“Would that matter very much?” inquired the Librarian. “Suppose he should find something better.”
“He is mad!” thought Gian-Luca. “He is obviously mad!” And he wished that he had not come. “It must be the shock of those boys getting killed within a week of each other.”
“Do you still care for books and food and stomachs?” the Librarian asked him gravely. “I am disappointed in books myself, such a lot of them seem to suggest indigestion—a kind of deranged mental stomach.”
“I care very much indeed,” said Gian-Luca, and his voice was loud and aggressive; “I care for the things that I know to be real; I cannot afford to be a dreamer like you. I am just a headwaiter at the Doric.”
“I know nothing so inexpensive as dreams—” said the little Librarian, smiling.
But Gian-Luca did not smile: “He is quite mad,” he mused; “I suppose they keep him on out of pity!”
IV
That summer Teresa said to Maddalena: “What is the matter with Gian-Luca?” For even Teresa, immersed in her business, had noticed a change in her grandson.
And then it was Rosa and Mario who spoke, and they both looked hard at Maddalena. “What is the matter with Gian-Luca?” they demanded, as though Maddalena were to blame.
Two days later Nerone called on Maddalena, and there he found the Padrona. The Padrona had just been giving advice as to how one should manage a husband.
“One should never allow him to sulk,” she was saying; “now I think your Gian-Luca is sulking.”
“Per Bacco, he is not!” Nerone protested; “the boy is doing nothing of the kind. I think he is probably ill, our Gian-Luca, I think you should send for a doctor.”
Rocca waylaid Maddalena one morning and beckoned her into the shop: “I do not much like the look of Gian-Luca, his face has grown dull and he speaks very little—I hope you take care of our child, Maddalena? He was born in our midst—such a queer little boy, with a positive terror of goats. You must not mind an old fellow like me speaking frankly: I think he is ill; he works very hard, and he needs his small comforts, and I hope you see that he gets them.”
Maddalena reassured them all as best as she could, but her own heart was deeply anxious. Gian-Luca looked weary and discontented; he was sleeping very badly, and when he got up his eyes would be vague and unhappy.
“What is the matter, amore?” she would say. “Try to tell me what is the matter.”
But he always replied: “There is nothing the matter; leave me in peace, donna mia.”
He was growing coldly unkind to Maddalena; never angry, just coldly unkind. At times he would treat her as though she were a stranger, preferring his books to her company, it seemed, and that summer he refused to go out of London when the time for their holiday arrived.
“I do not want people,” he told her firmly; “wherever one goes there are too many people.” So he sat at the open window and read, sometimes he would not speak for hours. Once he looked up and noticed her eyes: “You are always watching,” he said sharply; “stop staring, Maddalena, I do not like your eyes—they are frightened, they remind me of a rabbit in a trap; I wish you would look more cheerful.”
There were days when he found fault with everything she cooked. “How can I eat this mess!” he would grumble. “It is all greasy butter, you use too much butter. Dio Santo! I get enough grease at the Doric; cannot you cook more simply?” But then he would proceed to finish the whole dish. “I must eat, a man must eat,” he would mutter. And the watchful Maddalena would know that he was not hungry—would know that he forced himself to eat.
At moments her self-control would desert her, and then she would go down on her knees: “I love you so—” she would tell him wildly. “I am childless, Gian-Luca, I have no one but you; all these long years I have waited for a child—be kind to me—kiss me, Gian-Luca!”
He would look at her dumbly as though trying to be kind, and after a moment he would kiss her. “There, there, mia donna,” he would say, getting up; “there, there, mia donna, you are tired.”
Oh, indeed Maddalena had need of her prayers, had need of the kindly Madonna at St. Peter’s, had need of the Child who stood at her knee, and of Father Antonio, their priest. Father Antonio counselled much patience, it would surely come right, he told Maddalena. God worked in strange ways, but He knew His own business, and His business might well be a prodigal son—Maddalena must leave it to God.
And she honestly did try to leave it to God, try to have courage and patience, but her great faithful heart was failing a little. She would think:
“He came home to me safely from the war, but was it for this that he came home safely—so that he might grow to hate me?” Then she would remember her prayers for his safety, and something within her would tremble, and something within her would start to ask a question, over and over again it would ask it. “My God!” she would answer in a kind of desperation, “I was right to pray for my husband’s safety, every poor wife all over Europe was praying for her husband’s safety!”
V
Gian-Luca worked better than ever in the autumn, determined to slay this thing that possessed him, this spirit of indifference and depression. People were hurrying back from the country, and the Doric was full to overflowing once more; then one morning the telephone rang loud and long, it was someone demanding the headwaiter.
Gian-Luca put the receiver to his ear: “Yes, I am the headwaiter—the restaurant, yes—”
“I want a table for two,” came a voice,
