into his pocket. Getting to his feet, he stood against the beech tree, then, scarcely conscious of what he was doing, he stretched out his hands, palms upwards. He stood so still that the birds fluttered down, thinking he had come there to feed them; but his palms were empty, so they lit on his fingers, waiting for a miracle to happen. But Gian-Luca was seeing the streets of a city, all the noise and confusion of crowds; he was seeing the Doric with its ignoble service⁠—the little Milady, Jane Coram and the others⁠ ⁠… “Gian-Luca!” + 

“Signorina?” + 

“Do send me Roberto!” + 

“Momento, I will find him, signorina.” + 

He was seeing the hideous struggle for existence, with its cruelty, its meanness and its lusts; the breath of it hot and sickeningly fetid, the heart of it cold and unspeakably callous, its body a mass of festering sores from the sins of its blinded mind. His own body shrank and quivered a little, as a bird will quiver who is thrust into a cage, for the ruthless walls seemed to be closing around him; and the dull slate roof that would shut away the sky hung over him like a pall. Nerone had shut away the sky from his skylarks, in case they should beat themselves to pieces in despair; Robert’s bright eyes were the eyes of a skylark, a skylark looking through the bars of the Doric⁠—but the child of the beggar had lost his eyes, and that surely was the fault of the world. + 

“I cannot go back to that world!” cried Gian-Luca; “I cannot go back to that world!” + 

Yet even as he said it, he knew that he would go back, for something far stronger than the world stood beside him, the steadfast, enduring courage of mankind that draws all men up to the divine. + 

Then, as though a mist had been swept from his vision, he seemed to see clearly for the first time in his life, and seeing the darkness, yet perceived a great glory, shining steadily through that darkness. He was conscious of a vast and indomitable purpose to which all things would ultimately bow; he himself, Gian-Luca, was a part of that purpose as was everything else on this struggling earth⁠—and at that supreme moment he must cry out to God: + 

“I have found You; You are here in my heart!” + 

There were spent, hunted stags; there were blind pit-ponies; there were children without eyes; and to such things he belonged by reason of his infinite pity. He was theirs, the servant of all that was helpless, even as God was their servant and their master. But one helpless thing needed him above all others, the sad, patient woman who waited⁠—it was better to make one poor creature happy, than to mourn for the ninety and nine. He must turn and go back, he must try to find work⁠—it would have to be humble at first, a beginning; and whatever he did must be done with great patience, patience with himself and with Maddalena, but above all, patience with the world. + 

He had been young and strong and had caught at the world, determined to make it serve him; he had grown very angry and had spat at the world, seeing only its sins; he had grown very sorrowful, pitying the world, seeing only its sorrows; and then he had grown frightened because he was lost, because he could not find God. And all the time God was here in himself, that was where He was, in Gian-Luca, and in every poor struggling human heart that was capable of one kind impulse. Why, God must be somewhere in the heart of Jane Coram, consoling her solitary spirit. Nothing was too base or too humble for God, He was patient and undefeated. The path of the world was the path of His sorrow, and the sorrow of God was the hope of the world, for to suffer with God was to share in the joy of His ultimate triumph over sorrow. + 

Gian-Luca sank quietly on to his knees, and his body fell sideways and lay waiting; for now his mind was wandering again, and he fancied that someone was stooping towards him⁠—someone very tender who would gather him up and carry him a long way away. A peace that was passing all understanding lay in his heart and on his eyelids, so that he closed his peace-laden eyelids, like a child who is heavy with sleep. And now his body was lighter than air, he was floating above the treetops; and now he was down on the kind earth again, lying there under the beech tree. Maddalena was coming, she was saying her prayers, her voice was all over the forest⁠—Maddalena was saying her favorite prayer⁠—it began⁠—it began⁠—how did it begin? + 

“Blessed be God,” breathed Gian-Luca. + 

A leaf drifted quietly down and touched him, but Gian-Luca lay very still. Then a rabbit that was scampering over the grass, sat up on its haunches, staring. In the beech tree the birds began talking to each other, for now it was the hour of the sunset⁠— + 

And that was how Gian-Luca returned to his country after thirty-four years of exile. + 

Epilogue + 

I + 

Teresa Boselli stood and faced Maddalena with the parlor table between them; on the table was lying that short official letter⁠—the cold, white messenger of death. + 

“I have come,” said Maddalena, “because it was my duty, and because Gian-Luca would have wished it.” + 

