I
I
Great changes had come to the Casa Boselli. It was now six years since that eventful day when Millo had ordered his first case of funghi. For six years now Gian-Luca had served him and meanwhile the Casa Boselli had prospered. A large plate-glass window had been recently added, and the lease of the next-door shop had been purchased. A green motor-van with the name in gold letters—“Casa Boselli”—painted large on its sides, might be seen any morning unloading its wares at the back doors of fashionable restaurants. Fabio was no longer permitted to serve; there were three young assistants for that. Obedient in all things to the wishes of Teresa, Fabio dressed himself neatly and wandered about in and out of the shop, empty-handed and foolish; sad too, missing his salami and cheeses, while Teresa sat in a businesslike office in the basement of the new shop next door.
The years were dealing lightly with Teresa; she had scarcely changed at all in appearance, nor had she softened towards life in general; one thing only could bring a smile now to her lips, and that was the success of some new business venture, and of such a venture she was thinking one morning as she sat at her crowded desk. The May sunshine filtered down through the thick, greenish skylight and partially illumined the room, but Teresa switched on her reading-lamp and pulled a sheaf of papers towards her.
“Duecento cinquanta sterline,” she murmured, “two hundred and fifty pounds—” then she stretched out a hand and groped for her passbook, “and five hundred pounds we have borrowed from the bank—that makes seven hundred and fifty.” She began making long calculations on the blotter. “And we save on the freight?” She considered a moment, then she opened a drawer and looked over some bills. “Ah,” she said smiling, “it is just as I thought, I am scarcely a centesimo out.”
Teresa, who had saved money all her life, had begun to spend recklessly of late. Thrifty to a fault, there yet lurked within her the gambler’s instinct—she was gambling in business, emboldened by recent successes. And now she was launching the greatest venture of her whole long business career, a venture hidden away out of sight in a room behind the new shop. It was nothing less than the making of pasta; the mixing and rolling and cutting and drying and tinting of excellent, freshly-made pasta, a thing that had never been attempted before in London, or indeed in England. On her latest price-list there appeared these words: “The Casa Boselli will make your macaroni; no need to eat it many months old, we make it fresh every day!” And Teresa smiled gently whenever she read them; her smile was possessive, maternal even, for her heart that had gone so long empty and childless had taken to itself the Casa Boselli. The machinery required for the making of pasta had had to be imported from Milan; that was what had taken the extra money, so much money indeed that Fabio trembled whenever he thought about it.
“We spend!” he said faintly from time to time.
“And we earn,” his wife replied firmly. “One must always strike while the iron is hot; our iron is hot so I strike.” There were nights, however, when Fabio could not sleep for thinking of that debt to the bank.
“Are we not going to pay it off?” smiled Teresa. “You grow old, my Fabio, you grow old and afraid. Now I am not young, yet I am not afraid; I drink little, I work hard, I am always on the watch, and above all my ears are open. Millo says: ‘The pasta is such a trouble, I would like them to eat it fresh; I am more than a little ashamed of my pasta. If only the English could make macaroni! But no doubt they would make it very badly.’ Then I say to Millo: ‘You shall have your fresh pasta; the Casa Boselli will make it.’ And that,” she would conclude, “is the genius for business; that is why we now deliver our goods in a motor instead of with a horse and cart.”
And truly she possessed a great genius for business, as her friends were all bound to admit. Nerone, Rocca, the Padrone of the Capo, Mario and Rosa were all lost in admiration; even Francesco Millo would smile and call her the Napoleon of the Salumeria. Only poor Fabio, in his stuffy black coat, would sigh a little for the past, when he had handled his salami and cheeses, when the money had all lain snugly in the bank instead of uneasily in plate-glass windows, new leases, and machinery brought from Milan.
“Si, si,” he would think, “it was more peaceful then, and Teresa and I grow old.”
But on this May morning Teresa felt young as she got up briskly from her desk. “I will go and inspect my little factory,” she murmured, and, climbing the stairs, she passed through the shop and into a room beyond.
She stood quite still just inside the doorway to enjoy this, her latest acquisition. Near the ceiling were purposeful, whirring wheels, and the sound of their whirring was as music to her ears. At a table in the corner a youth in white drill was mixing a mountain of flour. Sixty pounds he would mix, with an egg to each pound, and from time to time he must pause to wash his hands, a rule imposed by Teresa. The great, generous mixture came up to his elbows as he kneaded and stirred and pressed.
“Va bene,” said Teresa, and she smiled with approval. “Va bene, but be careful of the eggshells.”
As soon as a portion of the pasta was mixed it was fed to a rotund machine, and there it was pummeled and kneaded afresh until it was ready for the large, wooden rollers. This process of rolling fascinated Teresa; she would gladly have watched it for hours. In went a shapeless lump of the pasta, and out came a species of rubber sheeting, cool to the touch and flawless in texture. Then back it would go to be rolled yet again, with each fresh rolling to grow finer and thinner, until in the end it was almost transparent, so elegant had it become.
Teresa would sometimes whisper about it. “One hundred times it must pass,” she would whisper; “one hundred times it must pass through my rollers?” And then she would laugh a little to herself, thinking of this great new adventure.
