speech; she was always the most difficult of the natives to understand,
and in rage she became quite unintelligible. Little by little, by dint
of questioning, I got at what she meant. There had been
than usual; the mistress had reviled her unendurably for some fault or
other, and was it not hard that she should be used like this after
having
sympathy, not abusing me at all. When she went on to say that she was
alone in the world, that all her kith and kin were
(stone dead), a pathos in her aspect and her words took hold upon me;
it was much as if some heavy-laden beast of burden had suddenly found
tongue, and protested in the rude beginnings of articulate utterance
against its hard lot. If only one could have learnt, in intimate
detail, the life of this domestic serf! How interesting, and how
sordidly picturesque against the background of romantic landscape, of
scenic history! I looked long into her sallow, wrinkled face, trying to
imagine the thoughts that ruled its expression. In some measure my
efforts at kindly speech succeeded, and her “Ah, Cristo!” as she turned
to go away, was not without a touch of solace.
Another time my hostess fell foul of the waiter, because he had brought
me goat’s milk which was very sour. There ensued the most comical
scene. In an access of fury the stout woman raged and stormed; the
waiter, a lank young fellow, with a simple, good-natured face, after
trying to explain that he had committed the fault by inadvertence,
suddenly raised his hand, like one about to exhort a congregation, and
exclaimed in a tone of injured remonstrance, “_Un po’ di calma! Un po’
di calma!_” My explosion of laughter at this inimitable utterance put
an end to the strife. The youth laughed with me; his mistress bustled
him out of the room, and then began to inform me that he was weak in
his head. Ah! she exclaimed, her life with these people! what it cost
her to keep them in anything like order! When she retired, I heard her
expectorating violently in the corridor; a habit with every inmate of
this genial hostelry.
When the worst of my fever had subsided, the difficulty was to obtain
any nourishment suitable to my state. The good doctor, who had
suggested beefsteak and Marsala when I was incapable of taking anything
at all, ruled me severely in the matter of diet now that I really began
to feel hungry. I hope I may never again be obliged to drink goat’s
milk; in these days it became so unutterably loathsome to me that I
had, at length, to give it up altogether, and I cannot think of it now
without a qualm. The broth offered me was infamous, mere coloured water
beneath half an inch of floating grease. Once there was a promise of a
fowl, and I looked forward to it eagerly; but, alas! this miserable
bird had undergone a process of seething for the extraction of soup. I
would have defied anyone to distinguish between the substance remaining
and two or three old kid gloves boiled into a lump. With a pleased air,
the hostess one day suggested a pigeon, a roasted pigeon, and I
welcomed the idea joyously. Indeed, the appearance of the dish, when it
was borne in, had nothing to discourage my appetite—the odour was
savoury; I prepared myself for a treat. Out of pure kindness, for she
saw me tremble in my weakness, the good woman offered her aid in the