“You have come,” said Teresa, “because he was my grandson, the child of my only child.” + 

Maddalena’s face was as white as the paper, and her mothering eyes were tearless. “Tomorrow I go to Lyndhurst,” she answered; “Father Antonio has promised to go with me, and Rosa, who loved her foster-son, and Mario and old Nerone.” Her voice was quite steady but curiously toneless, as though a dead creature were speaking. + 

“I also will accompany you,” said Teresa. + 

“Why?” inquired Maddalena. + 

Teresa Boselli drew herself up, and her hard, black eyes were defiant. “Why?” she said harshly; “because my blood calls. Was he not the child of my child?” + 

Then Maddalena’s eyes grew as hard as Teresa’s, and her gentle face stiffened to anger. “Too late you remember,” she answered coldly, “you who would never love Gian-Luca.” + 

After that they were silent, staring at each other, while their bitterness leapt out between them; the little back parlor was trembling with it, with the dull, heavy thuds of their hearts. Maddalena quietly picked up the letter, which she thrust into the bosom of her dress, then she turned and went out of the Casa Boselli⁠—leaving Teresa alone. + 

Six black-clad figures got down from the train when it stopped at Lyndhurst station. + 

“This must be the lot that have come for the inquest,” whispered a porter to his friend. + 

Very calm and noble looked Maddalena, clothed in the weeds of her affliction; she walked straight forward into her grief, like the brave Roman matron that she was. Her eyes held no hope and no resentment, they were filled with the finality of fate; and after her followed Teresa Boselli, scarcely less steadfast and upright. + 

II + 

Rosa was clinging to Mario’s arm, and Rosa must openly weep: “Mio bambino⁠—mio cuore⁠—” she wept. + 

And Mario muttered: “He did all, all for me⁠—even in his trouble he remembered poor Mario and got him a post at the Doric.” + 

Nerone stumped beside them with his chin sunk on his breast; he was swinging his wooden leg slowly, for his loins were no longer so strong as they had been and the wooden leg felt very heavy. And ever at the heels of this sad little flock there hovered a faithful old sheepdog⁠—Father Antonio, whose hair had turned silver, and whose eyes were the cloudy blue of an infant’s, as is sometimes the way with the eyes of a man whose life’s circle is nearing completion. He it was who drove with Maddalena in the fly, and who quietly held her hand. + 

“So God has taken Gian-Luca⁠—” he said thoughtfully, and he added: “God surely knows best.” + 

But Maddalena answered: “There is doubt in my heart⁠—I am doubting the mercy of God.” Then she put her doubts and her fears into words, while Father Antonio listened. + 

What would happen to the poor lonely soul of Gian-Luca? He had died all unshriven by Holy Church⁠—all alone he had died, without priest or candle, and no one had been near to pray for his soul that it might have a merciful passing. And as she went on speaking her voice shook a little with the superstitious dread of the peasant. + 

“To die like that, on the cold earth⁠—” she whispered; “and he never received the precious body of Our Lord⁠—there was no one to put the blessed oil on his eyelids, or on his tired, travel-stained feet⁠—” + 

Then Father Antonio looked at her gravely: “The earth has been blest for always, my daughter⁠—God walked upon the earth in the Garden of Eden, and again on His way to Calvary. The Church is a Mother whose arms are wide open to succor and comfort her children, but God is a Father whose heart is eternal, and many a sheep that has never been penned will be gathered to the fold of that heart.” He gazed at the splendor of the woods that they were passing, all flaming they were with gold and crimson. “England is a beautiful church,” he murmured. He often said queer things like that these days, they thought it was because he was so old. + 

III + 

Gian-Luca’s body was lying in a stable attached to an unimportant inn. Some new red bricks were piled in a corner, together with a number of workmen’s tools⁠—they were going to turn the place into a garage, and the work had been hastily suspended. A silent police sergeant unlocked the door and allowed the mourners to enter; then he quietly turned back the sheet from the body, and standing aside, he waited. + 

“Santa Madonna!” muttered Nerone, “this is an outrage, a scandal! No chapel, no reverence, not even for the dead; what a pagan country is England!” + 

But Gian-Luca lay very much at rest in his stable, with his thin hands folded on his breast; and seeing him thus, Nerone fell silent. Finding his rosary, he began to tell his beads, marking the prayers with his thumb. Then they all gathered round, those members of the clan, to say goodbye to their child. + 