There were other contrivances in that room, among them an uncannily intelligent machine for the cutting and molding of pasta. What was your pleasure? Bircorni, Conchiglie, Stelline? Just touch a particular gadget and presto!—your etherealized rubber sheeting assumed any one of the fifty odd shapes that your need or your fancy had dictated. Upstairs would be waiting those new electric fans that sent out a stream of cold air, whereby your bicorni, conchiglie or stelline would be hardened and rendered almost immortal—that is until they were eaten.
Teresa’s defiant black eyes were glowing; they had no need of glasses to help their sight. “You have dropped in a trifle of eggshell, Francesco!” she said suddenly, pointing an accusing finger at the youth with the mountain of flour.
Those who worked for Teresa were always Italian. “The English do not work, they spend,” she would say; and her work-people feared her intensely, but respected. She was everywhere at once with her terrible black eyes, yet although her tongue lashed them they gave of their best. They said behind her back: “Che donna maravigliosa!” A grand old woman they thought Teresa, and one who knew well how to drive a hard bargain, as they would have done in her place.
II
Nerone was less fortunate in his affairs, a fact for which he blamed Geppe. Geppe was a lazy and insolent young man with a predilection for philandering. He hated the shop though he liked its contents, to which he helped himself freely. This so much enraged the miserly Nerone that he would actually threaten to send for the police; then Rosa would weep and implore forgiveness for her plump and unsatisfactory offspring.
“I spare him this time, but the next time I send,” Nerone would babble in a fury. “This is all Mario’s fault; he was always a fool; he has spoilt the young, idling ruffian!”
Grandsire and grandson hated each other, and their feuds robbed the house of all peace; for Geppe could bellow much louder than Nerone—youth gave him a laryngeal advantage.
Geppe, who was now nearly nineteen years old, wished to be a commercial traveler. This struck him as a pleasant, safe way to see life, and one that would release him from the shop. He had met a young commercial traveler one day through a friend of Berta’s at Madame Germaine’s; a very smart fellow with plenty of money and a staggering knowledge of the world. Geppe of course had little to spend—only what Mario could give him—and being the grandson of Nerone, it was natural that he thought a great deal about money. But unlike Nerone, and herein lay the trouble, he liked it for what it could buy; to keep it in a till or to send it to a bank seemed to Geppe the height of all foolishness, and he said so when Nerone was listening.
Nerone had refused point-blank to pay him wages, and this was a very sore point. Geppe would have liked to run away to sea—he had read of such things in his paper-backed “shockers”—but whenever he thought of the sea for too long he invariably felt rather sick. He had many wonderful adventures in his mind, but his body shrank weakly from hardships. He was soft; his skin was now colorless and flabby, his hands would easily blister; woolen vests made him itch; and now, when he shaved, the razor brought up little pimples. He was lazy with youth and would lie long abed; when he did appear at last it would be yawning. In the evening, however, he was as wakeful as an owl. In the evening he would go to a cinematograph, a form of entertainment which he liked above all others. He would sit in the darkness and watch desperate deeds, with a pleasant conviction of safety. And sometimes, if he found the heroine attractive, he would conjure up all sorts of amorous scenes in which he himself was the hero. Geppe was greedy, he still loved jam tartlets, he also loved chocolate creams; he would stroll about eating the latter while smoking, a perversion of the palate that disgusted Nerone.
“Che bestia!” he would mutter, unable to resist a morbid desire to look. And if Geppe noticed his grandfather looking, he would open his mouth and show chocolate creams in the process of mastication.
Nerone said that his grandson’s place was behind the counter of the shop; as for wages, what was the good of wages? The shop might be Geppe’s one day. He also said that cinemas were evil and encouraged immoral behavior. Now Geppe was longing to be immoral, his difficulty was to find a partner in sin. He would often try to borrow money from Gian-Luca, who must obviously be very rich; but Gian-Luca would find an excuse for not lending.
“He is mean,” thought Geppe in bitterness of spirit. “He himself is always after women.”
Mario was anxious, inadequate and pious, for he felt that his sins might be finding him out; he remembered those bygone halcyon days, when Rosa had had cause to be jealous of the barmaid—and many other things did Mario remember that Rosa had never known.
“He is like me and yet he is not,” mourned Mario, “for I at least never feared hard work—and yet it is natural for a boy to want money—I think it is time the Babbo paid him something.”
But neither he nor Rosa dared anger Nerone, who still had to contribute towards their support, for Mario’s wages at the Capo had not risen, though the Capo was rising every day. All sorts of great people now dined at the Capo and got drunk on its excellent liquor. There was Munster the painter, and Jenkins the sculptor, and their wives and their women and their models and their offspring, to say nothing of a certain broad-minded countess who had reincarnated from a Babylonian suburb—there was also the poet who had once admired Gian-Luca and who, having lately married, had become very rich. He no longer wrote poems, his wife fed him too well—in the winter he wore a magnificent coat with a collar of Russian sable. But of him be it said that he was faithful to the Capo—grateful, let us hope, for past favors—for he brought many friends to eat costly dinners, and his wife always seemed to have his purse in her bag.
