After a time he broke silence.
"Ed il latte," he said, "serve per la suppa." {21}
I said that that was the view we took of it. He thought it over a
while, and then feelingly exclaimed -
"Oh bel!"
Soon afterwards he left me with the words -
"La! dunque! cerrea! chow! stia bene."
"La" is a very common close to an Italian conversation. I used to
be a little afraid of it at first. It sounds rather like saying,
"There, that's that. Please to bear in mind that I talked to you
very nicely, and let you bore me for a long time; I think I have
now done the thing handsomely, so you'll be good enough to score me
one and let me go." But I soon found out that it was quite a
friendly and civil way of saying good-bye.
The "dunque" is softer; it seems to say, "I cannot bring myself to
say so sad a word as 'farewell,' but we must both of us know that
the time has come for us to part, and so" -
"Cerrea" is an abbreviation and corruption of "di sua Signoria," -
"by your highness's leave." "Chow" I have explained already.
"Stia bene" is simply "farewell."
The principal piazza of Lanzo is nice.
