Book + 

II + 

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. + 

II + 

I + 

If Teresa had changed but little in six years, this was not the case with Gian-Luca, for to him had come the fullness of manhood. The touching lankiness of adolescence had given place to a well-knit figure, he was thin in proportion to his height, but his shoulders were wide above his narrow flanks. His face was less gentle, and his eyes less mysterious; they no longer seemed to be searching the beyond. Their expression was keener and more concentrated, so that now, when they rested on a client or a waiter or a table or the most minute appointments of the table, they took in at a glance significant details from which their owner would draw his conclusions, conclusions that were usually right. Very observant and prompt was Gian-Luca, and those who worked under him found him a hard master, one to whom constant small misdemeanors meant more than occasional flagrant transgressions. Gian-Luca had been known to forgive a subordinate who had come to his work very drunk one morning, having merely warned him of what would happen were the offence repeated; but a youth who habitually forgot to examine the mustard-spoons for signs of verdigris, and who, moreover, was careless of his nails, had been promptly reported to Millo and dismissed on Gian-Luca’s representations. And so, although he controlled his hot temper, scarcely ever raising his voice these days; although he was admitted to be a fine waiter and one under whom a lad got a first-class training; although they admired his arresting appearance and the ability that had put him in charge of a room when not yet quite twenty-four; although they worked hard, because to work for Gian-Luca was to fall beneath the spell of his mighty will to work, not a waiter that he ruled had the least affection for him⁠—they found him a little inhuman. + 

“I care nothing for what they may think,” said Gian-Luca. “So long as they do their work well, I care nothing.” + 

And yet he did care, for with one part of him he wished very much to stand well with his fellows. A childish longing to be loved and praised, to be popular with his subordinates even, to be thought a good comrade, a boon companion, would come over him strongly at times. He would think of his schooldays, when, try as he might, he had always been left just outside. In those days he had been a stranger to his mates, an alien among the English children; but here at the Doric he was not quite an alien, for all the waiters were Italians. And yet here also there stretched that little gulf, that sense of being just outside⁠—that queer, empty feeling of having no real country and hence no real ties with those who had. + 

He would lie in bed at nights thinking only of himself and of life in connection with himself; his babyhood, his boyhood, his painful adolescence⁠—and then he would remember the Padrona. Looking back on the Padrona after nearly seven years Gian-Luca would feel almost kind; and that, he remembered, was what Mario had hoped for. Mario had said that anger in the heart could make a beast of a man. Oh, well, it had made a beast of him, Gian-Luca, who had tried to revenge himself on the Padrona, who had tried to insult her by insulting his love, or so he had thought at the time. Now he knew that it had not been only the Padrona, but his love on which he had wished to be revenged⁠—that great, soft, foolish and selfless thing that had upset all his resolutions. For that was precisely what had happened; it had made him forget Gian-Luca. It had changed his motto⁠—“I have got Gemma.” it had made him write⁠—that was what it had done. And of course he had never had Gemma for a moment, never for a single moment. Poor Gemma! How he must have worried her with loving, just as he had worried old Teresa long ago. He must always have suffered from a kind of craze for giving⁠—and people had not wanted what he had to give. + 

“It is now my turn to receive,” he would think, smiling a little. “There must surely be someone who is ready to love me?” + 

For in spite of his success he would feel so very lonely, so very much in need of being loved; he did not want to love, he wanted to be loved. + 

“It is wiser, and it leaves a man more free for his business. When one loves one is all misery, all body and no brain⁠—one becomes a fool, one does and says nothing but foolish things,” he told himself, remembering those days with the Padrona. No, assuredly he did not want to love. + 

“I will go and buy a dog,” he suddenly decided. “A good dog will give me his affection.” But then he reflected that a good dog never spoke, that a good dog could not tell him of its love. + 

There were Mario and Rosa of whom he was quite fond, and who gave him much fondness in return. There was cross old Nerone, who perhaps gave more than fondness⁠—but then he was just cross old Nerone. There was Rocca, who thought him a very fine young fellow, and who winked and made jokes about women; and of course there was Fabio⁠—Fabio said that he loved him, but Fabio’s love was old and devitalized and weak; oh, not nearly enough for Gian-Luca. And then there were women. He considered the women that men in his position got to know. There were all Schmidt’s “jolly girls” and others too, less jolly but possibly a little more attractive. Poor devils all; one did not go their way expecting love, they were far too much underpaid for that. They never went on strike, they belonged to no trade-union⁠—like Gian-Luca they had to fend entirely for themselves; and like him some few among them had not even got a name. Such people could ill afford to love. + 

“Ma che!” he would mutter after these reflections. “It always comes down to the same; a man should try to be sufficient unto himself, and if he is not, well, then he deserves to fail. As for me, I do not intend to fail.” And then he would start thinking about his plans, his future, and his thoughts would be very gratifying. “Already I have charge of a small room,” he would think, “but soon I shall have charge of much more than just a room. I have my own ideas, I⁠—shall stay on at the Doric for a time⁠—but some day I will be a second Millo.” + 

Yet, somehow this prospect, delightful though it was, would suddenly grow clouded and defaced; for in the very middle of his great self-satisfaction he would feel a little restless thing that stirred uneasily, and back there would come running the childish, young Gian-Luca⁠—the Gian-Luca who wanted to be loved. + 

II + 

There were three verdant pastures for browsing at the Doric; the grill room which did not concern Gian-Luca, the large restaurant with its excellent band, and an octagon room which led off the restaurant and which had recently become Gian-Luca’s province. To this smaller room came those of Millo’s clients who preferred to be far from the music, either because they wished to talk business, or because they were lovers and therefore spoke softly, or because⁠—and this was the most frequent reason⁠—they were people who appreciated food. + 

Everyone knows that the true connoisseur prefers to savor in silence; that the thumping of a piano and the scraping of strings, however efficiently thumped or scraped, disturb a sensitive palate. No doubt there are dishes which, like certain poems, are rendered less effective by music; they must stand quite alone if their paramount merits would be fully appreciated. And so to Gian-Luca came mostly those clients who wished to do justice to their meals; there were also a few who came for Gian-Luca, because in his room they got promptly served; but these were only the busy people whom it did not pay very well to serve. However, he always greeted them politely as though they really mattered to the Doric. They would feel quite a little glow of self-importance: + 

“I always feed at the Doric,” they would tell you. “I’m known there; I’ve got my special headwaiter.” For, say what you please, it is rather gratifying to feel that you have got your own special headwaiter⁠—and with such harmless follies are the Dorics of life paved, and on them do the Millos of the world grow rich. + 

Gian-Luca would often unbend to his clients, as a father may unbend to his children. He would smile at them, chat with them, and always ask them gravely if their meal had been satisfactory. He would summon his subordinates to refill their glasses, to replenish their empty plates. If they ate less than usual he would grow almost anxious, he would even inquire about their health. He studied their menus, and when he suspected that he might be dealing with a novice he would tell him politely but firmly what to eat, and then he would see that he ate it. In this way such people learnt the right things to order when they came to a place like the Doric. So also with their wines; Gian-Luca would whisper advice in the ear of Roberto, the wine-waiter, and Roberto, acting upon his advice, would point out the wine they must order. Gian-Luca did these things less from motives of gain than from a real pride in his profession. He aimed at raising the status of the palate via education, as some people aim at the raising of the working classes. It pained him to think that any client of the Doric might be lacking in true appreciation. He became a kind of elegant, soft-voiced tutor; if he spoke to them thus they had perforce to listen, and when the food arrived they would be glad that they had done so. + 

Men consecrate their lives to many different things, but truly it may be said that to each the object of his life will become an ideal⁠—for otherwise how could we live? There are many ideals, some higher and some lower, but all real as long as they last. It is only when they cease to be our ideals, and descend with a rush to their natural levels, that we find ourselves suddenly outraged and debased by the thing we have lived to serve. And so to Gian-Luca the Doric and all it stood for were gradually becoming an ideal. For the most part he lived entirely for his work; and if it could not quite satisfy his soul, at least it was amply filling his pockets. + 

Whenever he had half an hour to spare he would wander down to the basement; to that vast, mysterious heart of the Doric, throbbing, bubbling, giving off steam like the crater of a busy volcano. He would try to absorb the spirit of the place, to learn all its complicated workings, to understand Millo, the heart of that heart⁠—the life force that sat in a neat little office, thinking wise and profitable thoughts about food, making endless minute calculations. There would be the great kitchen with its many French ranges⁠—long iron tables filled to bursting with fire. The pantries, the larders, the sculleries, the cellars, the storerooms, the still-room, the airy refectory where presently the waiters themselves would go to eat. There would be the vast army of expert chefs with their scullions and kitchen-boys in attendance; seventy creatures all busily engaged in the sole occupation of preparing and cooking and garnishing and dishing those wise thoughts of Millo’s which his clients upstairs would consume. + 

Gian-Luca would stand with his hands in his pockets, watchful but always admiring. “How little the clients know,” he would think; “how little they know about anything really; and as for the food they eat, they know nothing!” + 

And then he would smile a little to himself and think of a few favorite clients, devising new methods of making them happy for a while through the unfailing media of their stomachs. + 

III + 

In some respects life at the Doric was arduous, though the waiters all got a day off once a month, and the usual hours between meals. But their duties were endless; anxious, tiresome duties, very wearing to the nerves, very trying to the temper; for not the smallest detail must be neglected, since on details depended the perfection of the whole, and Millo believed in perfection. Of Millo it was said that he was lacking in compassion, that those of his staff who were stupid or ill would be promptly dismissed without a second thought. This was only partially true, for although he dismissed them, he often regretted having to do so, and sometimes he would help them with money. He was really a kindhearted, tolerant man, but he knew how a restaurant ought to be run, and if a few people went down in the process that was not Millo’s fault, but the fault of his times⁠—of the age that demanded a Doric. Millo had his rules that must be obeyed, they were made entirely for the good of the clients; when clients came to feed they should never be disturbed by emotions other than their own. Thus no waiter dared intrude his personal feelings by so much as the ghost of a sigh. No waiter was allowed to have a headache or a backache or a legache, or even a heartache for that matter; such things ceased to exist when he came on duty, as Giovanni, the trancheur, found out. + 

Giovanni’s young lady had married the hall porter under his very nose, and Giovanni, from being a lighthearted fellow, had grown decidedly broody. He had slashed at a ham as though it were the porter, and when clients had sent messages regarding their beef⁠—some preferring it well done, some pink, and others gory⁠—Giovanni had been seen to scowl darkly at his knife as though he would have liked to carve the clients. Millo, walking softly through the restaurant one day, pausing now and then beside a table and bowing, had observed that his excellent trancheur, Giovanni, was not doing justice to his art; so that evening after dinner he had reasoned with Giovanni in the soft, deadly way that was Millo’s. He had said, gently stroking the restaurant cat that was given the freedom of his office: + 

“Here we have no hearts and no emotions; no passions⁠—no bodies except to serve. Am I not right, my good Giovanni? Is not that how we have built up the Doric? All such things as I speak of we leave to our clients; in clients they are good, they encourage much spending, but you and I cannot afford to indulge them⁠—if we do, why, then we must go.” + 

Giovanni had bowed and murmured in agreement, feeling that Millo was right; feeling that a ham must be worth more to Millo than Anna who had heartlessly married the hall porter; knowing indeed that had he been Millo he would probably have shown less forbearance. For in this lies the great good fortune of the Latin, he can nearly always put himself in your place. An enviable trait, but one that in the long run spoils his fun in his budding revolutions. So Giovanni had gone back to his well-stocked cold buffet and had carved once more like an angel. If his heart was really broken⁠—which was doubtful, let us hope⁠—he managed to hide this fact while at the Doric. What happened when he left there at night to go home was a matter of little importance. + 

IV + 

Gian-Luca still lived with Fabio and Teresa, still slept in Olga’s old bedroom. He had had it repainted and papered a bright yellow, so that now there remained not even the scars as witnesses to what had once been. He could well have afforded to take a room nearer Piccadilly and the Doric, but the people among whom he had been brought up never left home except to get married, and not always then, for the family tie is a ten-ton chain to the Latin. No feelings of affection or duty, however, kept Gian-Luca at home; he remained where he was from a sense of habit⁠—he was like that now, a creature of habit, after nearly seven years at the Doric. Young as he was, he was slightly pedantic, with a little crop of cut-and-dried ideas about life. He read much in his spare time, believing in culture, and had quite a good knowledge of all sorts of books, English as well as Italian. Perhaps the fact that he had so few friends had driven him back on books. + 

He was vain in a harmless, painstaking way, and would fold his clothes neatly every night. His trousers were stretched in a smart walnut press, his ties suspended from a tape in his wardrobe, his jackets from carefully selected hangers, and his boots and shoes always well treed. Apart from the Doric, his one ruling passion, he enjoyed his books, he admired astuteness, especially in matters connected with his business, and he found recreation in women⁠—he was kinder to his books than he was to his women, perhaps because they cost him more. For Gian-Luca understood the value of money even as old Teresa understood it, even as Nerone and Rocca understood it, and Millo, the Lord of the Doric. + 

He was now in a position to buy all Doria’s works, and he ordered each new volume as soon as it was published. These were the books that he loved above all others, and he kept them in a special little bookcase by themselves. A rebel among poets was Ugo Doria; a firebrand, an earthquake, a disaster. And then suddenly, a saint, a peak of pure whiteness, a lake in the heart of the mountains. And this latter was the mood in which Gian-Luca liked him best; when he would feel that he was reading something more than Ugo Doria, when Gian-Luca⁠—who did not believe in a soul⁠—would know moments of joy and complete contentment; moments when the Doric and Millo and food and money and success and even himself would seem just nothing at all. Whenever he was feeling particularly lonely, in spite of his astuteness and ability, he would take down the volume that contained his favorite poem, the immortal “Gioia della Luce.” And sometimes, not often it is true, but sometimes, would come visions of wide, cool places; and of shadows, green because of their trees, and of all sorts of simple things. Then Gian-Luca would begin to grow younger and younger, but happier far than when he was a child; and perhaps he would go all the way out to Putney on his next free evening to visit the Librarian. For there he was always a welcome guest⁠—not because he was successful but because he was himself. He would wander about among the old books, sniffing in their queer, musty smell. + 

“You ought to have been a librarian, Gian-Luca,” his friend would say, beaming at him. + 

But at that Gian-Luca would shake his head slowly: “Ma no, I am very well content as I am. Books are for sometimes, my work is for always. I have chosen the safer part.” + 

“I wonder,” the Librarian would murmur softly. “I very much wonder, Gian-Luca.” + 

