She spoke slightly angrily and contemptuously of them, rather
protectively of me. So that vaguely I gathered that they were not quite
'respectable'.
Only one man came into the house. He was very handsome, beautiful
rather, a man of thirty-two or-three, with a clear golden skin, and
perfectly turned face, something godlike. But the expression was
strange. His hair was jet black and fine and smooth, glossy as a bird's
wing, his brows were beautifully drawn, calm above his grey eyes, that
had long dark lashes.
His eyes, however, had a sinister light in them, a pale, slightly
repelling gleam, very much like a god's pale-gleaming eyes, with the
same vivid pallor. And all his face had the slightly malignant,
suffering look of a satyr. Yet he was very beautiful.
He walked quickly and surely, with his head rather down, passing from
his desire to his object, absorbed, yet curiously indifferent, as if the
transit were in a strange world, as if none of what he was doing were
worth the while. Yet he did it for his own pleasure, and the light on
his face, a pale, strange gleam through his clear skin, remained like a
translucent smile, unchanging as time.
He seemed familiar with the household, he came and fetched wine at his
will. Maria was angry with him. She railed loudly and violently. He was
unchanged. He went out with the wine to the party on the grass. Maria
regarded them all with some hostility.
They drank a good deal out there in the sunshine. The women and the
older man talked floridly. Il Duro crouched at the feast in his curious
fashion--he had strangely flexible loins, upon which he seemed to crouch
forward. But he was separate, like an animal that remains quite single,
no matter where it is.
The party remained until about two o'clock. Then, slightly flushed, it
moved on in a ragged group up to the village beyond. I do not know if
they went to one of the inns of the stony village, or to the large
strange house which belonged to the rich young grocer of the village
below, a house kept only for feasts and riots, uninhabited for the most
part. Maria would tell me nothing about them. Only the young well-to-do
grocer, who had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the
afternoon inquiring for the party.
And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home
very drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front.
Then Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the
landslip, which was dangerous. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory
business, very much like any other such party in any other country.
Then in the evening Il Duro came in. His name is Faustino, but everybody
in the village has a nickname, which is almost invariably used. He came
in and asked for supper. We had all eaten. So he ate a little food alone
at the table, whilst we sat round the fire.
Afterwards we played 'Up, Jenkins'. That was the one game we played with
the peasants, except that exciting one of theirs, which consists in
shouting in rapid succession your guesses at the number of fingers
rapidly spread out and shut into the hands again upon the table.
Il Duro joined in the game. And that was because he had been in America,
and now was rich. He felt he could come near to the strange signori. But
he was always inscrutable.
It was queer to look at the hands spread on the table: the Englishwomen,
having rings on their soft fingers; the large fresh hands of the elder
boy, the brown paws of the younger; Paolo's distorted great hard hands
of a peasant; and the big, dark brown, animal, shapely hands
of Faustino.
He had been in America first for two years and then for five
years--seven years altogether--but he only spoke a very little English.
He was always with Italians. He had served chiefly in a flag factory,
and had had very little to do save to push a trolley with flags from the
dyeing-room to the drying-room I believe it was this.
Then he had come home from America with a fair amount of money, he had
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