Oh, but many grand people now rejoiced the Padrone, who was somewhat less fierce than he had been. The best cure for bad temper is prosperity, of course—what a pity that we cannot all be prosperous! And then there was now something living upstairs, a tiny, red, bawling Padroncino; a thing with eyes the color of gentians, and lungs that left no manner of doubt regarding its paternity. Whenever its father could spare a minute he would rush upstairs and yell: “Bimbo!” Or perhaps he would tickle, when the small Padroncino would respond with such vigor that Munster would look up from his tumbler of brandy and smile a large smile. For if Munster loved women he also loved babies—which in his case was fortunate, perhaps.
There were now red silk curtains at the windows of the Capo, and Mario began to think himself a prophet, as indeed he had been in all but one thing, and that was his own promotion. The Padrone had now four waiters in all, but as yet he had no head waiter, so that Mario continued to live in hopes. But his present circumstances did not warrant interference with Nerone on behalf of his son.
“After all,” he told Rosa, “the time is approaching when Geppe will have to go to Italy to serve. His military service will make a man of him, and when he returns we will then talk to Babbo—at the moment I think it unwise.”
And Rosa would often say to her son: “It is splendid to think of my Geppe as a soldier—how I envy you, caro, to see Italy again! But then, I was forgetting, you have never yet seen it.”
Geppe would look sulky and mutter something vague about wanting to see a bit of life, not service; for the last thing on earth that poor Geppe wanted was to become a soldier. Rocca, who knew that the hour was approaching, added greatly to Geppe’s torment. He would come to Nerone’s and buy cigarettes for the pleasure he took in talking at Geppe and making him feel afraid. Rocca would jab at the air with his stick:
“It is thus, and thus, with the bayonet,” he would say, “and the little, sharp twist in the pit of the stomach; one should always aim low for their bellies.”
Geppe’s pale face would turn even paler, and his hand would instinctively grip at his middle. Then Rocca would laugh:
“Avanti, capitano! I can see you leading your men into battle. ‘Italia! Italia! Italia!’ you shout, and then you give the small twist with your sword, for surely they will make you a captain!”
III
It was all most distressing, especially for Mario, who was more overworked than ever at the Capo; and then there was Berta, not much of a comfort either, although she was now twenty-two. Berta no longer carried boxes and ran errands; she was now very smart and served in the shop. Madame Germaine thought the world of Berta, who could always persuade a woman of fifty that she looked like nineteen in a model.
“Oh, modom, you look charming!” Berta would lie, skillfully patting and tweaking. “Too stout? Oh, no, modom, I cannot agree—this model gives such long lines.”
That was the way Berta talked in the shop; with her own special cronies it was different. “Damned old fools, if you saw them!” giggled Berta. “Heaving their stomachs up to their chins till they look like a lot of pouter pigeons!”
Berta herself had become quite slim owing to rigorous fasting; her fasts had nothing to do with the Lord, they were purely an offering to Venus. Berta had now many young lady friends who, like her, used lipstick and giggled. Their Sundays were spent on the river in summer; they were usually accompanied by one or two “boys.” Berta was young, she loved a good time, and she worked very hard all the week, so it soon came about that she missed Mass on Sundays—a new outrage to rouse up Nerone.
“Why you not go very early?” inquired Rosa. “The Mass he go on from six.”
“Good heavens!” laughed Berta. “I can’t get up at five—I’m dog-tired, anyhow, by Sunday.”
Rosa sighed; she was racking her brain for words which never came correctly in English. But Berta refused point-blank to speak Italian; she declared that she had almost forgotten it. This placed her mother at a great disadvantage, as Berta was very well aware; she was fond of her mother, but she loved her own way, and she found it much easier to get it in English.
“You who were teached by the sisters and all, and you who are a child of Mary,” wailed Rosa.
“Well, I can’t help that, it wasn’t my fault,” said Berta with disrespect.
Nerone had decided to be dumb with Berta; he ignored her existence, for which everyone was thankful. She was sharper than Geppe, and just once or twice she had got the better of her grandsire. He and Rosa and Mario would go off to Mass, dragging the discontented Geppe. Geppe was terribly bored with his Church, but was fettered by a firm belief in Hell.
Mario said to his wife in their bedroom one night: “I am thinking about our children.”
Rosa sighed: “There is much need for thought, my Mario: they are very different from us.”
Mario scratched his head, then he looked very wise, and when he spoke he did so slowly. “I was born in Milan, my Rosa. As for you, it was lucky that you came too soon, and so you got born in Siena. The baby drinks in the air at its birth, and the air it drinks goes all over. It touches the heart, it touches the brain, I think it gets into the blood. English air may agree with English babies, but it has not agreed with ours; our babies were Italian, they needed the air and the sun of their patria. And so,” he concluded a little sadly, “no child should be born on strange soil. We think only of money and we sacrifice our children—yet some of us still remain poor!”
“If we lose our children we are very poor indeed, even when we become rich,” said Rosa.