They were excellent friends whenever they met, which naturally could not be often, and each Christmas Gian-Luca would send a large hamper to the redbrick villa in Putney. He would buy its contents from Fabio and Teresa, paying just as a stranger might have done. Teresa took the money as a matter of course, and she thanked Gian-Luca gravely, politely, much as she might have thanked a stranger. However, there were times now when she talked to her grandson, consulting him about her business. She was full of innumerable new ideas for the glorification of the Casa Boselli. Gian-Luca would listen and advise and quote Millo, his methods, his rules at the Doric. + 

“Si, si,” she would say, as she nodded with approval. “I am glad to know what he feels about that⁠—I am sure he is pleased with our macaroni factory.” + 

So now at last they had something in common, a ground upon which they could meet; the Casa Boselli, the Doric and Millo; Millo, the Doric, the Casa Boselli⁠—and Gian-Luca, looking at her, would feel no resentment; indeed, he would think her a rather splendid figure with her hard eyes and clever, calculating brain that was more like a man’s than a woman’s. + 

No good telling Teresa that one sometimes felt lonely; she would only have stared and stared. “Nonna, I feel lonely!” The childishness of it, for the smartest headwaiter at the Doric. For that was what he was, their smartest headwaiter⁠—he had no doubt at all about that. + 

And Teresa knew it too: “You do well, Gian-Luca, I always knew you would do well.” + 

He would think: “One cannot have everything, it seems⁠—and I have a great deal already.” Aloud he would say: “We all prosper, Nonna; we all work hard and we prosper.” And she would reply: “We work hard to grow rich. Never forget that your money, Gian-Luca, is the best friend you have, apart from yourself.” + 

III + 

I + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II + 

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

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

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

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

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

“If she will have me, signore.” + 

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

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

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

III + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV + 

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

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

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

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

V + 

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

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

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

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

VI + 

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

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

VII + 

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

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

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

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

IV + 

I + 

For the first time in his life Gian-Luca knew what it meant to have a home; for home is a place in which we are wanted, in which there is someone to whom we matter more than anything else on earth. Of such an one’s love are the four walls created⁠—but to cover them with garlands we ourselves must love. Maddalena had built the walls that were home, and Gian-Luca rejoiced exceedingly; nor did he perceive in his first flush of pleasure that the walls she had built were bare. He would look at his wife very gratefully and gently; at her quiet beauty, her gracious body, her eyes of a mothering doe. He would think: + 

“Yes, I love this woman I have married⁠—she loves me so much, and love begets love⁠—a man could not well help loving Maddalena.” + 

And feeling his thoughtful gaze upon her, she would look up and meet his eyes; she would go to him, stroking and fondling his hair. + 

“Amore,” she would murmur, “are you really happy?” + 

“Do I not love you?” he would answer, smiling. + 

Then Maddalena would be silent. + 

To the simple of the earth there comes deep wisdom; Maddalena was one of the simple of the earth and so she was very wise, and in her wisdom she read her man’s heart, and she knew that he did not love her. But something else also Maddalena knew, and that was that he thought that he loved her, that he earnestly desired to think that he loved her, from an instinct of gratitude. + 

He said to her one day: “I love you far more than when I married you, sweetheart⁠—it must be because you love me so much; all my life I have wanted someone to love me⁠—please go on loving me, Maddalena.” + 

He would often say artless things like this, trusting her to understand; overjoyed at having someone to whom he could speak freely⁠—indulging himself in the blessed relief of putting his thoughts into words. She reassured him as though he were a child who might be afraid of the dark. + 

“You are all folded up in my love, Gian-Luca; you need never be afraid any more.” + 

And he wondered how she knew that he had been so much afraid, afraid of being alone. + 

No man could have been more kindly than he was during that first placid year of their marriage; he trusted her implicitly and would bring her all his money, asking her to keep what was needed for the house, and then to put what remained in the bank. She knew that he was saving from motives of ambition, trying to amass a little capital towards the day when he should start a restaurant of his own. + 

“Money is a man’s best friend,” he would tell her very often, unconsciously quoting Teresa. And sometimes he would add: “That is, next to himself.” + 

To please him Maddalena would go from shop to shop, bargaining, arguing, disputing. Consulting the penurious Aunt Ottavia as to where two sparrows might be bought for a farthing; rejoicing in his trust and his obvious contentment, caring very little for what she scraped and saved so long as she pleased Gian-Luca. There were times, however, when, sitting alone, Maddalena would look into her heart, and would know that even in their hours of passion, she never for one moment held the soul of this man. Her own soul leapt out to sanctify their kisses, but his remained cold and aloof, and gradually into her patient brown eyes there was creeping a look of resignation. Yet he clung to her, fearfully, desperately almost, for now less than ever could he bear solitude. If he found her from home in the afternoon, he would stand by the door, staring up and down the street, or perhaps he would hurry round to Aunt Ottavia. + 

“Where is Maddalena?” he would ask anxiously; “she has gone out and left no message.” + 

When Maddalena came back he would be sure to reproach her. “I have been here for a good half-hour,” he would grumble; “I hate to find the house empty like this; why cannot you do your shopping in the morning?” + 

So she ended by never going out at all when he might be expected home from the Doric. She would sit in the window and watch for his coming⁠—he had said that he liked to see her at the window. Yet sometimes she sat at the window in vain, for he would not come home between luncheon and dinner. He might have elected to go and see Fabio, or to potter about Charing Cross Road in search of a secondhand book; or perhaps he would have gone to visit the Padrona, for whom he now felt not the slightest attraction, but who, womanlike, regretted this fact, which secretly amused Gian-Luca. He would have to go hurrying back to the Doric with never a word to Maddalena; and if he was taking late duty at the restaurant, it might be two o’clock in the morning, or after, before he got home to bed. Maddalena would probably be fast asleep, and this would make him feel lonely⁠—his legs might be aching from the long hours of standing; he would grumble to himself until she woke up, and then ask her to rub his legs. While she rubbed he liked to talk about the clients, about all the little happenings of the day. He would tell her in confidence things overheard, careful always to withhold the names, but criticizing freely and laughing a good deal, as though his clients amused him. + 

“They are funny,” he would say, “they forget that their waiter has eyes and ears in his head. Millo hates eyes and ears except for his orders⁠—so do I for that matter, in my under-waiters. But what can we do? They get mellow with food, and then they confide in each other!” Then he would pause as though considering his clients, and presently he would go on: “I have one or two favorites whom it pleases me to humor⁠—they do not tip particularly well, but they know how to order a dinner. For the rest, I serve them all, but I do not really like them, and they do not really like me. I am just a machine; if I broke down they would miss me, but only for a little while until they got another. I talk to them, they answer; I smile and they smile⁠—and meanwhile, my Maddalena, I prosper. In spite of the fact that I have not got a name, I shall one day be famous as Millo is famous; and these greedy children whom I do not really like, they it is who shall make me famous. And after all, why should they not be greedy, and a little impatient, too, since they pay? It is often amusing to be a headwaiter; one orders and is ordered. I say: ‘Go there, Alano!’ And Alano goes. They say: ‘Come here, Gian-Luca!’ And Gian-Luca comes. One moment I am the master of Alano, the next I am the slave of a duke; but if he only knew it my duke is the slave⁠—I make him a slave to his stomach!” + 

He would go on talking happily while Maddalena rubbed, but after a time he would remember his legs⁠—legs are very important to a waiter. “Not there!” he would say, “rub lower down, mia donna, rub just here where my ankle is swollen⁠—that is better⁠—and now you might rub the other ankle.” Perhaps she would look tired, as very well she might and then his conscience would smite him. “Poverina,” he would murmur, “I have kept you awake⁠—I will try to come in very quietly tomorrow, you will see, I will creep in like a mouse.” Yet although he intended to creep in like a mouse, he always managed to wake her. A hairbrush would drop or perhaps he would cough, and then there would be the electric light. Once she was awake it seemed natural to talk, Maddalena was an excellent listener; he had never had such a fine listener before, one to whom everything he said or did mattered. But long after Gian-Luca had talked himself to sleep, his wife would lie awake thinking. She would worry a little because of the English whom he served and flattered while secretly despising them. She would wonder if he bore them a grudge in his heart because of his long-ago schooldays, those days when they had taunted him and left him out of things⁠—he had told her about those days. + 

“But no,” she would think, “he cannot be so childish⁠—it is only that we Latins feel differently, think differently; they are good, we are good, but our goodness is different, we find it very hard to draw together.” + 

And then she would remember that Gian-Luca was English⁠—English in the eyes of the law, and her simple, honest mind would grow puzzled and troubled, knowing that he owed so much to this England, that in fact they all owed so much. + 

II + 

She prayed a great deal, because Gian-Luca would not pray, so that she had to pray for them both; and her prayers, unlike Teresa’s had once been, were quiet and utterly trustful. If she prayed very often that Gian-Luca might love God, she prayed still more often that he might love Maddalena; and doubtless her God who was one with His creature, listened and understood. + 

She felt very sure of the friendship of her Maker, and would tell Him about all sorts of everyday things. For instance she told Him how much it grieved her that she could not more often prepare her man’s food. Gian-Luca had nearly all his meals at the Doric, and Maddalena longed to cook what he ate herself, to spend hours downstairs in her spotless kitchen making his favorite dishes. He was young and hungry, he liked good things to eat, his wife knew quite well what he liked. Fritto misto he liked, and ravioli, and her father had said that no woman in Rome could make ravioli as she could. When Gian-Luca had his day off once a month, then it was that Maddalena got her chance; she would plan the meals for that day a week ahead, but when the time came she herself could eat nothing for the joy of seeing him eating. He would settle down to be greedy like a schoolboy, praising her cooking between mouthfuls. + 

“Give me some more!” he would order, laughing. “Millo and all his chefs can go to the devil when my Maddalena turns cook!” + 

Getting up she would eagerly serve her husband; and he, whose whole life was spent in serving others, would find it pleasant and rather amusing to be served in his turn by Maddalena. He would play with her, suddenly thumping the table in order to make her jump. + 

“Come along, waiter! I am starving!” he would thunder; “send me the maître d’hotel!” And then he would grumble to a mythical Gian-Luca: “Look here, Gian-Luca, what’s the matter today? I’ve been waiting three minutes for that partridge!” + 

They would laugh, and in the middle of their laughter he would kiss her, and say that never was there such a waiter and such a splendid chef rolled into one as his wonderful Maddalena. After their dinner they would go for an airing; Maddalena loved Kensington Gardens. They would jump into a taxi on that one day a month, and be driven as far as the Serpentine Bridge; from there they would stroll through the gardens arm-in-arm, Maddalena watching the children. If it was wet he would go to his bookcase and get a volume of Doria’s poems; he would read Maddalena the “Gioia della Luce,” she not understanding a word. He might look up and see her bewildered face, but still he would go on reading, not to please her but to please himself⁠—for the joy he took in the rhythm. When he had finished he would probably relent and read her some simple poem, or to please her, the Latin hymn she loved best⁠—the beautiful “Te lucis ante terminum” from the quiet service of Compline. His voice would grow solemn and very sweet because he adored the sound of the Latin, not because he was moved by the meaning of the words⁠ ⁠… + 

She would think that he looked like some medieval saint, so aesthetic were the hands that held the prayerbook, so thoughtful the line of his brow. But then he would laugh as he shut up the book. + 

“Well, there you are, piccina,” he would say, “it is lovely because the language is lovely, but it is not the ‘Gioia della Luce.’ ” + 

III + 

Everyone was anxious to be kind to Maddalena, and yet Maddalena was lonely. It was almost as though Gian-Luca’s loneliness in leaving him had found harborage in her, as though she had drawn it into herself, so that now she must bear it for him. Rosa came very often to see her and would talk of the infant Gian-Luca, telling of the time when he clung to her breast, telling of the day when he first said “Nonno,” and this made Maddalena feel lonelier than ever. Rosa was very maternal that autumn, for her Geppe had gone to do his military service; all the way to Italy he had gone⁠—Geppe, who had seldom even been out of London. In the end he had actually wanted to go, glad of anything for the sake of a change, but Rosa was anxious because of those hands of his, which so easily blistered. The life would be hard, they might set him to digging, they might teach him how to dig trenches⁠—two years he must serve in an infantry regiment. Poor Geppe, the life would be hard. Berta, whose heart had been caught on the rebound, wished to marry a young man called Albert Cole, the commercial traveler whom Geppe had once met and had longed to emulate. Nerone had disliked Albert Cole at sight⁠—he had the misfortune to be English⁠—Nerone was rude whenever he called, so Berta had decided to marry him at once; they were going to be married next month. And here Rosa’s eyes welled over with tears, for Cole called himself an agnostic. + 

“I do not know what that means,” she said helplessly. “It cannot be anything to do with Saint Agnes, for he does not believe in the saints, and my Berta wishes to give up her Church; they will marry at a register office.” + 

Berta said terrible things, it seemed⁠—things connected with babies. They had made such a painful impression on Rosa that she knew most of them by heart. “Me and Bert aren’t going to be bothered with children, we know a thing or two, me and Bert!” That was one of the statements⁠—oh, yes, but there were others⁠—Rosa actually blushed while she told them, she could not even look at Maddalena. + 

And then there was Nerone who had suddenly grown homesick, talking of nothing but Italy ever since his grandson’s departure. “I am old,” he would mutter; “I feel I must go home. All my life I have saved in order to go home⁠—I feel that the moment has arrived.” + 

Rosa expected him to sell up his business, which, however, he put off doing. From week to week he would put it off⁠—they none of them knew where they were. + 

“He is so moody and queer,” complained Rosa. “When Mario and I think he means to see about it, he will suddenly run off and start counting his money, and then he will come back to us shaking his head. He will say, ‘No, not yet, just a month or two longer⁠—a few more little shillings must go home to Siena before their old papa can join them.’ ” + 

Maddalena would listen and sympathize because Rosa had given her milk to Gian-Luca. She did not like Nerone or Geppe or Berta, but since they belonged to Gian-Luca’s foster-mother she felt that they somehow belonged to her. + 

Fabio always made Maddalena welcome; he approved of the quiet young wife. The Signora Rocca was also quite friendly and would often invite herself to tea. But with her Maddalena found little in common; the Signora Rocca talked only of religion, a religion so alien to that of Maddalena as to form a kind of barrier between them. Perhaps the signora was conscious of this fact, for she sent Maddalena many hot little pamphlets regarding the climatic conditions in hell, and a good few on purgatorial fires. + 