“He was born in our midst, the Gian-Luca⁠—” sobbed Rosa. + 

“Davvero,” murmured Mario, “he was born in our midst.” And remembering the past as folk will at such times, he also could not check his tears. + 

Teresa went close and stared down at her grandson, and none could know what she was thinking, for her face was the face of an ivory idol in which glowed two points of flame. + 

“What do they say that he died of?” she demanded, walking over to the sergeant. + 

The sergeant looked embarrassed and glanced at Maddalena. “Well, of course, there’ll have to be an inquest,” he murmured, “but I’ve heard that they think he died of starvation and exposure⁠—it’s been chilly these nights.” Then, because Teresa still fixed him with those eyes, the sergeant must go blundering on: “It’s peculiar, though, we found money on the body⁠—over two pounds⁠—but it’s not for me to talk,” he concluded hastily. + 

Teresa Boselli went back to the coffin and looked down at the wasted face. “So much food in the world,” she muttered, “and they think that he died of starvation!” + 

Maddalena bent forward and kissed Gian-Luca, very gently she kissed his forehead. “He looks so strange,” she whispered to her priest, “as though he were not here at all⁠—” + 

“Why should Gian-Luca be here?” he answered. “Did Our Lord remain in His tomb?” + 

And now Father Antonio took something from his neck, a little crucifix in gold, and he placed it gently on Gian-Luca’s hands. “May this Man who died and this God who lives, keep your soul unto life everlasting,” he said slowly, then he dropped on his knees by the side of the coffin and began to read the prayers for the dead. + 

Mario knelt down, and Rosa and Nerone, joining in those charitable prayers; but grief suddenly caught Maddalena by the throat, so that she could not pray, and it scourged her and shook her like a reed in the storm⁠— + 

“He starved, he was homeless and cold and forsaken!” she cried out, wringing her hands. + 

Then Maddalena wept for her unborn children and for the father of her unborn children, himself so much her child. The merciful tears streamed down her cheeks unheeded, while the sharp plough of sorrow furrowed her soul; and her tears fell one by one into those furrows, nourishing the sacred seed of the spirit, the seed of faith in the mercy of God, that must come to fruition through tears. + 

Rosa touched Mario quietly on the shoulder, and together they left the stable. Then Nerone got awkwardly up from his knees, and he too left the stable, trying to walk softly, trying not to tap with his old wooden leg that made such a noise on the stones. But Teresa Boselli still lingered by the coffin, for she could not take her eyes from her grandson. + 

“So much food in the world,” she kept repeating, “and they think that he died of starvation!” + 

When old Teresa had at last looked her fill, she walked away firmly with her back very upright; she scarcely appeared to require that stick, so strong, it seemed, were her knees. + 

Outside in the street she said to a passer: “Where is our Catholic Church?” + 

“The Roman Catholic church is down there on the right-hand side,” she was told. + 

Teresa went into the quiet, empty church⁠—she had not entered a church until now for thirty-four angry years. Right up to the statue of the Virgin walked Teresa⁠—the statue that stood at the foot of the altar⁠—and the Virgin’s halo was set with seven stars, perhaps for her seven sorrows. + 

“So,” said Teresa, confronting the Madonna, “so this is what you have done! I gave you Gian-Luca, the little Gian-Luca⁠—all helpless and cold and motherless he was⁠—and I said to you: ‘Take him, I give him to you, you can have him body and soul!’ And you took him, and you broke him, and you starved him to death out there in the cold, English forest⁠—and he was the child of my only child, of Olga whom you left to die in shame. And he was a fine and a lovely man, as lovely as the morning with his strange, light eyes, and you left him at a time when his heart was broken because of this intolerable world! Oh, I know very well why you did these things, you did them to break Teresa Boselli. ‘She will not serve me any more,’ you said; ‘very well, I will show her that it pays best to serve me; I will take all things from her and leave her alone, now that she must suffer old age.’ But she will not serve you; she has come here to tell you yet again that she will not serve you! He was lovely as the morning, the little Gian-Luca⁠—” + 

She stopped abruptly, staring up at the Madonna, who looked down with a deprecating smile⁠—she could not help that deprecating smile, it was molded into the plaster. + 

“Answer me!” commanded Teresa sternly. “What have you done with Gian-Luca?” + 

But the Virgin was silent, and her lips were composed and gentle, like the lips of the body in the stable; for not in poor, faltering human speech could the Mother of God reply to Teresa. + 