No; but it had upset her stomach. No doubt the
thunder had shaken her stomach's confidence in the soundness of its
opinions, so as to weaken its proselytising power. By and by,
seeing that she ate a pretty good dinner, I inquired:
"Is your stomach better now, ma'am?"
And she said it was. Next day my stomach was bad too.
I told her I had been married, but had lost my wife and had
determined never to marry again till I could find a widow whom I
had admired as a married woman.
Giovanni, the new waiter, explained to me that the butcher was not
really bad or cruel at all. I shook my head at him and said I
wished I could think so, but that his poor wife looked very ill and
unhappy.
The housemaid's name was La Rosa Mistica.
The landlord was a favourite with all the guests. Every one patted
him on the cheeks or the head, or chucked him under the chin, or
did something nice and friendly at him. He was a little man with a
face like a russet pippin apple, about sixty-five years old, but
made of iron. He was going to marry a third wife, and six young
women had already come up from S. Ambrogio to be looked at. I saw
one of them. She was a Visigoth-looking sort of person and wore a
large wobbly-brimmed straw hat; she was about forty, and gave me
the impression of being familiar with labour of all kinds.