The Padrona of the Capo would patronize; she would give much advice regarding Gian-Luca, and this with a gentleness hard to resent. “As an old married woman⁠—” she would usually begin, and then she would patronize. + 

The girls that Maddalena had known in the still-room were fond of coming to see her. “Bon Dieu! It is you who are lucky⁠—” they would say, “to be married to Monsieur Boselli!” + 

They were all just a little in love with Gian-Luca, but they genuinely liked his wife. They were lighthearted creatures who were always laughing, and they teased Maddalena for being so solemn, and because of her funny, broken English. In the end she would have to laugh with them and be merry, for their youth and good spirits were infectious. + 

There were plenty of people who were glad to know her, to take her into their lives, and yet only one person in all the world who counted⁠—that was how it was with Maddalena. Ah, but some day soon there would be another⁠—surely there must be another? He would be very small and have strange, light eyes, and his hair when it grew would be ashen blond, and his name would be just Gian-Luca. A great welcome was always awaiting this other. A great welcome? Why, all the mothers of the ages were waiting in the mothering soul of Maddalena, crying out love within her. + 

“I shall never be lonely any more,” she would think; “all day I can care for and play with the child, and then he will sit with me by the window, watching for his father, who will surely love me when I have given him a son.” + 

Once she spoke of these things to Gian-Luca, scanning his face for a light in his eyes⁠—a light that did not come. + 

“Ma si,” he smiled kindly, “you shall tell me when it is so⁠—for the rest, we are surely very well as we are. Children are a great expense, my Maddalena; now if Mario had not had Berta and Geppe he would certainly have felt more free to make his way⁠—he might have left the Capo before he was too old.” + 

And Maddalena wondered exceedingly. Did not they spring from a race who loved children? A race of eager, imperative fathers? And then, with a little sinking of the heart, she suddenly remembered that Gian-Luca was different⁠—that Gian-Luca had never known a father. + 

IV + 

She missed her own father very much these days, and sometimes she would go to see the old priest, for the sake of calling him “Father.” All kindness and tolerance was Father Antonio, whose placid blue eyes could see into the heart⁠—they had seen into so many hearts in their time that now they looked just a little sad. She never told him about her troubles, indeed, they were difficult to put into words; she and he would just sit there and talk of quiet things, like the flowers to be placed on the altar next Easter, or the picture of a saint that was said to bring healing, or the vineyards along the Via Appia. Father Antonio knew Rome very well, although he himself was a Tuscan, and while they talked thus, their faces would grow wistful; he would be thinking of the hills near Florence, and she of the friendly, wide Campagna, where all the sheep wore little bells. These visits could never be very long, for Father Antonio was busy. His work lay among the bedraggled little flock who had given the name of their country to the district⁠—its name but none of its charm! + 

When she left him Maddalena would go into the church where she and Gian-Luca had been married, and there she would pray to the kindly Madonna who stood just inside the doorway. The Madonna had set her small Son on His feet, she had told Him to stretch out His arms; and in case He should fall⁠—for He was so little⁠—she supported Him gently with her hands. Maddalena would think that the Child looked very much as Gian-Luca must have looked when he too was a child, and then she would humbly beg God’s pardon, for this was an impious thought born of love, of her poor human love; yet somehow the Madonna always managed to comfort Maddalena. + 

After praying for a while she would get up slowly and trudge off to see Aunt Ottavia. Aunt Ottavia was not sympathetic these days; Maddalena was thankful that her husband had been firm when it came to taking those rooms. Indeed, she had grown to look on these visits as a species of self-imposed penance⁠—Father Antonio imposed such small penances that Maddalena sometimes added a few. + 

Aunt Ottavia would say: “Well, and how is Gian-Luca?” in a voice that she made rather stern. + 

She was cross with Gian-Luca because of all those candles. As much as five shillings had she spent on blessed candles, and still he remained a pagan. She would ask many searching and personal questions as one who had every right to know. Was there going to be a baby? Was he after other women? At what hour did he get home at night from his work? At what hour did he usually get up in the morning? Was he tidy or untidy? How often was he angry, and what sort of things made him angry? In conclusion she would say: + 

“You are spoiling the creature, one has only to look at him to see it. He is vain, and like all men, of course he is selfish, and your foolishness makes him more selfish. Now I never spoilt that husband of mine; he certainly drank, and tried constantly to beat me, but for all that he knows well that I never spoilt him⁠—he cannot blame me for his purgatory.” One day she had suddenly laughed at her thoughts, a disconcerting habit of hers. “If Gian-Luca were mine,” she had told Maddalena, “he would surely by now have come into the Church⁠—I would surely have compelled him to come in by now, and I never had your beauty, Maddalena⁠—” + 

“How?” Maddalena had inquired falteringly. + 

But at that Aunt Ottavia had laughed again. “If I told you you would only be shocked,” she had said, “and so I prefer not to tell you.” + 

V + 

The months slipped by in prosperity. The following summer Gian-Luca took his wife for three weeks’ holiday to Brighton; he had not wished to go too far afield, in case something should happen at the Doric in his absence. Nothing of any kind was likely to happen, but that was the way Gian-Luca took his work, he was always convinced that when his back was turned the prestige of his room would suffer. Millo had recently raised his wages, so that now he felt very well off; but this fact did not alter his way of living, the only difference that it made to Maddalena was that she had more money to put by. + 

The little band of exiles in Old Compton Street were feeling particularly satisfied with life; even Nerone, the least prosperous of them, had to admit that things were looking up. Geppe being abroad, he had engaged a young assistant who sold more tobacco than he stole, so Nerone continued to send home the shillings to breed little centesimi. Every evening he and Fabio played their game of dominoes⁠—both of them peering hard at the dots because their eyesight was failing⁠—and every evening Nerone told Fabio of his great homesickness, his longing for Italy. He would soon be going back there, he said. But each morning would find him busy in the shop, and the business still unsold, because, in spite of that great homesickness, that love of country and of all things Italian, there was still his love of the pretty silver shillings that bred little centesimi. + 

Berta was now living near Battersea Bridge, in a flat with her smart young husband; she came very seldom to see her mother, being much engaged with her friends. One fine day, however, Berta really could not come, nor was she prevented by social engagements⁠—for God was not mocked, inasmuch as that Berta presented her husband with twins. Two lusty little daughters, both determined to live, came squealing into the world. Even Rosa was somewhat disconcerted, but Berta, after weeping over each of them in turn, and feeling a transitory aversion for Albert, decided that the world had much cause to applaud her, and proceeded to pose in the eyes of her neighbors as a kind of modern Cornelia. + 

VI + 

A year passed, then another. Maddalena was still childless, and her heart was heavy with dread. She knew now that even her love for Gian-Luca could not make up for the longing that was in her. She never confided her fears to her husband, held back by a painful pride; he did not particularly want her child, he had said that children cost money. Yet since she had no little son to love, she must perforce love Gian-Luca for two, so Maddalena loved him for the man that was in him, but also for the child that is in every man⁠—she loved him as a wife and as a mother. There had always been this dual element in her love, but now something new had begun to creep in⁠—a kind of grave desperation. Gian-Luca would sometimes force his mind from the Doric in order to consider her more closely; the gravity of her love had begun to oppress him, it made him feel in a vague, uneasy way that his wife was no longer happy. + 

“What is the matter?” he would think to himself; “am I not perfectly faithful to this woman? Do I not give her all?” + 

But Maddalena knew that he had never given all, and now in addition she feared that she might be childless; the little Gian-Luca who would make his father love her, held aloof and refused to be born. She tried to hide the ache in her heart from the world, yet everyone suspected it, it seemed. + 

“You spoil him! You spoil him!” chanted Aunt Ottavia; “you are making a perfect fool of the man!” + 

“One should never let a husband feel too certain of one,” smiled the wise, blue-eyed Padrona. + 

“He was always a strange little boy⁠—” Rosa told her. “Always a strange, self-sufficient little boy; but at bottom he is all pure gold, the Gian-Luca. Do I not know it, who nursed him?” + 

To them all Maddalena would reply the same thing: “I have nothing to complain of in my husband.” + 

And Gian-Luca often said: “I have an excellent wife, I have nothing to complain of in my wife.” + 

Yet Maddalena had moments of sheer naked terror, when she fancied that they were drifting apart. + 

“What shall I do if I lose him?” she would think. + 

And then perhaps she would love him unwisely, so that even Gian-Luca who wanted to be loved would grow just a little impatient. + 

“Ma no!” he would say, “I have not got a headache, I am very well indeed, and my shoes are not wet. Now run away, sweetheart, and leave me in peace⁠—I would like to read for an hour.” + 

But she could not leave him. She could not let him go even for an hour to his book. While he read she would sit there stroking his knee, wishing with all her heart that he were small, so that she might carry him in her arms. In the end he would have to shut up his book and give himself over to her loving; and when he had done this he would feel less a man, and she would know that he felt less a man, and the knowledge would be anguish to her. Then, with the sudden inconsequence of woman, she herself would feel helpless and small; she would long to burst out crying in his arms, so that he might pet her and comfort. But no tears were ever permitted to fall, because she was patient and strong. Patient as peasant women are patient who have long submitted themselves to their men, asking little in return; strong as those bygone Legions were strong, who had flung the straight, white roads across the world, and had trodden them unafraid. No, Maddalena’s eyes would be dry, but in her unhappiness she must needs push him from her⁠—in the end she would have to let him go after all, till the pain of his nearness subsided. + 

“But what is the matter?” he would say, bewildered. “What have I done, Maddalena?” + 

And she would not dare to answer that question, lest in the answering she should become weak⁠—weak and unable to shield him. Finally he would feel aggrieved and unhappy; angry, too, as the blind may feel angry, who stumble and hurt themselves in their blindness. He would go back to work with the uncomfortable conviction that he did not understand his wife, that he did not quite understand himself either. Surely he had all that he had longed for in the past? Companionship, love⁠—oh, a great deal of love⁠—as for children, well, perhaps they would come along later; at present he was very well pleased to be free from the tax they would be on his purse. + 

His work would be waiting, there would be much to do, a hundred little duties to perform; and gradually, as the evening wore on, his mind would be gathered back into the Doric. He would pass to and fro among the diners, the distinguished-looking men, the beautiful women⁠—all feeling just a little more brilliant than usual because of the good food and wine. Like a general and his chief of staff, he and Roberto would hurry their waiters to the kitchens and cellars, to those vast armories that contained all the weapons wherewith to slay lassitude and boredom. Back they would come, the neat, black-and-white army, very well equipped to slay lassitude and boredom; very well equipped to slay other things, too, such as a passing scruple. Gian-Luca would watch with experienced eyes for a self-controlled face to relax; he would listen for the subtle change in a voice, in a laugh, for the voices and laughter to mingle; he would know just how long a time should elapse between the popping of a cork and the coming of the miracle. If all went well in his octagon room he would feel a glow of satisfaction; he would feel a passing affection for his diners, who were doing him credit, and via him the Doric, forgetting that they looked upon him as a machine, or not caring if he remembered. And when he got home there would be Maddalena ready to wake up and talk; a placid and gentle Maddalena again, whose beauty was that of a vine-clad arbor where a man might rest after toil. + 

“It was just a passing mood,” he would think, “all women are like that, they have funny moods.” And as like as not he would go to sleep happy, holding on to her hand. + 

V + 

I + 

Gian-Luca had been married for just three years when there came those mighty rumors of war in the July of 1914. Millo had expected an excellent season, but in June an Austrian archduke had been murdered⁠—a grave, kindly man who deserved a better fate⁠—and Millo had begun to feel uneasy. By the middle of July he felt still more uneasy, while to Old Compton Street came a wave of apprehension coupled with incredulous surprise. + 

“It cannot mean war,” said Teresa firmly, “the financiers of Europe will never allow it. Is not the world ruled by money?” + 

“It cannot mean war,” repeated Fabio weakly. “As you say, it cannot mean war.” + 

“If it comes it will ruin us all⁠—” moaned Nerone; “but then the English are such a calm people, England would never go plunging into war.” And at this thought he almost began to love England for breeding so calm a people. + 

“If only I had Geppe home!” fretted Rosa. + 

“He will come, he will come!” Mario told her cheerily. “Why should he not come, donna mia? This would not be Italy’s war.” + 

“Who knows, if they once start fighting⁠—” she persisted; “I wish that our Geppe were home. Suppose I should never see him again⁠—” + 

“Dio! You women!” snapped Mario. + 

Rocca said: “And so here is war at last, and it finds me a miserable butcher. All that I am fit for is to slice little goats, or to chop through the bones of a lamb!” + 

“You talk rubbish,” declared the Signora Rocca. “Who says there will be war?” + 

“I do,” replied her husband, “I, who once was a soldier.” Then he swore a great oath, and his eyes filled with tears. “It is coming, it is coming, and I am too old⁠—they will not allow me to fight.” + 

The Padrone of the Capo di Monte felt angry. “Has the whole world gone mad?” he demanded. “What is the meaning of all this great fuss? And over a dog of an Austrian too! Why do I read in my morning paper that stocks and shares are falling to pieces? Here have I worked for these English for years, and now they will not protect me. What has happened, has England fallen asleep? Why cannot England do something?” + 

By July the 25th they were really alarmed, for the bourse in Vienna had closed. Three days later there was war between Austria and Serbia, and two days after that they saw in their papers that Russia was mobilizing. But worse was to come, for by the end of July the banks all over England had closed their doors. + 

“I cannot get a penny of my money,” said Teresa, and her voice was deeply shocked and surprised. “Not a penny of my hard-earned money can I get⁠—yet England is not at war.” Disconcerting days for those who had lived so long in the most placid country on earth. They looked at each other with frightened eyes. + 

“What can it mean?” they kept on repeating. + 

England had stood to them all in the past less as a country than as bullion, and now the doors of her banks were closed⁠—was she not quite so rich as they had imagined? Would she go bankrupt and all of them with her? + 

“What have I always said!” stormed Nerone. “Madonna! I am glad that my money is not here, I am glad that in my wisdom I have sent it all home; it is I who have shown great foresight!” + 

There were new lines now on Teresa’s old face; she thought a great deal but spoke very little, for only she knew the exact amount that was owed by her firm to the bank. She had recently borrowed another small sum, just before the assassination⁠—she had needed a more convenient counter and a range of larger glass cases. But her mouth was set in a hard, straight line, and her black eyes never wavered. When her shop was raided by people who feared that they might be asked to consume less food, Teresa stood firm as a rock in her cash-desk. + 

“I will not take five-pound notes,” she announced; “I accept only silver and gold, if you please.” + 

