And
this is the way in which bargains were struck of old time in these
hills when your fathers and mine lived and shivered in a cave, hunted
wolves, and bargained with clubs only.
So this being settled, and I eager for the wine, wished it to be
opened, especially to stand drink to my guide. The innkeeper was in
another room. The guide was too courteous to ask for a corkscrew, and
I did not know the Italian for a corkscrew.
I pointed to the cork, but all I got out of my guide was a remark that
the wine was very good. Then I made the emblem and sign of a corkscrew
in my sketch-book with a pencil, but he pretended not to
understand - such was his breeding. Then I imitated the mode, sound,
and gesture of a corkscrew entering a cork, and an old man next to me
said '_Tira-buchon' - _a common French word as familiar as the woods of
Marly! It was brought. The bottle was opened and we all drank
together.
As I rose to go out of Tizzano Val Parmense my guide said to me, _'Se
chiama Tira-Buchon perche E' lira il buchon'_ And I said to him,
_'Dominus Vobiscum'_ and left him to his hills.
