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,