And they paid her in silver and gold if they had it⁠—if they had not, then their motorcars went away empty. + 

“We will save the Casa Boselli,” said Teresa. “If Europe has gone mad, we at least remain sane; we will save the Casa Boselli.” + 

And Fabio, very old and thoroughly frightened, nodded and answered, “Si, si.” But his heart misgave him when he looked round the shop. Denuded it was, as though by the passing of an impious swarm of locusts. “Supposing we cannot renew our stock!” he thought. “Supposing the transport is held up⁠—” + 

II + 

Gian-Luca was taking late service at the Doric when the news came that England had joined in the war; like lightning it spread from table to table, and people suddenly stopped eating. Millo, rather pale but perfectly composed, whispered a word to his band; there was silence for a moment, and then through the restaurant sounded the National Anthem. A strange, new meaning the hymn had that night. So simple and yet so poignant a meaning, that something leapt into Gian-Luca’s heart, a feeling of bitter resentment. The clients at his tables had forgotten their suppers, of one accord they stood up and sang. + 

“They are singing because they have a country!” thought Gian-Luca. And presently when the singing had ceased, he turned away from those people. + 

But in the large restaurant he ran into Riccardo, whose eyes were unusually bright. Riccardo’s perfect manner had completely left him, he appeared to forget that he was a headwaiter, and seizing Gian-Luca’s unwilling arm, he dragged him behind a screen. + 

“Dio! It is here?” exclaimed Riccardo. “If only our Italy comes in! Surely our country will fight against Austria? Think of it, amico, we have waited so long, and now at last we get our chance!” + 

Gian-Luca was silent, and this angered Riccardo. “Do you not feel for our country?” he demanded. + 

“It is not my country,” said Gian-Luca sullenly. “I am told that it is not my country.” + 

III + 

Maddalena was waiting up for her husband; she came into the hall when she heard his latchkey. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, then she put her arms round him and kissed him. + 

“This is a terrible thing⁠—” said Maddalena; “a solemn and a terrible thing.” + 

“Terrible perhaps, but splendid for those who may fight for the country they spring from, mia donna⁠—if Italy comes into the war⁠—” + 

“Then Geppe will go,” she said thinking of Rosa. + 

He laughed bitterly: “Gia, then Geppe will go, and Riccardo who is still just young enough to fight, and Alano who is almost too young, and all the others⁠—but not Gian-Luca; he will not be wanted, he may feel he is Italian, but who was his father? They will say: ‘You have not got a name, Gian-Luca, we are very much afraid that your mother became English, so as you are a bastard, you too became English.’ Dio!” he shouted, stamping like a child. “Dio! I almost hate the English!” + 

She surveyed him very sorrowfully for a moment, then she said: “This country has sheltered you, amore.” And as she said it she felt afraid, realizing the meaning of her words. + 

“No country has ever sheltered me,” he retorted; “what I am I have made myself, Maddalena. I owe nothing to any man on earth but myself.” Then all of a sudden he wanted to cry. “But I wish I were the little Alano⁠—” he muttered. + 

“Italy may not come in,” she consoled. + 

“Oh, yes, she will surely come in,” he told her. “There is something in my blood tonight that tells me that my people will fight⁠—but it will not make any difference to me; I am English in the eyes of the law.” + 

“But what if this England should need you?” she faltered; and all her woman’s weakness urged her to silence, for nothing was steadfast at that moment but her soul. + 

Gian-Luca’s mouth grew arrogant and angry. “If England needs me she can fetch me,” said Gian-Luca. + 

IV + 

Six weeks later Geppe managed to get home, his military service having come to an end. He swaggered into the shop one evening; he had not let them know of his prospective arrival. + 

“Ah,” said Nerone, “so you have returned!” But he could not quite keep the excitement from his voice. “Rosa!” he called, “here is someone to see us⁠—a fine young soldier from home!” + 

Rosa came hurrying down the stairs. “Is it my Geppe?” she almost screamed, and seeing that it was she burst into tears and wept in the arms of her son. + 

Geppe was very much what he had been, except that he now wore a miniature moustache and carried his shoulders better. His eyes were bloodshot from sun and wind, and his hands, which his mother examined anxiously, were covered with corns in the place of blisters; for the rest he was plump and still rather flabby in spite of two years in the army. But to Rosa, gazing at him through her tears, he seemed a thing of rare beauty. + 

Nerone said: “I will put up the shutters, and then we can talk in peace.” And this from Nerone was a great concession, it meant that he welcomed his grandson home, that the hatchet was buried for the moment. + 

Geppe helped himself to a cigarette from an open box on the counter. “Italy will not come in,” he announced, though so far no one had asked for his opinion. + 

However, Nerone paused for a moment in his task of putting up the shutters. “It is surely you who must know,” he said agreeably, “since you are just from the army.” + 

The shop closed for the night, they retired to the room that was full of Nerone’s birds. Geppe promptly woke up the avadavats by puffing smoke into their cage. + 

“I think I will go and fetch Fabio,” remarked Nerone; “also Rocca may like to come round.” + 

Alone with her son, Rosa stroked his large hand. “Mio bimbo⁠—” she murmured. “Mio bimbo.” + 

“Where is papa?” inquired Geppe, feeling that his father ought to be among his admirers. + 

“At the Capo, tesoro. He works very hard, and they have not yet raised his wages⁠—” + 

“As for that,” laughed Geppe, “I know all about hard work! In the army we do not think waiters work hard⁠—however, that is as it may be.” He crossed one leg manfully over the other, and groped for a fresh cigarette. + 

“I will go into the shop and buy you a packet,” said his mother, looking in her purse for a coin that she would afterwards give to Nerone. + 

Presently Nerone came stumping back, accompanied by Fabio and Rocca. + 

“Buona sera, Capitano!” said Rocca jovially, and he slapped Geppe’s shoulder with tremendous vigor. + 

“This is splendid, splendid!” smiled Fabio. + 

“And now,” said Nerone, “we would hear all the news. How is our beloved country looking?” + 

“Very hot at the moment, very ugly and hot,” muttered Geppe, whose shoulder was aching. + 

“And what of the war?” inquired anxious Fabio. “Do you think that Italy will fight?” + 

“Neanche per sogno!” Geppe answered promptly. “There is no chance of such a thing.” + 

“What is that?” demanded Rocca. “What is that you say? Perhaps I have not heard correctly.” + 

But Geppe, nothing daunted, repeated his words, and he added: “Why should we fight?” + 

“Giurabbaccaccio!” began Rocca, very red. + 

“Now do let us have peace, here, at any rate,” pleaded Fabio. + 

“Peace!” thundered Rocca. “You ask me for peace! I, who have known Garibaldi!” + 

“That will not make our country go to war,” remarked Geppe; “I tell you that we remain neutral.” + 

“Per Bacco! You lie!” shouted outraged Rocca. + 

“Let us try to keep calm,” said Nerone unexpectedly; “I would hear what the boy has to say.” + 

Rocca glared round the room. “Must I sit here and listen?” he demanded; but as nobody troubled to answer, he was forced to listen or go. + 

Geppe, lounging grandly in his chair, began to give all of a hundred reasons why Italy would not come in. He talked loudly in order to cheer himself up. He kept racking his brain for convincing arguments that he himself could believe. Fabio was relieved, and even Nerone was gradually being persuaded, when Rocca got slowly on to his feet and held up his hand for silence. They all turned to stare in surprise at his face, which had suddenly grown very grave. His voice when he spoke was very grave too, not blustering as was its wont. + 

“I am only a miserable butcher,” said Rocca, “and one who, alas, has grown old. To our young men the glory, to our old men the patience⁠—because they are past the time for glory. But we who are old have heard many things, and some who are still alive have seen them; and those who have seen can never forget, and those who have heard remember. We have heard of the White Coats swarming in Milan; we have heard of our women flogged in the streets and our patriots hung from the lampposts. We have heard of the glorious Risorgimento⁠—of Mazzini, and the martyr Menotti, and of many a youth much younger than Geppe who died that Italy might live. And this I say to you all this night, if my country stops out of the war, I disown her⁠—I who have fought in the second Custozza, I who have seen the Austrian’s blood, and the blood from my own three wounds; I who have known our father Garibaldi⁠—yes, even I, Rocca, will cast off my country, I will take her no more for my mother. The ghosts of her patriots shall walk through her streets, wailing and wringing their hands; the spirits of her virgins whom the Austrians deflowered, shall come back and proclaim their deflowering; and Rocca will go in sorrow to his grave, because he will be as a man without a country. May the saints put a sword into Italy’s hand, and may Italy use that sword!” + 

Then Nerone struck the floor with his wooden leg. “Amen,” he said huskily. “Amen.” + 

And Fabio, forgetting his naturalization, forgetting the debts of the Casa Boselli, stumbled over to Rocca and gripped his arm; and they both tried to stand very straight, like the young. + 

Rosa looked at her only son and through him and beyond him at her country, and at all those mothers long since dead and gone, and at all their sons who had laid down their lives, whom she seemed to see living again in Geppe⁠— + 

“Our country will use that sword,” she said quietly, “and Geppe shall help her to use it. My Geppe is brave, he is anxious to fight.” + 

“Of course I am anxious to fight,” murmured Geppe, staring down at his cigarette. + 

V + 

That winter the nations settled in grimly to their struggle of life and death; while at home, in familiar, foggy old London⁠—grown oddly unfamiliar somehow in those days⁠—men and women struggled fiercely and almost as grimly to keep the business flag flying. + 

Millo, in his office, sat long into the night scheming, calculating, foreseeing. How to maintain the prestige of the Doric at a time when his world was falling to pieces, that was Millo’s great problem. He sent for the heads of departments and addressed them as a field-marshal might address his generals. + 

“We are face to face with disaster⁠—” said Millo, “not financial disaster, for our company is rich, but something even worse, a total collapse of our splendid organization. Each of you will have many arduous new duties for which no money can pay. Already we have lost our most skilled French chefs, only old men and boys are left in the kitchen, but the boys must grow wise and the old men young, for it shall not be said that because there is war we no longer know how to cook. I foresee a coming shortage of food, yet somehow food we must find; if it is not precisely what we have been used to, we must aim at keeping this fact from our clients; we must coax it, disguise it, dress it up in fine clothes, so that they eat it gladly. I foresee a coming shortage of waiters⁠—for Italy will soon be at war⁠—but waiters we must have; I shall aim at getting Swiss, failing them we must do with the unfit English and the ageing⁠—those rejected by the army. Several of you headwaiters will go; Riccardo, Giovanni, Roberto for instance; but you Giuliano, are well over age, I can count on you for the grillroom. The Swiss are a fairly hardworking people, your trouble will lie with the English, who, even when perfectly sound, make vile waiters; in my long experience I have only known one who was all that a waiter should be, but then he had lived among us for years⁠—I remember we called him Luigi⁠—you may have to put up with very many things, but do not come grumbling to me. Gian-Luca, here, will be able to help me; he is only Italian by blood it seems⁠—he is English, he tells me, in the eyes of the law, but so far he does not feel called upon to enlist, and for this I cannot but be thankful. And now,” he concluded, “just one last word; let there be no small jealousies among you. Away with such things! The times are too momentous; we must concentrate our energies entirely on our clients, and through them on the prestige of the Doric.” + 

Thus it was that the Doric buckled on its armor and girded its loins for battle; while Millo assured his Board of Directors, that if all Europe crumbled yet the Doric should stand as the emblem of perfection in restaurants. + 

VI + 

Teresa, at the Casa Boselli, eyed her husband with open disfavor, for Fabio was growing more futile every day⁠—he had taken to sitting about in the parlor holding his head in his hands. + 

“Already the transport is so slow,” he would mutter; “what will it be like later on? Already the Germans are attacking the food ships⁠—what can we do without food?” + 

And Fabio was right, there were many little luxuries that looked like disappearing from the price-list⁠—those fat, green, globular snails for instance. No one had time to go hunting snails, they were too busy hunting Germans. + 

At moments now he gave way altogether. “We are done, we are finished!” he wept. + 

Then Teresa remembered how much they owed the bank. The moratorium had saved them for a time, but now the bank was demanding higher interest, or failing that, repayment of the loan, and she did not blame the bank either. The Casa Boselli was dipped to the hilt, the leases of both shops had been pledged as security; if she could not meet the interest then the bank must take action, and all in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, there might be no Casa Boselli. But Teresa had not fought against grief and shame, and even her God, for nothing. + 

“Coward!” she said, looking with scorn at her husband. “You call yourself a man and you weep like a child! Have we not got our macaroni factory? Is not the Doric and many another restaurant clamoring more loudly than ever for our paste? To hear you one would think we were reduced to black-beetles; and suppose we were, I would pickle them with capers, I would surely contrive to make them the fashion, rather then let our business go bankrupt.” And her fierce eyes scorched up the old man’s tears, so that he dared not go on weeping. + 

Nerone had a great consolation in life, since everyone was buying cigarettes for the soldiers; but his first kind impulse on Geppe’s return was fast giving place to indignation, for Geppe was more useless than ever in the shop, in addition to which he now bragged. + 

“Here is no life for a soldier,” he would say; “when I was in the army I could outmarch them all, and as for my shooting there was nothing to beat it! A man smokes tobacco, he does not sell it.” And this when Nerone, persuaded at last, was actually paying him wages! + 

Once again their quarrels resounded through the house, more violent than ever, now that Geppe was older. + 

“I have got a dog for a grandson,” said Nerone; “a lazy, insolent, lousy dog. What have I done to deserve it?” + 

And in the very middle of all the confusion, who should turn up but Berta with her twins. + 

“I’m going to make shells for Albert,” announced Berta. “My Albert’s enlisted, and the least I can do is to make ammunition for the poor old dear.” So she left the twins for her mother to look after, quite forgetting that they had been made for Albert, who much preferred them to shells. + 

Well, now there were babies again in the house, and rather fussy little babies. Poor Rosa, grown fat and a trifle breathless, found herself running up and down with bottles, trying first this patent mixture then that, in order to pander to their fancies. She who had come to the enviable age when the hips may grow larger and larger, she who had nursed Gian-Luca and reared him, then Geppe in addition to the inconsiderate Berta, must now perforce rear a pair of outraged twins, who preferred death it seemed, to the bottle. And Mario, who seldom protested these days, bore their colic-rent nights without a murmur; while Nerone, after storming and threatening to drown them, could never resist playing with Berta’s offspring, because in his heart he adored all babies, whether they were English or Italian. + 

