Meanwhile Gian-Luca still held aloof, feeling strangely unwilling to see them. They would talk, about eating and food and the Doric. Oh, he knew them, they thought about nothing but food, they were almost as bad as Millo. When he got his day off at the end of June, he wanted to spend it alone, but of course Maddalena must begin about Rosa—she was always reproaching him now about Rosa whom he had forbidden her to visit.
She said precisely what he had expected: “Do let us go and see Rosa—she is very sad, caro, she misses her Geppe, and you are her foster-son.”
“Dio!” he complained, “must I never forget that I drank of that good woman’s milk? I do not wish to see Rosa or the others. I am tired, I am not getting up at all this morning, do leave me in peace, mia donna.”
She left him, and he lay in bed trying to doze; he was feeling very weak, he discovered. He had noticed lately that when he stopped working, his body ran down like a clock. At half-past one Maddalena brought his dinner all neatly arranged on a tray. He sat up in bed and glared at it frowning.
“Is it not good?” she inquired with a sigh. “I have tried to cook everything simply.”
“Ma si!” he muttered, “it is probably good, but do not stand watching, Maddalena. How can a man eat his food when you watch every morsel he puts into his mouth?”
So she went down again to her own lonely meal, which was little enough to her liking, being cooked as the English cook most things, in water, and never a touch of good butter with the beans or the dreary-faced boiled potatoes. And as she sat eating the unappetizing fare she remembered her father’s trattoria, and from this her thoughts strayed to the far-off Campagna, and then she felt homesick, terribly homesick—very lonely she felt and unhappy. For the longing to live among her own people had been growing in Maddalena lately, the longing for blue sky and wide, quiet places, where the sheep all wore little bells. She would think of that wonderful day when Our Lord had left His Footprint in stone, and would wonder if He too had loved the Campagna—if indeed that might not well have been Our Lord’s reason for blessing the humble stone. Then her heart would begin to yearn over Gian-Luca, who laughed when she spoke of such things—perhaps if she got him away to the sunshine he too might receive the blessing of faith. Some day she would show him that Footprint in stone, after which he must surely believe.
II
Late that afternoon Gian-Luca got up and went for a walk alone. He could feel Maddalena watching from the window, and for just a moment he paused on the pavement, but he did not turn his head. He wished that she would not stand there at the window, with her questioning desolate eyes—the eyes of a woman who was doomed to be childless—why must she always reproach him with her eyes, was it his fault that she was childless? His feet dragged a little as he walked on slowly, not caring much where he went. And now he was passing the Foundling Hospital—queer to be living so near that place; why had he chosen to live near that place? The thought had never occurred to him before—yes, it certainly was rather queer.
The foundlings appeared to be happy enough; they were playing out in the garden, not troubling at all about the problems of fate. At their age he had troubled very much about such problems—oh, very much he had troubled! He looked through the tall iron gates, and marveled at the noisy, shouting children, remembering the pain of his own lonely childhood; remembering bitterly, cruelly even, wounding himself in the process.
“Go on, go on!” he said, staring at the foundlings. “Go on, go on—but you will not escape it, it is waiting for you round the corner!” But when he would have liked to tell them what was waiting, he found that he did not know. “Ma che!” he thought dully, “what does it all matter; they play, they shout, they think they are happy—oh, well, and why not? It will come soon enough, that thing that is waiting round the corner.” Shrugging his shoulders he went on his way, and quite soon he forgot about the foundlings; forgot about everything except Gian-Luca, for whom he was deeply concerned. “I am ill,” he muttered, “I think I am ill.” He laid his fingers on his pulse, and then he felt frightened and walked more quickly, just to prove that he was not ill.
One or two women glanced at him in passing, struck by the expression of his face; a pale, handsome face with its arrogant mouth and its queer, inscrutable eyes. And presently a woman came up and touched him, murmuring something in his ear.
“Go to hell!” he said roughly, and pushed her with his arm so that she fell back frightened.
The noise of the traffic began to grow louder; he was suddenly conscious of the noise; he found himself walking in New Oxford Street without knowing how he had got there. All around him were shabby, insufferable people, and they jostled him as he walked. He felt sick with disgust at the contact with their bodies, and squaring his shoulders he thrust them aside; he would gladly have trampled on them. The stench of the traffic was heavy in his nostrils, the hot, greasy smell of engines; of monstrous engines, all spewing and belching up oil and petrol, and poisonous fumes from the pipes of their filthy exhausts. He hated these engines as though they had life, as though his hatred could harm them. They were foul, greedy
