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.”