VI + 

I + 

In spite of many doubts and contradictory statements, of party politics for and against, Italy came into the war. Then it was that from the windows near Coldbath Square, and from Aunt Ottavia’s windows in the square itself, there appeared as though by magic, strips of green, white and red; little flags, like humble hands stretched out towards the mother country from the poverty and squalor of her namesake. In Old Compton Street, however, might be seen two, splendid banners, one on Rocca’s shop, the other on Nerone’s; while the Casa Boselli, that displayed the Allied emblems, now added yet another to the group above the door. Teresa’s heart leapt with a sudden, fierce pride, then sank with a dreadful sense of fear; for how could she hope to obtain provisions⁠—all those strange, delicious things that had made her shop so famous⁠—if the country that provided the bulk of her stock might itself be faced with starvation? + 

She was careful to hide these fears from Fabio, but Fabio had fears of his own; he knew quite as well as Teresa could know what this might mean to their business. But although his hands shook as he put up the flag, and his old cheeks were paler than usual, he lifted a fold of the flag and kissed it, for nature is stronger than naturalization. + 

Mario and Rosa looked at their son, and Mario said: “It is hard to be a father⁠—now if I were your brother we could fight together, we could share the hardship, the honor and the glory. If only I were not too old, Geppe!” + 

Nerone was like a creature possessed; Rosa became almost anxious about him. + 

“Guarda!” he exclaimed; “my very matches march!” + 

He stumped around the shop and up and down the street, talking volubly and loudly to any who would listen, giving packets of Italian cigarettes to passing Tommies⁠—yes, actually giving away his tobacco. + 

“Now you are safe, we are all safe,” he told them; “Italy will win the war!” + 

“Papa, you are wearing yourself out,” protested Rosa; “a man of your age to behave so⁠—it is foolish!” + 

“Today I am not an old man,” said Nerone; “today I am Italy, the eternal.” + 

Only Geppe, of them all, was strangely pale and silent, moving as though in a dream. His loose-lipped mouth sagged a little at the corners; sagged as it had done when he was a baby, and Rosa had taken away her hand. + 

“Eat, tesoro, my pretty,” urged his mother at dinner noticing his untouched food; “those who are going to protect us must eat, so that they may become strong.” + 

“I think that my stomach is upset,” muttered Geppe; “I do not feel very hungry.” + 

Rosa was constantly forcing back her tears, trying to be Spartan and splendid; trying to rejoice that she had a son to give to her country in its need. Whenever his eyes were upon her she smiled, but her smile was not reassuring; it got on Geppe’s nerves; as soon as he could he made an excuse and went out. He did not return until late that night, and when he came in at past twelve o’clock, Rosa, who was waiting up anxiously for him, knew that her son had been drinking. + 

II + 

Two days later Geppe received the order to rejoin his regiment at once. He sat staring helplessly down at the paper where it lay on the breakfast-table. Through his poor, shrinking mind surged a chaos of ideas. He would tell them all that he dared not go; he would rush to the docks and get aboard a ship bound for some neutral port; he would fling himself on his grandfather’s mercy and beg and implore him to hide him; he would cling to his mother and surely she would help him, perhaps if he cried she would find a way to help him as she had done when he was little; he would go to the chemist and buy enough strychnine; he could say that it was needed to kill a wounded cat⁠—anything, anything, anything but war! He had heard of the sort of things that happened in war on his journey home through France. That little, innocent bit of paper, how could it mean so much? If he tore it to pieces that would not help him, for the thing was possessed of life everlasting; destroy it and there was its damnable spirit waiting to drive and hound him. No good, no good, he must make a clean breast, he must speak now, revealing his shame, he must say to them all: “For Christ’s sake, help me! I am sick with the fear of going.” + 

He looked up, his mouth was already half open; then he met all those terrible eyes. Six terrible eyes in three terrible faces⁠—terrible because so trustful, so gentle; so intolerably, pathetically proud. Nerone’s old eyes almost patient and loving, because his grandson was a soldier; Mario’s eyes very big, very round, and full to the brim with the pride of his manhood, because he had made a man; Rosa’s eyes all swimming in tears, but with something like sunlight behind them⁠—Rosa’s motherhood looking out through the storm, making the beauty of a rainbow round her⁠—a rainbow, the emblem of promise. + 

Geppe’s own eyes dropped again to the paper which he folded and put in his pocket; and something of Rosa’s glory reached him, so that when next he looked up at them all his trembling mouth was smiling. He nodded and managed to throw back his shoulders, managed to light a cigarette; not knowing in the least why he did these things, but suddenly feeling that they had to be done. + 

So that was how Geppe went to the war. In less than a week he was gone. Nerone could brag to Rocca of his grandson, and Mario could hold his head high at the Capo. Per Bacco! Why not? Was he not a proud father? Had he not every reason to be proud? + 

Only Rosa, bombarding the saints with her prayers, knew that her son was afraid. She did not implore them to give Geppe life, but courage in the face of death. + 

III + 

Italy was calling her children home; very soon three waiters had gone from the Capo and only Mario remained. + 

In the place of his waiters the Padrone put women, for men were increasingly difficult to come by, and those who had had a little experience could find work at the larger restaurants. These women were careless and inefficient and the wages they demanded were high; but someone must carry the food to the tables, and somehow the Capo must keep its doors open. The Padrone swore terrible oaths in his heart, but outwardly he submitted. So at last Mario found himself a headwaiter with his salary actually raised, for the harassed Padrone was almost reduced to looking upon Mario as a godsend. + 

“At least, I have you, my Mario,” he said; “you at least know the ways of the Capo. Dio! These women are enough to drive one mad, but we two must work together like brothers.” + 

And Mario was so touched that he almost wept⁠—such kindness, such praise from the Padrone! + 

“I always knew it must come in the end,” he told Nerone; “today you behold in me the headwaiter of the Capo di Monte. Everything comes to him who has patience.” + 

IV + 

Roberto, the wine-waiter, was the first to leave the Doric, and before he went he said to Gian-Luca: “Now I may realize the dream of my life, now I may learn how to fly. As a child I would watch the birds in the air, I would think: ‘If only I too had wings.’⁠—Well, now my country shall provide me with wings; I shall ask to join the Air Service.” + 

Gian-Luca looked down at the little man with interest; so Roberto was longing to fly. Roberto had never shown signs of any longings; he had just been very neat, very skillful, very quick, with a most retentive memory for a vintage; and all the time he had been longing for wings, longing to conquer the air⁠—perhaps he had longed to fly out of the Doric⁠—what a curious thing was life. + 

A few weeks later went Giovanni, the trancheur, and he too confided in Gian-Luca. The war was loosening all tongues it seemed. + 

“I hope I may never come back⁠—” said Giovanni. “I shall try to get killed very soon.” + 

“Madonna! But why?” inquired Gian-Luca, startled. “You are such a wonderful trancheur, Giovanni; Millo will certainly keep your place open⁠—what have you got to complain of?” + 

Giovanni looked away: “It is not that, my friend, I know I am an excellent trancheur⁠—but when a man has a great pain in his heart⁠—” + 

“Not that girl who married the porter, surely!” + 

“Ma si, my Anna,” Giovanni nodded gravely. + 

Gian-Luca stared incredulously at him⁠—all this sorrow it seemed, over Anna. Anna had not even been attractive, a red-haired girl with the eyes of a fox⁠—and after the first not a sigh from Giovanni, not a tremor of that long, thin, accurate knife. What a curious thing was love. + 

V + 

One day soon after Giovanni’s departure, Gian-Luca was sent for by Millo. Millo was looking both tired and worried. + 

“Now we are going to lose Riccardo,” he said; “this is a fearful war!” He stared at Gian-Luca in silence for a moment, and then: “It is you who shall take his place, I will make you the head of the restaurant, with an increase of salary, of course.” + 

Gian-Luca thought: “The large restaurant⁠—ah, so I get it at last!” And he knew that he had been hoping for this, ever since Italy had joined in the war. + 

It seemed like a kind of revenge on life, this sudden rise in his fortunes⁠—a revenge on Riccardo, whom Italy wanted. His heart was beating with fierce resentment, for one by one they were all going home, these neat, quiet waiters of the Doric; and one by one they would cease to be waiters, they would look upon splendid, terrible things, with the eyes of men who were brothers. + 

“My God! If only I could go with them⁠—” he thought, “if only I too belonged⁠—” But his face was impassive as he stood before Millo, and his voice when he spoke was quite calm. He said: “And the octagon room, signore? Who will take charge of my octagon room? It is very important, I have my special clients, I am used to their little fads.” + 

“Do you mean that you want that too?” inquired Millo, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. + 

“That is what I should very much like,” smiled Gian-Luca. “I should like to undertake both rooms.” + 

Millo considered him thoughtfully, and his tolerant eyes were a little puzzled. There was something he did not understand about Gian-Luca, something very angry yet coldly ambitious, he had only suspected it of late. He could feel the hard, calculating thing as he sat there, and the nearness of it oppressed him. For even to Millo, engrossed in the Doric, came a sudden, unexpected revulsion. + 

“You have your ambitions, I observe,” he said quietly; “oh, well, it is an ill wind that blows no one any good!” + 

“As you say, signore, a very ill wind⁠—you are right, I have my ambitions.” + 

“Sit down,” ordered Millo, “we must talk this thing out, we must see if your idea will work. You would wish to retain your old salary of course, to which I am to add Riccardo’s⁠—for you know and I know just how valuable you are, but above all you know it⁠—is not that so, Gian-Luca?” + 

“Magari,” murmured Gian-Luca softly. + 

“Very well. But have you considered what this will mean? You will have a motley crew of waiters under you, not the well-trained men that you have been used to⁠—and soon you may have a few irritable clients, for our food is already less good than it has been. At the same time I will not lower my flag one instant before I must, therefore you will have to be answerable to me for the standard of two rooms instead of one. I have known a long time that of all my headwaiters you are undoubtedly the most competent, but no man can do more than his best, Gian-Luca; are you sure that your best will content me?” + 

“If it does not, signore, you have only to speak⁠—” + 

“Very well,” said Millo, “we will try it and see. Riccardo is going in ten days’ time.” + 

Riccardo smiled rather unpleasantly when Gian-Luca told him the news. “So at last you jump into my shoes,” he remarked. “It pays well to feel that one has no country.” + 

Gian-Luca was patient. “Perhaps⁠—” he replied. He could very well afford not to lose his temper. + 

“Oh, yes, but surely!” retorted Riccardo. “However, I have a feeling in my bones that I am not going to get killed.” + 

“In that case you may get your old job back again, unless I should prove to be the better man, Riccardo.” + 

“And if you should prove to be the better man?” + 

“Then it is Millo who will have to decide. One cannot have everything in this world⁠—you have a country and I have your job, that seems to me perfectly fair.” + 

Riccardo turned on his heel and left him. “He means to oust me if he can,” he thought bitterly. “He means to make himself indispensable to Millo, he has always wanted to oust me.” + 

Gian-Luca was thinking: “If I were Riccardo, I would not be caring so much about my job, but since I am Gian-Luca, then I care very much⁠—a man must care about something⁠—” + 

VI + 

And now Gian-Luca worked as never before, for he felt himself second only to Millo. There was no assistant manager above him, for Millo had always preferred to stand alone. He was not unlike a certain type of statesman who abrogates office after office to himself, mistrustful of other people’s abilities. Oh, yes, there were accountants and clerks and cashiers, but what did they know about the ways of clients? Oh, yes, there was all that vast army below stairs, but who but Gian-Luca was responsible now for the standard of the dishes they served? Giuliano’s grillroom counted for little compared with the two restaurants. Giuliano was gentle if dishes went wrong, as they sometimes did now that the best chefs were gone, but not so Gian-Luca⁠—he was difficult to please. + 

“Take this outrage back to the kitchen,” he would order. “I asked for pommes soufflées, not greasy goloshes⁠—and get that Sauce Béarnaise remade, and be quick! I have clients waiting to be fed.” + 

Gian-Luca was cordially hated these days by all save Millo and his clients; but he kept the flag flying against terrific odds⁠—he had pity neither for himself nor for others. Through all the stress and anxiety of war the Doric still stood forth proudly supreme, so that men home on leave said: + 

“Let’s go to the Doric; it’s the only place now where the service is decent and where you still get decent food.” + 

And they came in their dozens, these men home on leave, most of them still very young; some of them whole but some of them maimed, with eyes that no longer saw very clearly, or a leg that dragged between crutches. + 

“Hallo, Gian-Luca! Still here?” they would say, glad to find an old friend. “Well, thank the Lord, no one’s grabbed you yet⁠—yes, all right, if you say so⁠—it sounds jolly good⁠—and bring us a bottle of champagne.” For they thought of him always as an Italian who was waiting to be called to his class. + 

Then Gian-Luca would see that they got food and wine, would see that they feasted on the fat of the Doric, for even against his will he must like them⁠—they had seemed very different from this in the old days. Sometimes he would want to hurry away as he had that night when war was declared, but now it would be because he liked them too well. All the manhood that was in him would leap out towards them, towards the thing that they stood for. He would feel a sudden, imperative impulse to seize some brown-faced young soldier by the hand, to say: + 

“Take me along; I too want to fight.” But then he would remember himself and smile bitterly: “These English are not my people,” he would think. “Why should I go until I am taken? Here I am quickly making my fortune⁠—well, why not? I am surely poorer than they are, for I have not even got a country.” + 

VII + 

Another seven months of the war dragged by, and then came conscription in England. At first they took only the unmarried men which, however, did not deceive Millo. That February he said to Gian-Luca: + 

“I am going to lose you quite soon⁠—the question is, how shall I replace you when it happens?” + 

Gian-Luca answered. “I will stay until they fetch me.” And his mouth looked arrogant and stubborn. + 

“You have served me faithfully and well,” Millo told him. “I do not forget good service. You have worked like ten men to keep your rooms going, and for that I want to say that I am grateful⁠—well, I think that is all, Gian-Luca.” + 

That March came the news that Riccardo had been killed. Riccardo would never come back to the Doric, in spite of that feeling in his bones. + 

“So now I am sure of his place,” thought Gian-Luca. He felt no particular pity for Riccardo⁠—after all, Riccardo had died for his country, and could there be a better way to die? + 

But Millo was secretly grieved in his heart, for the little Alano was also dead. Oh, but many who had faithfully served the Doric would never serve it again. Day after day alone in his office sat Millo, thinking always of food; struggling with problems of luncheons and dinners, of dwindling provisions and a dwindling staff. Secretly grieved in his heart, yes, perhaps; but doggedly determined to see the thing through; for war or no war, there were people to feed, people who still expected to be fed very much as they always had been. + 

