But there was nothing between us except our complete difference. It was
like night and day flowing together.
_7_
JOHN
Besides Il Duro, we found another Italian who could speak English, this
time quite well. We had walked about four or five miles up the lake,
getting higher and higher. Then quite suddenly, on the shoulder of a
bluff far up, we came on a village, icy cold, and as if forgotten.
We went into the inn to drink something hot. The fire of olive sticks
was burning in the open chimney, one or two men were talking at a table,
a young woman with a baby stood by the fire watching something boil in a
large pot. Another woman was seen in the house-place beyond.
In the chimney-seats sat a young mule-driver, who had left his two mules
at the door of the inn, and opposite him an elderly stout man. They got
down and offered us the seats of honour, which we accepted with
due courtesy.
The chimneys are like the wide, open chimney-places of old English
cottages, but the hearth is raised about a foot and a half or two feet
from the floor, so that the fire is almost level with the hands; and
those who sit in the chimney-seats are raised above the audience in the
room, something like two gods flanking the fire, looking out of the cave
of ruddy darkness into the open, lower world of the room.
We asked for coffee with milk and rum. The stout landlord took a seat
near us below. The comely young woman with the baby took the tin
coffee-pot that stood among the grey ashes, put in fresh coffee among
the old bottoms, filled it with water, then pushed it more into
the fire.
The landlord turned to us with the usual naïve, curious deference, and
the usual question:
'You are Germans?'
'English.'
'Ah--_Inglesi_.'
Then there is a new note of cordiality--or so I always imagine--and the
rather rough, cattle-like men who are sitting with their wine round the
table look up more amicably. They do not like being intruded upon. Only
the landlord is always affable.
'I have a son who speaks English,' he says: he is a handsome, courtly
old man, of the Falstaff sort.
'Oh!'
'He has been in America.'
'And where is he now?'
'He is at home. O--Nicoletta, where is the Giovann'?'
The comely young woman with the baby came in.
'He is with the band,' she said.
The old landlord looked at her with pride.
'This is my daughter-in-law,' he said.
She smiled readily to the Signora.
'And the baby?' we asked.
'_Mio figlio_,' cried the young woman, in the strong, penetrating voice
of these women. And she came forward to show the child to the Signora.
It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and
service of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious
submission seemed to come over the inn-room.
Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian
child-reverence.
'What is he called?'
'Oscare,' came the ringing note of pride. And the mother talked to the
baby in dialect. All, men and women alike, felt themselves glorified by
the presence of the child.
At last the coffee in the tin coffee-pot was boiling and frothing out of
spout and lid. The milk in the little copper pan was also hot, among the
ashes. So we had our drink at last.
The landlord was anxious for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a
village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a
colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village
was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music
of which was execrable.
We just looked into the street. The band of uncouth fellows was playing
the same tune over and over again before a desolate, newish house. A
crowd of desolate, forgotten villagers stood round in the cold upper
air. It seemed altogether that the place was forgotten by God and man.
But the landlord, burly, courteous, handsome, pointed out with a
flourish the Giovanni, standing in the band playing a cornet. The band
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