“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