VIII + 

When Gian-Luca was conscripted in the June of that year he was conscious of a great relief; thankful that the moment had arrived at last when he no longer had any choice in the matter. + 

He said to Maddalena: “I am ready to go, I am ready to fight side by side with the English. There have been days lately when I have felt that I must fight. As a woman you may not understand; it is something that lies hidden in all men, I think⁠—a kind of primitive instinct.” + 

And she answered: “I am only a woman, amore, and my heart is terribly afraid⁠—and yet I am glad to think that you go⁠—so perhaps I do understand.” + 

Then his mind became practical again from long habit, and he smiled contentedly at her: “I have managed to make certain of my job before going, my job will be waiting for me when I come back. I am lucky, for now I can go to the war with Millo tucked away in my pocket; he will never forget the work I have done, what the Doric owes to Gian-Luca.” + 

But a few days later he was greatly disturbed to find himself placed in the Army Service Corps. They said that with so much experience as a waiter, he might prove very useful to them. + 

“This is not what I want at all,” he protested. “I wish to go out and fight.” + 

“Everyone must go where they are most useful now,” was all the reply he got. + 

“If you had your little fancies why didn’t you enlist in the early days?” inquired a comrade-in-arms. “In the early days a man could pick and choose, now it’s just: ‘Do as you’re told.’ ” And he added, “But you’re not an Englishman, are you? Aren’t you an Italian or something?” + 

“Whatever I am, I am good enough to fight,” said Gian-Luca, flushing darkly. + 

“Well, don’t lose your shirt!” advised his acquaintance. “When we’re all out in France you can get yourself transferred.” + 

“Can I?” inquired Gian-Luca eagerly. + 

“Yes, of course, it’s easy enough out there.” + 

Gian-Luca’s spirits began to revive, and he made a joke of the thing to Maddalena. “Of course it is all nonsense!” he told her laughing; “I shall get transferred quite easily, they say. I am young and strong, they have only to see me.” And then he surveyed himself gravely in the glass, passing his hands down his slim, wiry flanks, thumping his broad, deep chest. + 

Maddalena hid the joy in her heart⁠—her heart that had been so terribly afraid⁠—and because she was a woman who loved very greatly, she sent up a quick little prayer to the Madonna that Gian-Luca might never get transferred. For most of that night she prayed to the Madonna and now every morning and evening she would pray, for this seemed like a sign of God’s infinite mercy. + 

Gian-Luca went off to his training in high spirits, so sure did he feel of his transfer. As the camp was near London he got home fairly often, and Maddalena marveled at the new gayness of him, he seemed to have grown so much younger. He would stroll about smoking the traditional Gold Flake, making fun of his duties in the Army Service Corps. + 

“It is not precisely the Doric!” he told her, and then he laughed, remembering the food, “and yet it is rather like, too⁠—,” he added, “and that is what makes it so funny. However, I shall not remain long at this job, there is other work waiting out there in France.” + 

He was thoughtful and gentle with her at this time, considering her plans in his absence. “You had better stay here where you are,” he advised. “You will have the separation allowance, but in any case there is plenty of money tucked away for you at the bank.” + 

“But that is for your future,” she protested, astonished. “That is our nest-egg for your restaurant.” + 

“The future will take care of itself,” he said glibly. “Be saving, of course, but meanwhile you must live; I do not want to think of your going without things⁠—there is plenty of money at the bank.” + 

One day he strolled into the public library and there he found the Librarian. He had not seen him now for nearly a year. + 

“Hallo!” said Gian-Luca, then he stopped abruptly⁠—the Librarian’s hair was quite white. + 

The Librarian said: “So you are in khaki? Have you made up your mind to go?” + 

“The Government made it up for me,” smiled Gian-Luca. + 

“Oh, of course,” said the Librarian. “Conscription⁠—I forgot.” + 

He looked very small as he stood at his desk, the more so as he now stooped badly. + 

“What news of your sons?” Gian-Luca inquired. + 

“No news⁠—” said the Librarian. “They can’t send me news now.” + 

“Why not?” + 

“Because they were killed six months ago within a week of each other.” + 

There ensued a painful interval of silence, then Gian-Luca stammered: “I am sorry.” + 

“Oh, yes⁠—and I am sorry too,” said his friend. “After all, I did love them better than books⁠—does that surprise you, Gian-Luca?” He did not seem to expect an answer, for he went on to talk about the war. He discussed it as though it were some curious volume whose contents had left him bewildered. “I do try, but I can’t understand it⁠—” he said. “Why must human beings do such things? A lovely world⁠—a wonderful world⁠—and all broken up and trodden to pieces⁠—yet when my two boys said they wished to enlist, it was I who encouraged them to go. It was I who felt a deep hatred of the Germans⁠—a far deeper hatred than either of my sons⁠—my sons went out from a sense of duty, but I would have gone to kill⁠—and that’s funny too, in a man of my sort who has spent all his life among peaceful things like books.” + 

“But I feel as you do!” Gian-Luca said quickly. “Surely we must all feel as you do.” + 

“Yet now I don’t hate any more⁠—” said the Librarian, “because they have killed both my sons, I can’t hate⁠—that seems very queer to me⁠—” + 

“It is queer,” thought Gian-Luca. “He is suffering from shock.” And as soon as he could he made his escape; that white hair had begun to depress him. “I must go,” he said suddenly, holding out his hand. “I am only on very short leave.” + 

“Well, God bless you⁠—” muttered the little Librarian, and he turned again to his books. + 

IX + 

There came an afternoon a few months later when the real goodbyes must be said. Gian-Luca and his wife went to Old Compton Street, where the clan had gathered itself together as it did on all momentous occasions. + 

Fabio wept as he kissed Gian-Luca, remembering that night many years ago when his cheek had been pressed against an unwanted child⁠—“Little Gian-Luca come to Nonno,” he had said. So now, because he was growing very old, he must needs shed a few facile tears. Rosa was there with Berta’s twins whom she had not dared to leave at home, for like the other young things whom Rosa had cared for, the twins had become unruly. Nerone was there, with twenty-four packets of good Macedonia which he pressed upon Gian-Luca; and after a little Mario came in, then Rocca with his signora. + 

Nerone grumbled: “The English are slow, and as for the French, they are slower. Moreover the French stole those horses from St. Mark’s⁠—I consider it a pity that we fight for the French. However,” he added, “it cannot be helped, and thank God we have Italy now; Italy will quickly finish up the war. Ma che! What a wonderful country!” And then he produced a snapshot of Geppe, which he carried about in his pocket. “Here is young Italy!” said Nerone proudly. “Does not the boy look magnificent?” + 

Rocca said: “Give them a thrust from me, a good thrust in the belly, Gian-Luca, and remember to say as your bayonet goes in: ‘This is a present from Rocca!’ ” + 

Mario, whose eyes were moist with emotion, dared not speak because of the lump in his throat. Teresa was silent because, since the war, she so seldom spoke at all. + 

In the end Rosa threw her arms round Gian-Luca and her tears splashed on his tunic, just as they had splashed long ago on to his head, spoiling his appetite for breakfast. Everyone promised to be at the station to see the troop train depart; everyone kissed Gian-Luca on both cheeks, then seized both his hands and kissed him again⁠—all save Teresa who kissed him on the forehead, coldly, as though she kissed because she must. And at that Maddalena’s heart swelled with anger, and finding Gian-Luca’s hand she pressed it. She, who was so gentle, hated old Teresa at that moment for a woman of iron and steel, for a woman without the bowels of compassion, who all through Gian-Luca’s life had denied him. + 

But as they walked home together that evening, Gian-Luca said: “Listen, my Maddalena, she grows old, the Padrona of the Casa Boselli⁠—they are very short-handed in the shop, I notice. Will you not go and help Nonna sometimes? I think she would be very glad.” + 

Maddalena marveled at his infinite patience, the patience that could keep him loyal to Teresa. + 

“I admire her so much,” he was saying thoughtfully, “she is rather a splendid old woman, I think⁠—and what a fine head she still has for business!” + 

Who could deny him so simple a request? Certainly not Maddalena at that moment. “All that you wish I will do,” she promised, glancing at his calm, happy face in the lamplight⁠—so calm, so happy, in spite of the fact that in three days’ time he would leave her. + 

VII + 

I + 

Although Gian-Luca had noticed before his departure that Teresa was very short-handed, the exigencies of his work at the Doric, and later on of his military training, had prevented his suspecting the full depths of the disaster that threatened the Casa Boselli. Even Maddalena who now went there daily, only vaguely suspected the truth at first; for how could she know the amounts that were owing? Teresa never spoke of these things; the deeper her trouble the less it became vocal⁠—that was Teresa’s way. + 

It was not a dearth of customers that was killing the business, but a dearth of commodities to sell them; a stoppage of nearly all the supplies that should have come from Italy or France. Italy was producing less and less, while daily requiring more and more for home consumption; one after another her exports were failing, and with them the tiny, struggling atom known as the Casa Boselli. Those fine new glass cases that had cost so much money, and that should have been harboring delicious things to eat, now harbored nothing but mendacious tins⁠—mendacious, because they were all completely empty. Fabio had scrubbed them and soldered down their tops, then set them along the shelves, for anything was better than the heartbreaking void in those acquisitive glass cases. + 

One by one the men employed by Teresa had been consumed by the war; like the food⁠—the salami, prosciutto, mortadella, parmesan cheeses and decadent tomatoes⁠—they had ceased to contribute to individual stomachs. For now there was only a universal stomach, whose size and capacity no man could gauge; the stomach of a horribly greedy modern Moloch, for whom the armies must be fattened. + 

The new shop was now almost entirely deserted, there being no Italians to tend it. Two young English girls who had stayed for a fortnight had left to work in an aeroplane factory; Teresa’s eyes had got on their nerves⁠—always watching, always spying, they had said. There had followed a series of young girls and men, all most unsatisfactory, according to Teresa; the English did not like her imperious ways, and she on her part thought them lazy, and said so. No doubt they were trying, but then so was Teresa, who spoke little, it is true, but those words when they came, were as hard and as sharp as her eyes. And then there had been those zeppelins over London, which, while failing to strike real terror to the heart, had succeeded in laying a fuse to all tempers. People felt peppery after a raid, and Teresa’s employees had proved no exception. + 

Maddalena was ordered to serve in the old shop, in which were now gathered together all the forces that remained to the Casa Boselli, that is, all save the last adventurous stronghold that still stood to Teresa as the symbol of success, her unique macaroni factory. + 

The macaroni factory! All night long she lay awake, as straight and as stiff as a corpse, beside Fabio; scarcely twitching a muscle in case she should rouse him, in case he might talk, disturbing her thoughts. All night the thoughts whirred like wheels in her head⁠—like the wheels of the macaroni factory⁠—wheels made of steel that turned faster and faster, stretching their leather bands tighter and tighter⁠—and the bands were somehow a part of her head. All night those wheels whirred out first this thought then that, frightening thoughts because of the darkness. Not a German and Austrian invasion combined, not a sky full of zeppelins, not a world full of fire, could have equaled in terror those whirring thoughts that came as she lay beside her husband. + 

For the macaroni factory was threatened on all sides, the forces of disruption were closing in upon it. There was now no expert left to attend to the machines, or to mix that enormous mountain of flour⁠—sixty pounds with an egg to each pound. Francesco had been called up and with him the others, and in their stead, one poor, bewildered Anglo-Saxon struggled resentfully to cope with the pasta; and the longer he struggled the less apt he became in its delicate fabrication. And then there was the flour⁠—a dreadful, grey mixture of wheat, barley, maize, and Heaven alone knew what other disgusting adulteration; a gravelly, husky, unpalatable outrage. Why, the very machines spewed it forth. You could turn it into something resembling dough, you could stir it and knead it and put it through the rollers⁠—one hundred times you could roll it and more⁠—and when you had finished, your fine rubber sheeting would be lumpy and harsh and vile to the touch as a hand that is covered with corns. Who could cut pasta from such stuff as this? Who could produce the simple lasagne, let alone the ornate bicorni? + 

“And yet,” Teresa would think in the darkness, “I will never abandon my beautiful factory! Life itself has not beaten Teresa Boselli, then shall it be said that she is beaten by flour⁠—so flimsy a thing, so foolish a thing, that a puff of breath can disperse it? I will master this accursed new filth they call flour⁠—yes, but how? But how? But how?” + 

Every morning she would get up looking gaunter than ever, and would hurry down to her factory. There she would gaze with something like despair at the untidy traces of yesterday’s failures. When the poor Anglo-Saxon arrived she would point with an angry, accusing finger. + 

“So much waste!” she would exclaim. “You must make the flour go further.” + 

“Cawn’t be done!” he would assure her, loudly sucking his teeth. + 

“It has got to be done,” Teresa would say coldly. “If you cannot do it there are others who can.” + 

One day he had retorted: “Very well then, you find ’em.” After which he had demanded his wages and had left. + 

“Imbecile! I am glad that he has gone,” frowned Teresa. “I am glad to be rid of the untidy pig. I must find a younger man to take over this work.” But no one whom she found gave satisfaction. + 

II + 

That Christmas the pains in Fabio’s back were rather more violent than usual, and in consequence he thought a great deal about God and much less about the Casa Boselli. + 

It was now his duty to help Maddalena to price their diminishing stock; his the task of watching a fluctuating market that bucked up and down like a turbulent bronco, thoroughly out of hand. But somehow those pains in his poor old back, together with his thoughts about God, made such trifles as customers, food and money, seem very far off and unimportant, so that sometimes now he would make mistakes, on the wrong side, too, for the Casa Boselli. Then it was that Teresa would undress him and rub him and swathe him in yards of red flannel; after which she would push him back again between the shafts, like an antiquated horse that only stands up because it is strapped to its toil. He would hobble about consulting his price list and dolefully shaking his head. + 

“Is it the bacon that has risen?” he would ask, “or is it the last of those imported hams?” And Teresa would have to desert her cash-desk and reprice the stock herself. + 

Maddalena did all in her power to help them, but she had her own trouble to bear, for Gian-Luca’s letters from France were very brief. He had not yet got his transfer, it seemed, and was working as a sergeant in charge of a mess somewhere far back at the Base. He said very little because of the censor, but his wife could read between the lines, and what she read there was a great discontent. Those were dreary little letters that Gian-Luca wrote home from the Officers’ Mess at the Base. And yet she was thankful, oh, deeply thankful to know that her man was safe; and now she redoubled her prayers to the Madonna, begging that the transfer might never be granted, begging that the creature she loved might come home unharmed when the war was ended. But sometimes while she prayed she would feel strangely guilty as though she were betraying Gian-Luca; as though she were plotting behind his back, as though she and the Madonna were plotting. + 

