Night after night he would lie in bed sleepless, wondering if Roberto suspected. What should he do if Roberto told Millo? What should he do if Millo dismissed him? Ruined, he was ruined if Millo dismissed him, no one would give him a manager’s job—perhaps no one would come to his restaurant if he bought it; they would all know that Millo had dismissed him. And his money; he would lie there and count up his money—a good sum by now, but not nearly enough for him and Maddalena to live on; one of them might live on it perhaps, but not both—two could never live in comfort on that money. He would hear Maddalena whispering her prayers, prayers to the Madonna, and one special prayer that began with: “Blessed be God.”
He would shake her: “Stop praying like that, Maddalena! Why must you always be whispering something? I can hear you, it gets on my nerves; do stop praying, I am tired, I want to go to sleep.”
Maddalena would lie there obediently silent, but Gian-Luca would know that she was praying in her heart. What was she praying about in her heart? Her silent prayers would begin to torment him, he would try to imagine those prayers in her heart and would want her to whisper again. In the mornings he would get up angry and weary, and there would be Maddalena. Then she too would watch him as Roberto watched him, following him round the room with her eyes; urging him to let her send for the doctor, urging him to eat his breakfast.
“Eat, amore!” she was always saying. “Try to eat something, amore.”
And one day his hand shot out and he struck her. Full in the face he struck Maddalena, then he struck her again because she said nothing but just stood there dumb like an animal who loves and is wounded unto death by its master.
VI
Terrible days indeed for Maddalena, but even more terrible days for Gian-Luca, who must struggle through his work at the Doric with a smile—especially if Millo was watching. And now he felt certain that everyone watched him: Millo, Giovanni, Roberto, the clients. It came down like an avalanche on him, their watching; their watching was a thing, an intolerable presence that stood between him and his own will to watch, so that he could not see clearly.
“Dio!” he would groan, “will they never stop watching? Do they think I am drunk, or crazy or what, that they follow me about with their eyes?”
IV
I
One evening that June the Signora Rocca looked up from her sewing and said: “What a deplorable thing is pride, and how right I was when I warned the Bosellis not to send Gian-Luca to that heathenish Board School.”
Rocca took off his spectacles and swore, beyond which he vouchsafed no comment, so his wife continued: “I am sorry for Gian-Luca, as a Christian that is my duty—but as the English say, and it is a good saying, ‘Pride cometh before a fall.’ I do not see what he has to be proud of, considering his unfortunate birth; however, it is clear that he sets himself above us; does he ever come here to see us these days? He does not, he treats us as though we were dirt, he is getting too big for his breeches!”
Rocca, for once, sympathized with his wife. Her words had opened the vials or his wrath so that he thumped the table; large angry thumps he inflicted on the table, as though he were thumping Gian-Luca.
“Giurabaccaccio! you speak truly,” said Rocca, “we are not good enough any more! Imagine it, a fellow that I dandled as an infant, a fellow to whom I had to give fruit-drops because he so feared my small goats! It is impudent indeed the way Gian-Luca treats me, I who fought at Custozza. I did not play waiter in an Officers’ Mess! No, no, I was only a poor, common soldier; I killed men in those days, not scraggy French chickens—but then I was only a soldier!” Rocca spoke in great bitterness of heart, not for nearly five months had Gian-Luca been near him, and now, Maddalena would never come either—grown proud, no doubt, like her husband.
Rocca was so angry that he went to see Teresa in order to tell her about it: “That grandson of yours has become swollen-headed, he ignores his old friends, he gives himself airs, he is what the English call ‘snob.’ My wife is offended and I am offended at the manner in which he treats us. We are humble but proud. I am only a butcher, but I fought in the battle of Custozza!”
Teresa shrugged her shoulders: “My excellent Rocca, I am not the keeper of my grandson—he never comes here, I know nothing about him, and now his wife does not come either. Perhaps he has become what the English call ‘snob,’ or perhaps he is just very busy—Millo tells me they are all very busy at the Doric—but whatever it is I am busy myself, much too busy to run after Gian-Luca.”
“Only a fool throws away his old friends,” muttered Rocca as he turned to leave her. “As for you, I consider that he owes you a duty, in our country the family tie is sacred, and only a fool would copy these English, who care nothing for family ties.”
“That is so,” she agreed, “but on the other hand, only a
