The Padrone said wrathfully: “So this is gratitude!” and his facial expression was appalling. Then he went out, banging the door behind him, and his voice could be heard coming up from the kitchen with a dash of Moscatone thrown in.
The Padrona said: “This is very fine, Gian-Luca, I congratulate you, my child.” She was checking the accounts of the bar at the moment, and she went on checking her accounts.
Gian-Luca said uncertainly: “I am going in four weeks—this means that I am going away—”
“It does,” said the Padrona; “we must find another waiter, and that is always a bother. I shall not take a Swiss, I dislike them on the whole, though Schmidt is a very good fellow. By the way, we can give you an excellent reference, you have always been capable and quick.”
Gian-Luca left her without another word. His lip shot out, his eyes were very bright. He said to Mario later:
“I am lucky, my good Mario, I shall make my fortune now, you will see!”
IV
The last four weeks at the Capo di Monte passed like an evil dream. For one thing there was Mario, very sorrowful and servile; he was going to miss Gian-Luca, and he said so. His manner to the boy had now completely changed, it was that of failure towards success. He bragged less about the Capo and not at all about himself.
“I am just an old lame mule,” he would say humbly, remembering that taunt of the Padrone’s.
“He is not so lame as all that!” Gian-Luca would try to think; “he puts it on in order to get pitied.” But he knew that this was not so; Mario’s lameness was quite real, and moreover, it was often very painful.
Mario said: “Since you were little and Rosa gave you milk, I have always been so fond of you, Gian-Luca—now you go out into the world with no old Mario near. You be careful; do not listen to people like this Schmidt, who are always thinking about women.”
“Women!” frowned Gian-Luca, “I want no more of women!”
And at that Mario’s mouth twitched a little; but he went on very gravely: “You are angry with our Padrona, you have great unkindness in your heart towards her. Now that is what I fear, piccino, anger in the heart—I know, for I too have felt such anger. It is dangerous, it is stupid, it makes a man a beast; it makes him forget how strong he is. The Padrona is a woman and therefore you should pity, and moreover she is really very right. For one thing she is nearly old enough to be your mother, for another she considers her business, for another she remembers the Padrone no doubt—a terrible man when in anger.” He paused, for Gian-Luca had turned his back, but presently he went on still more gravely: “Forget her when you leave here, it would be better so—but if you must remember, do so kindly.”
“Is it I, then, who must show all the kindness?” exclaimed Gian-Luca.
“Precisely—that is so,” Mario told him. “You have nothing to forgive, and if you had, remember the Padrona is only a woman.”
They were standing in the pantry. Gian-Luca glared at Mario; then he noticed that his hair had greyed a little. He looked old and sad and tired; the coarse texture of his sock was showing through the slits across his shoe. Nor was he very clean; his white shirtfront was spotted and the buttons of his coat were stained and frayed. He fidgeted self-consciously under Gian-Luca’s eyes, and his hand went up to straighten his white necktie. They began collecting things; Mario could not find the napkins, he swore because the table-drawer had stuck; and presently he grumbled:
“It is hard, this life of ours, always standing, always running, always serving someone else. I feel at times as though I must go out and climb a mountain so as to look over something wide.”
Gian-Luca only grunted, and picking up a tray, he hurried off to set his luncheon tables.
Mario watched his youthful back disappearing through the door. “He is very young,” thought Mario, “he is very innocent—yet I think he grows a little proud.”
But Gian-Luca at that moment felt anything but proud; all he wanted was to get away from Mario. He did not want to pity, to see any cause for pity—and Mario was very pitiful.
V
Gian-Luca’s worst times were in the afternoons, for he never quite knew whether to go home. If he sat beside the bar the Padrona did not come, but if he left the Capo he always thought that she might have come if he had remained. At home would be Teresa who detested the Padrona and said so between her rows of knitting. She would say it from the cash-desk, from the shop or from the parlor, whenever she could do so with discretion. In the shop there would be Fabio very jubilant and proud, relating for the hundredth time his interview with Millo. Rocca might look in a moment, slap Gian-Luca on the back and say; “Ecco, you are grand now, Generale!” Then Nerone, who was genuinely pleased about Gian-Luca, was forever stumping round to see his favorite. He loved the boy, and consequently only saw his virtues—by contrast he detested Rosa’s children.
“You are lucky, you old brigand!” he said one day to Fabio. “Now my Rosa’s children are disgusting. That Geppe will not work and he steals my cigarettes, and when I leave he does not guard the shop. As for Berta, she is awful, she speaks only Cockney English and what she would have us think is French; our language is no longer good enough for her, it seems, and also she is very vain and ugly.”
He would ramble on and on, always cross, always complaining, and finally would try to pick a quarrel with his friend. “Your prices are too