“It is only my fancy⁠—” she would try to tell herself. “Every poor woman, all over Europe, is praying for her husband’s safety.” Yet so anxious was she that she went to St. Peter’s to consult old Father Antonio. + 

Father Antonio smiled at her confession and proceeded to reassure her. “Your prayers will be answered as God thinks best. He knows that you pray for your husband’s conversion, and He knows that you must pray for his safe return, for is it not He who puts love in the heart, and who knows the way of that love? I would not worry about it, my daughter, I would just confide in the Madonna, and she, through God’s grace, will do what is best⁠—I think I would leave it all to her.” + 

After that Maddalena felt a little more happy, but she wished that Gian-Luca could get leave. His letters said nothing about coming home; perhaps he was afraid of losing his transfer⁠—perhaps he was staying out there by choice, hoping to get sent into the trenches if he stayed⁠—could he do that? She wondered. + 

Meanwhile Teresa now sat long into the night, trying to balance her accounts. She would have to go upstairs to rub Fabio’s lumbago, but when she had done this she would go down again to her office and get out her ledgers. Perhaps a letter would have come that evening⁠—a letter from the bank, requesting payment of the interest that was overdue; a letter that she dared not ignore for a moment, while not knowing how to answer. Alone in her office sat hard old Teresa facing defeat and disgrace; facing an incredibly empty world as she had done nearly thirty years ago. Then she had lost the fruit of her womb, Olga, the beloved; and now she might lose the fruit of her brain, the fruit of a lifetime of unceasing toil⁠—the beloved Casa Boselli. + 

“Cento, duecento cinquanta⁠—” she would mutter, staring down at the figures; and then she would get up to pace her small office, and then she would sit down again. She would think: “If only we could get our supplies, if only we could get our supplies!” There were moments now when she would have walked to Rome in order to fetch a tin of tomatoes. Then her thoughts would begin to spin round and round like the wheels in the macaroni factory; “My pasta⁠—my wonderful pasta⁠—” she would murmur, and her voice would be almost tremulous with sadness. “Who can I find who will make me my pasta, now that Francesco has gone? + 

III + 

After Christmas Fabio felt a little better, and so he thought less about God. Indeed, by the New Year he had almost recovered, and this was to the good, for the factory machines were crying out loudly for attention. Fabio, so his wife had discovered since the war, had a very cunning hand with machines; he could make fine adjustments with accuracy, oiling and coaxing the while. + 

“Sii buono, sii bravo; suvvia!” he would coax; and then, strange to say, the machines would run smoothly, as though they wished to pleased Fabio. + 

That January Fabio adjusted the machines, after which they gave much less trouble; but by March there was no one in the factory to run them, for the latest acquisition had thrown up his job, preferring to make munitions. Now indeed Teresa had her back against the wall, for she could not replace the man. There was plenty of good work going those days, and better wages than she paid to be earned. Then week by week the flour was growing worse, becoming more difficult to mix; she would gladly have taken on the factory herself but that she must needs be always in the cash desk; and as for Maddalena, she was wanted in the shop, besides which she had never learnt how to make pasta. Yes, but old Fabio had⁠—he might try to deny it, but Teresa knew that he lied. As a lad he had worked in a macaroni factory, he had told her so many times in the past, it was therefore quite useless to lie. And, moreover, it was being a deserter, a traitor to the Casa Boselli in its need. + 

“It is you who must make the pasta,” she told him, “it is you who must run the machines, it is you who must help me to save our business. Ma che! You are old, but you are still a man, and you know how the pasta should be made.” + 

“No, no,” he whimpered, “I do not know, Teresa. If I once knew, then I have forgotten⁠—and my arms have grown weak for the kneading of flour, and my back is weak too from those horrible pains. As God is my witness I cannot do it! I am old⁠—very old, Teresa.” + 

“Yes, and I too am old,” she answered harshly, “but I do not whine like a cur. I say: ‘No, I am not yet utterly defeated, and while I have breath I fight.’ ” + 

“But my back, my miserable back⁠—” he pleaded, peering at her face with dim eyes. + 

“A little work will limber your back; a little work hurts no man,” said Teresa. + 

And knowing that further resistance was useless, Fabio muttered “Si, si.” + 

So all through that war-racked, agonizing spring Fabio tried to make pasta; tried to lift and carry and knead and roll the strange-colored flour, till his aged arms were corded with hard, blue veins. It was pitiable how little he made, considering his long hours of toil⁠—not enough to throw to a coop of chickens, according to Teresa⁠—but Fabio worked on in an anguish of spirit; dumb, too, because when a man had grown old what was the use of complaining? The sweat would go pouring down both his cheeks and drip into the dough unperceived; and sometimes there would come a queer singing in his ears, and long, floating black things in front of his eyes, so that he must needs stop and take off his glasses, in order to brush away those black things. But the black things would remain, and now in addition some flour would have got into his eye; and when this happened he would go to Maddalena, who would make him wet his handkerchief with the tip of his tongue, after which she would wipe out the flour. + 

“Poverino!” she would think as he turned to leave her. “Poverino! He grows very feeble. It is cruel to make him do such heavy work⁠—but then Teresa is cruel.” + 

Yet in spite of herself she was forced to admire this woman of steel and iron, this gallant old pilot who clung to the wheel while the storm increased in fury; this woman who did not spare Fabio, it was true, but who did not spare herself either. When Maddalena wrote to Gian-Luca these days, she wrote with admiration of Teresa; but she did not tell him what she herself suspected, namely, that the Casa Boselli must go under in spite of those hands on the wheel. Not for all the world, much less for Teresa, would she have worried her man; nor would she have touched one penny of his savings for fifty Casa Bosellis. Now Maddalena also had her back to the wall, but she was fighting for Gian-Luca. He had little enough cause to be grateful, she felt, to this woman who would not love him. He had worked ungrudgingly all his young life, and what he had earned he should keep. Yes, he should keep it, though the Casa Boselli were split to bits on the rocks. For though neither Teresa nor Fabio mentioned money, Maddalena had eyes in her head, and what she was never told of she guessed⁠—and then there was Nerone, who began to talk freely about Teresa’s large debts. Teresa’s speculations were now an open secret, as most secrets were in Old Compton Street. + 

“Dio! That Fabio is a fool!” said Nerone. “Any man is who is ruled by a woman, but then Fabio was always a poor fool.” + 

IV + 

That summer came a series of rather bad air raids, and Fabio was openly afraid. He would sit in the office under the pavement, praying, with his fingers stuffed in his ears, or begging Teresa to take him to the Tube, where Rosa had gone with the twins. Teresa, however, despised such precautions. + 

“If we die, we die,” was her motto. “The Tube is for mothers with little children, not for old men like you and old women like me. No, I will not let you go to the Tube,” she would say. Then Fabio would begin to cry. + 

The raids added much to his misery, for now he could never go to sleep. “Do you think they will come tonight?” he would enquire, peering anxiously up at the sky. + 

Nor could he be sure that they would not come by day⁠—there had been a bad daylight raid⁠—and sometimes now, while he kneaded his dough, he would pause to listen, mistaking the whirr of the wheels for an aeroplane. He began to suffer from stupefying headaches and a full, tight feeling in his head; the dough he was kneading would go round and round, and with it the machines and the room. If he stood in a draught he would feel his lumbago, that terrifying pain across his back⁠—supposing a raid should come at that moment and catch him unable to move⁠— + 

But one day in October, the God of his lumbago drew nearer, becoming the God of his soul; and Fabio’s old knees gave under him, and his head fell forward and lay upon the table, and his cheek lay buried deep in the flour that his weak hands had failed to mix. + 

That was how they found him two hours later⁠—just a little, old bundle that had once been a man, with flour on its clothes, on its hands, on its face; flour, too, on its halo of white hair. All foolish weakness he had been, that Fabio, and very often afraid; afraid of Teresa, afraid of God, and latterly terribly afraid of the Germans. He had little enough to tell of himself, now that he must face St. Peter at the Gate⁠—but perhaps he said: “I tried to make pasta⁠—I did try very hard to make pasta⁠—” + 

V + 

Now that he was dead and gone, everyone knew how much they had liked poor Fabio. They missed the mild-eyed, deprecatory figure that had wandered about Old Compton Street for more years than they cared to remember. But Nerone knew how much he had loved Fabio, and that was a very different thing. Nerone mourned the friend of his youth, and with him the passing of his own generation. + 

“I suppose it will be my turn next,” said Nerone. “I am not so very much younger than he was; but God grant that I die in Italy⁠—when this war is ended Nerone goes home.” + 

“So you shall, papa,” comforted Rosa. + 

“Ma sicuro!” Mario said kindly. + 

After the funeral Nerone spoke little, but he went to the cupboard and found his dominoes. He turned them out on to the sitting-room table, where he dusted them one by one; from time to time he spat on his finger and rubbed some dirt off an ivory face, then, he laid them back gently, reverently even, as though they were poor little corpses. He made Rosa go out and buy him some striped ribbon⁠—the green, white and red that they were selling in the shops⁠—and with this he carefully tied up the box, then put it at the back of the cupboard. Thus, the dominoes had a small military funeral, being laid to rest in the colors of their country; and all this for the love and honor of Fabio, who had not had a military funeral. + 

Teresa was alone now at the Casa Boselli, alone, too, at night in her bed. No need to lie stiffly not twitching a muscle, for now there was no old husband to wake⁠—Fabio was sleeping very soundly. All night long she could think undisturbed. Oh, and Teresa had very many thoughts, some of them coming unbidden to her mind⁠—queer, faraway thoughts about sunshine and youth at a time of the gathering-in of the grapes. And the thoughts would paint pictures for old Teresa, and then she would begin to remember. Into these pictures that worried and perplexed her would come walking a quiet, unimportant little man; a man with the eyes of a patient dog whose importunate loving wearies the master, who, nevertheless, must keep it to guard him. Then, less dimly, would come the figure of that other⁠—so gallant, so merry, so passionately young, so anxious to drink youth down to the dregs⁠—ay, and to make her drink with him. And face to face they would stand, those two men, as perhaps they were standing now⁠—who could tell? For she was the debt that had lain between them, the debt that Fabio had paid for that other, who had been unwilling to pay. + 

How futile a thing was this so-called life, which always ended in death⁠—the death of Olga, the death of Fabio, the approaching death of the Casa Boselli. Struggle and sweat and sweat and struggle to make fine good pasta in the turmoil of war⁠—that was what Fabio had done, and had failed, for down he had dropped like a little old bundle, beside his huge mountain of flour⁠—Fabio the patient, the timid, the foolish⁠—Fabio, the father of Olga. + 

Thoughts, always thoughts, intolerable thoughts; but not pity, no, for pity was weakness⁠—weakness that might lead you to pray for the dead; you, who had long since done with prayers. + 

Teresa would sit up stiffly in the darkness, with her thin hands clenched on the bedspread. Her hard black eyes would be staring at nothing, now that she had them wide open. Then one night she must suddenly speak to the Madonna to whom she had not spoken for years. + 

“You think I am beaten!” she told her fiercely. “You are glad to think that Teresa is beaten, Teresa who will not serve you. But no, you are wrong, for Teresa is not beaten⁠—she will never be beaten while she lives! If she has to sell matches as a beggar in the streets she will not be beaten by you to her knees.” + 

And then she listened as though for an answer, an answer that did not come. For not in poor, faltering human speech could the Mother of God reply to Teresa. + 

“Ah!” said Teresa. “You answer me nothing, you wish me to think that you are angry. The foolishness of it! You are a thing of plaster that my hands destroyed easily many years ago. Less than a minute it took to destroy you⁠—of course you can answer me nothing!” + 

VIII + 

I + 

In the days that followed after Fabio’s death, the members of the clan showed their metal; and their metal, at bottom, was pure gold it seemed, for one and all they rallied to Teresa, rallied to the Casa Boselli. Nerone sent Rosa to help in the shop, preparing his own midday meal. Every morning at nine she arrived with the twins, who were shut up to play in Olga’s old bedroom. The afternoon frequently brought kind Mario who was anxious to do odd jobs; he might be seen dusting, or polishing brass, or even cleaning a window. Rocca discovered a clubfooted boy who happened to be an Italian, and Teresa engaged him to sweep and run errands⁠—only he could not run. Rocca would sometimes send round a small present, the tongue of an ox, the feet of a pig, or even a couple of kidneys; and these, considering the shortage of meat, were tokens of very real friendship. The Signora Rocca put on her old clothes and over them a large apron, then she went to Teresa and said abruptly: + 

“I am here to wash down and tidy those shelves. ‘Gold begets gold, but dust begets dust,’ as my mother would say when I was a child.” + 

And Teresa replied with another true proverb: “ ‘To find a staunch friend you must dig deep in trouble.’ ” Then she added: “I thank you, signora.” + 

Sometimes Nerone would come in the evenings to drink a glass of Amarena, and he and Maddalena would talk to Teresa while she sat silently knitting. Maddalena would tell her the little she knew of Gian-Luca’s life out in France, hoping that now Teresa might soften, might even express some interest. + 

“So he is still working in the mess, the Gian-Luca⁠—” + 

Teresa would say. “Oh well, and why not? All our lives we have studied the art of feeding; no doubt he is better suited for that job than for firing off guns at the Germans.” And then she would appear to forget Gian-Luca, frowning a little at her knitting, murmuring softly over her stitches: “Knit one, purl two, knit one.” Even Aunt Ottavia, who was not of the clan, felt called upon to assist; she it was who could teach Teresa new patterns, she it was who discovered a fine book on knitting, which she promptly bought for Teresa. Berta turned up, a little through kindness, and a great deal through wishing to talk about Albert. Albert had received the Military Cross, and just after that⁠—which was more to the point⁠—a “blighty,” which was likely to keep him in London for many a day to come. Berta would soon have to take the twins home in order to pacify Albert. + 

There was someone, however, as high above them all as the Lord is above little fleas, and this person was Millo, who sat in his office and considered the Casa Boselli. Millo was omnipotent and so he knew all things, at least he knew all things connected with food, and one fine day he put on his hat and went forth to call on Teresa. + 

He said: “I would like to have a few words, suppose we go into the parlor.” And after a minute when they were alone: “Suppose you show me your ledgers.” + 

Teresa stood tall and defiant before him, but Millo divined the anguish in her heart. He smiled very kindly at the gallant old woman⁠—she was well worth saving because of her business, but above all because of her courage. + 

