me bring what appetite I may to Bella Luce, I never take any away with me, and I daresay Signor Sandro will experience the same thing.”
“That I’ll be sworn I shall!” said the attorney.
“There’s no dinner, to say dinner!” replied la sposa. “You are sadly out of luck to-day, Signor Sandro! This is such a place out here in the mountains. There’s never a bit of meat to be got at Santa Lucia except Saturdays. There’s nothing for your dinner except a grilled fowl of my own fattening, and a Bella Luce frittata, and some rashers of our own curing, and a bit of salad”—the lettuce had been brought by Don Evandro in his handkerchief from his own little bit of garden, and given privately to the padrona with many precautions against the detection of the transaction by the guest,—and a dolce, and some preserve, and a few biscuits!
“Oh! oh! oh! What a dinner! What a feast!” exclaimed the attorney. “How you country people do live! Ah, one must come into the country to know what living means.”
“But you are not to think, Signor Sandro , that all my parishioners live as they do at Bella Luce,” said the priest. “Tutt’ altro, lo posso dir io![1] There’s not such another farm as Bella Luce, and not such another manager as la Signora Sunta in all the country side.”
“I believe you. Look at this cloth and these napkins,” rejoined the courtier-like attorney. “I think I know whose hands spun the yarn; and I think I could tell, if anybody in Fano asked me, where to find enough of the same make to turn all yonder cornfield as white as this table. Aha! la sposa! Am I in the secret, eh? I think I was honoured by a peep into the great press up-stairs once upon a time; and I never saw such a show, let the other be where it would!”
This touched the corde sensible in la Signora Sunta, and she was much flattered by the compliment. She smirked and purred, and admitted that, thank God! they were not badly off for linen at Bella Luce; they had enough for the needs of the house, and mayhap a trifle to furnish forth a son’s house at need—or maybe a couple of them for the matter of that!
And thereupon Beppo suddenly suspended halfway between the table and his open mouth the huge fragment of bread, with which he had been scouring his plate round and round, in order to mop up the last viscous particles of the frittata, and looked hard across the table at Giulia, blushing crimson the while all over his great frank face, as if the most excruciatingly delicate and suggestive thing had been uttered. Giulia, on her part, kept her eyes fixed on her plate, and would have been supposed by anybody, who had never had any daughter of Eve under his observation before, to have been wholly unaware of Beppo’s demonstration.
“You don’t drink, Signor Sandro! Yet the wine is not so bad as it might be, though I say it that should not,” observed old Paolo.
“Per Bacco! I’ve drunk enough to find out that we town’s-folk must not drink it without counting our glasses. È un gran’ vino, davvero! Che colore! Che squisito sapore! È fior di roba!”[2] said the attorney, holding his glass up to the light. “We don’t drink such wine down in Fano, I can tell you, Signor Paolo!”
“And we don’t make such at Bella Luce, now-a-days;—more’s the pity! And never shall again till these cursed railroads are cleared out of the country . . . . and something else has happened, that need not be more particularly mentioned,” said the old farmer.
Every one present knew very well that this something else meant the restoration of the papal government. And Signor Sandro Bartoldi thought to himself, that if no more good wine was to be made till that happened, it would be wise to make the most of the old while it lasted. But of course nobody was so un-Italianly impudent as to take any notice of the farmer’s manifestation of his political faith. Don Evandro turned up his eyes towards heaven, and took advantage of the action to drain his glass; but no word was said.
The railroad, however, was not a tabooed subject, and Beppo ventured, after mature consideration, to say that, if it was true, as he was told, that the vine disease had visited countries where there were no railroads, it did seem to him as if they could not be the cause of it!”
“What has that to do with it, figliuolo mio?” cried the priest, firing up. “Do you think that the Almighty did not know that those countries were going to make those abominable things against nature, upsetting all society, and sent his curses for their punishment accordingly? Why there is not one of those countries that you allude to that has not now, as I am informed, fallen into the iniquity. And are not the works of Providence thus justified, and is not the abomination of these nuisances proved past all denial!”
Beppo was too well brought up to dream of arguing with his parish priest. He made no reply; but set himself to consider the question, and soon arrived at the conclusion that he should like to ask Giulia what she thought about it?
Signor Sandro, protesting that he did not presume to judge the matter under its theological aspect, yet ventured to say that in a wholly worldly point of view, he thought the railway was adding, and would add, to the riches of the country.
The priest answered him that all such wealth would be found to be of the nature of devil’s money, and would turn to dust and ashes in the pockets of those who flattered themselves that they were enriched by it.
To this exposition of doctrine the attorney bowed meekly; but thought to himself that for all that he should not part with a single one of the shares which were locked up in his strong box at home.
And so the dinner and the conversation went on till la Signora Sunta rose and left the table to prepare coffee for the three seniors of the party.
The two young men put cigars in their mouths and strolled out of the kitchen-door, Beppo giving a beseechingly inviting glance to Giulia to follow him as he went.