She said: “My ledgers are private, signore; I do not show my accounts.” + 

“And yet you will show them to me,” he told her, “for the Casa Boselli is about to go bankrupt⁠—and that would be a great pity, signora; we need the Casa Boselli.” + 

“I will save it yet,” Teresa answered without a tremor in her voice. “You may have heard rumors, and perhaps they are true, but the Casa Boselli will be saved.” + 

“Sicuro!” said Millo; “I have come here to save it. Now suppose you bring me those ledgers.” + 

For one awful moment she stared at him speechless, while the great tears welled in her eyes. For one awful moment she thought that she must weep, standing there before Millo. But the moment passed, and once more Teresa could look him squarely in the face. + 

II + 

“Why should you trouble about me, signore⁠—about the Casa Boselli?” + 

“That,” he said gently, “is quite beside the point⁠—I am rich enough, say, to pay for my fancies, and I have a fancy to offer you a partner⁠—one Francesco Millo, signora.” + 

Then Teresa turned without another word and brought him those miserable ledgers; brought him the accounts that she could not balance, and the copies of the deeds that she had signed for the bank, pledging her two long leases. He spread them out on the parlor table and made her sit down at his side; and presently he and Teresa were scheming, putting their business heads together, forgetful of all save the Casa Boselli and of how it might best be served. When at last he got up to go he was courteous, but a number of papers were reposing in his pocket, papers that Teresa had wished to keep secret for the prestige of the Casa Boselli. + 

“Our solicitors shall meet not later than next week, and meanwhile I must send you some help,” he said gravely; then he added: “I thank you for accepting this partner,” and stooping he kissed her hand. + 

Alone, Teresa sat very still, she was staring down at the table. Millo had saved the Casa Boselli, its debts would be paid, its credit restored, its future secured and cared for. Never again need she lie awake at night tormented by fears for her factory, never again need she worry about money, pacing up and down in her office. True, but never again would the Casa Boselli be all hers, all her own; never again would she unsheath her sword to do battle in its dear defense. She saw herself surrendering that sword. All battered and bent it was⁠—for love of the Casa Boselli she surrendered; so now in the moment of great salvation, she laid down her head and wept bitterly. She who had faced life with hard, dry eyes, she who had shed no tears over Fabio, now wept for love of the Casa Boselli as she had not wept since the death of Olga, thirty long years ago. + 

The great news spread quickly. Such wonderful news! Everyone congratulated Teresa. + 

“If only Fabio could know!” sighed Nerone. “He would surely have been so proud.” + 

An engineer arrived from the Doric, to grease and lay up the factory machines, for Millo advised no more making of pasta until the war came to an end. He had managed to find three Italian women, whom he sent with orders to help in the shop; and many other things he did for Teresa, setting the Casa Boselli in order to withstand the siege of the war. + 

Maddalena stayed on at Teresa’s side, as head of the new assistants; but Rosa went home again to Nerone, and Mario could rest in the afternoons, for now there were others to polish the brass, to dust, and to clean the windows. Teresa purchased a new black dress; grimmer than ever she stood in her cash-desk⁠—a tall old woman with the face of an eagle, and hair that refused to turn grey. + 

Now that the storm had been safely weathered, Maddalena wrote of these things to Gian-Luca. She wrote guardedly, however, to spare his feelings; that was how she had written of Fabio’s death, careful to omit the details. + 

And Gian-Luca sighed as he read her long letters, because he had taken to sighing lately; and his sighs would come from a weariness of spirit, from a sense of futility born of his boredom; for a transfer had not yet been granted Gian-Luca who was such an efficient mess-sergeant. + 

III + 

Death, that was striking at heart after heart, now struck at the hearts of Mario and Rosa; for that December Geppe was killed in the twelfth great battle of the Isonzo. Geppe had gone through those weeks of hell without so much as a scratch, and then, zipp! a large splinter of shrapnel in the stomach, and presently no more Geppe! + 

Mario was unexpectedly quiet, saying little, not weeping at all. He just gathered Rosa into his arms: “Povera, povera donna,” he murmured, rhythmically patting her shoulder. + 

Rosa’s tears came gushing up from her heart in a great, irresistible flood; she was all dissolving with love and pity, weeping less for the death of her only son than for what she knew must have been his fear in those last few agonizing hours. + 

Nerone sat silently staring at his birds and rubbing his wooden leg. When at last he did speak his voice was solemn. “A hero has died,” said Nerone slowly; “my daughter Rosa is the mother of a hero. Let it be always remembered among us how nobly our Geppe died.” + 

There had been nothing noble in poor Geppe’s death, unless death itself be noble⁠—he had died as hundreds of others had done, because there was no escape. Scourged and tormented by vile engines of war, by terrible, nerve-breaking, soul-sickening noise, by the smell and the sight and the slime of blood⁠—crowding, thrusting, yelling, retreating, in a welter of maimed, half-demented men⁠—that was how Geppe had died. But now he must needs be a hero to Nerone, and Rosa must mourn him as a hero, and Mario must speak of “My brave son Geppe,” as though Geppe had been willing and glad to die in that awful retreat of Caporetto. + 

Nerone went out with his snapshot the next day, and two weeks later there arrived an enlargement⁠—an enormous affair in a wide gilt frame⁠—showing Geppe’s weak face beneath a steel helmet, and a little blurred at that. Nerone hung the picture in the shop, above a low shelf just opposite the door, where all who came in must see it; he draped an Italian flag round the frame, a silk one, befitting a hero. Mario wrote out a little inscription which he stuck at the bottom of the picture: “Of your charity pray for the soul of Giuseppe Varese, who died that Italy might live.” Then he made the sign of the Cross on himself and muttered: “God grant that he rest in peace.” After which he hurried away to the Capo, for the living would be wanting their dinners. But Rosa came later and cleared from that shelf all the tins of tobacco and cigarettes, and in their place she set flowers before Geppe, so that now he looked more like a warrior-saint than the poor, frightened soldier he had been⁠—Geppe, who had always liked cigarettes infinitely better than flowers! + 

Whenever a customer glanced at the picture, Nerone would tell him about it. “Ecco! My grandson, Geppe!” he would say; “as gallant a lad as ever went to war. Ma che! The boy was a veritable tiger, but what will you, he was young, and the young are too reckless⁠—” And then he would spin out those long romances that his mind had woven around Geppe. + 

Rosa would hear him and shake her head sadly, thinking that her father had aged a great deal, thinking that the customer looked a little bored, a little anxious for his change. But not for the world would she have told old Nerone that he grew too voluble these days, that his yarns about Geppe were quite without foundation. + 

“After all, I believe he was fond of the boy,” she would think, and the thought would bring comfort with it; for nothing is so sweet a consolation in grief as the affection of others for our dead. + 

IV + 

Meanwhile there was no one who was quite without their troubles; the Padrone, for instance, had troubles and to spare, for not only must he cope with inadequate service, but he could not afford a band at the Capo, in addition to which there was no room for dancing. Yet never before in the history of England had there been such a craze for movement; such a gliding and hopping, such a swaying and clinging; such a stamping and clapping and grabbing of food. Two mouthfuls and then: “Come on, let’s have a turn!” After which more grabbing of food. + 

Millo, wise man, had foreseen what was coming, and now there was dancing every night at the Doric. The supper-tables had been carefully arranged to leave a large space in the restaurant. + 

The New Year brought with it a couple of air raids, for six hours on end the bombs banged about London. “Play louder,” Millo murmured to his band; and pale but determined the band played its loudest: “Honey bee, give us a kiss!” + 

Sometimes Millo would linger to watch his dancers, and the smile on his lips would grow rather grim, then after a little he would shrug his broad shoulders. In Berlin they were cursing, in Paris they were praying, and in London they were dancing⁠—oh, well, such was war⁠ ⁠… + 

But Death was in nowise daunted, it seemed, for the spring came in on a great tide of blood. Yet this was not nearly enough for the glutton, who must needs go seeking out peaceable people who neither danced nor made war. Humble civilians just lay down and died from this cause or that, or from no cause at all except that they felt very weary. It was strange how many such people were dying; strange too, that as often as not they were those who had no one to lose in battle, and among them was talkative, small Aunt Ottavia, who caught cold in May and died early in June, leaving all that she possessed to Maddalena. + 

Who could have thought that the small Aunt Ottavia would have had so much money to leave? Four thousand pounds, securely invested in first-class American railroads. She had flatly refused to sell her good shares to the English Government or to anyone else; she had lent them to the Government for the time being only, receiving a tip in the process. But in spite of all her astuteness she had died, and her shares had remained behind her, to say nothing of the house in Coldbath Square, its contents, and one or two boarders. + 

Maddalena felt suddenly rather helpless, missing the tactless Aunt Ottavia. She longed intensely for her husband’s return, almost frightened by so much money. Gian-Luca wrote advising that the house should be sold, as he did not wish to live in Coldbath Square, and fortunately a purchaser turned up, who bought the house, boarders and all. Maddalena added the proceeds of the sale to Gian-Luca’s deposit at the bank; and now all her letters to him were full of new plans regarding the future. + 

“We can sell out the stocks,” she wrote happily, “and then you can buy your restaurant; only think of all that this means to us, caro! I am grateful to Aunt Ottavia.” + 

His answers were kind but curiously vague; it was almost as though he had scarcely grasped the extent of his own good fortune. And why did he never come home on leave? Surely he might have got home once on leave? But his answers were vague upon this point also. + 

He wrote: “I have not yet obtained my transfer.” As thought that could explain his not getting leave to a woman who loved as she did. + 

Maddalena was praying more earnestly than ever that the transfer might not be granted. How could she well do otherwise, when Fabio was dead and Geppe was dead, and now the poor Aunt Ottavia? The thought of so much death had struck terror to her heart, terror because of one life. + 

“Give me his life, dear Mother of God!” she entreated; and surely her prayers were being answered, for was he not working in comparative safety at the Officers’ Mess at the Base? + 

V + 

Yes, and that was where the Armistice found him, at the Officers’ Mess at the Base. All of a sudden the guns stopped firing; a stillness so intense that men clasped their heads, bewildered, came down on the blood-drenched pastures of France. Gian-Luca stared round him at the Officers’ Mess, and knew that the war was over. + 

He thought: “It is gallant, this record of mine, it is something that a man can be proud of! All my battles have been fought with the peasants over chickens. A fine victory the capture of a couple of fowls, a splendid victory! And what a defeat to return to the Mess empty-handed!” + 

From the Doric to the Officers’ Mess at the Base, there had only been a difference in degree. Food, always food, the thing they had lived by, Fabio and Teresa, Rocca and Millo, and he himself who had planned to grow rich via the media of people’s stomachs⁠—oh, well, it had followed him out to the war, certain, no doubt of his allegiance: and now that the war was ended, more food⁠—for Gian-Luca must prepare a very fine dinner in honor of victory and peace. + 

VI + 

Three months later his train steamed into Victoria, and there on the platform stood Maddalena, scanning the passing windows. The train stopped and she had him safe in her arms, all the bigness and the manhood of him. Her cheek was pressed tightly against his shoulder; and because she could feel the roughness of his coat, and the strong, even beat of his living heart, her gratitude leapt to her lips in words. + 

“Blessed be God!” said Maddalena. + 

He kissed her, then pushed her gently from him, as though in some way he rebuked her; but her joy was too great to feel his rebuke. + 

“Amore, amore, you are safe⁠—” she whispered. + 

“Yes, I am quite safe,” he answered. + 

That evening she urged him to talk about himself, to tell her about his life out in France: “Your letters told nothing at all, caro mio, why did you tell me so little?” + 

“Because there was so little to tell⁠—” said Gian-Luca; “they never gave me my transfer.” + 

“Oh, I am glad, I am glad!” she murmured. “Day and night I have prayed to the Virgin.” + 

But at that he smiled, and seeing the smile she must get up and kiss his mouth. + 

Then he took her in his arms, for was she not a woman made more lovely through her love of him? And he kissed her again and again on the lips, until she must needs believe that he loved her⁠—that at last he had come to love her. + 

“Amore mio⁠—amore,” she whispered, filled with the joy of his nearness. + 

And he answered: “Amore mio, amore,” while he strove to find peace and contentment of spirit, even as she had found it. + 

All night they lay in each other’s arms, and her cup of happiness was full, for she thought that all night he came nearer and nearer⁠—yet all night he was slipping farther away from the arms that she fancied held him. + 

The next day he was gentle but strangely silent, and she studied his face more closely. Then it was that she knew that her husband had aged. + 

“Can it be that he has fretted himself, my Gian-Luca, because they would not transfer him?” she mused. “But why should he fret?⁠—he was doing his duty, he was doing all that they asked.” + 

But now she discovered yet another thing about him; he preferred not to talk of the war. + 

He said: “It is over, let us try to forget it; the English did not wish me to fight⁠—va bene, and now I must think of Millo and the Doric, I must go and see Millo tomorrow.” + 

As the weeks went on Maddalena was puzzled by a curious change in Gian-Luca. “They worked him too hard out in France,” she would think; but this explanation was unsatisfactory, for he did not seem physically tired. + 

To interest him she talked of Aunt Ottavia, and of all the money she had left them: “You will soon be the head of your own restaurant,” she told him, smiling proudly. + 

“Yes, I know, but not just yet,” he answered; “I cannot leave Millo in the lurch⁠—I shall stay at the Doric for a few years longer⁠—at least, I think I shall stay.” And then he quite suddenly changed the subject, as though it actually bored him. + 

His place had been waiting for him at the Doric, he was Millo’s chief headwaiter, and far more important than Riccardo had been, who had only had charge of the restaurant. Everything was just as he had wished it to be; he had four very excellent aides-de-camp, to say nothing of a large, well-trained staff of waiters, now that the war was over. Yet he seldom discussed his work with Maddalena, and this made her anxious and unhappy. He had grown very careful these nights not to wake her, he would steal through the hall and into their bedroom, having first taken off his shoes. And suspecting this, she would keep herself awake, feeling lonely at sleeping without him. + 

“Is that you, Gian-Luca?” she would say, sitting up. + 

And then he would frown: “Go to sleep, Maddalena, it is past two o’clock in the morning.” + 

Then Maddalena would talk to the Madonna: “Blessed Mary, help me with Gian-Luca,” she would whisper; “you who so mercifully kept him out of danger, show me what I must do. He is changed, he no longer wants to tell me about things⁠—he is not like a child any more⁠—how can I make him grow younger again⁠—I who have no other child?” + 

And perhaps she might pause as though expecting an answer, an answer that did not come⁠—for not in poor, faltering human speech could the Mother of God reply to Maddalena. + 