There Was A Cantina Here, So Of Course We Had More
Wine.
In that air, and with the walk and incessant state of
laughter in which we were being kept, we might drink ad libitum,
and the lady did not refuse a second small bicchiere.
On this our
deaf friend assumed an anxious, fatherly air. He said nothing, but
put his eyeglass in his eye, and looked first at the lady's glass
and then at the lady with an expression at once kind, pitying, and
pained; he looked backwards and forwards from the glass to the lady
more than once, and then made as though he were going to quit a
scene in which it was plain he could be of no further use, throwing
up his hands and eyes like the old steward in Hogarth's "Marriage a
la mode." They never seemed to tire, and every fresh incident at
once suggested its appropriate treatment. Jones asked them whether
they thought they could mimic me. "Oh dear, yes," was the answer;
"we have mimicked him hundreds of times," and they at once began.
At last we reached Professor Vela's own cantina, and here we were
to have our final bottle. There were several other cantine hard
by, and other parties that had come like ourselves to take a walk
and get some wine. The people bring their evening meal with them
up to the cantina and then sit on the wall outside, or go to a
rough table and eat it. Instead, in fact, of bringing their wine
to their dinner, they take their dinner to their wine. There was
one very fat old gentleman who had got the corner of the wall to
sit on, and was smoking a cigar with his coat off. He comes, I am
told, every day at about three during the summer months, and sits
on the wall till seven, when he goes home to bed, rising at about
four o'clock next morning. He seemed exceedingly good-tempered and
happy. Another family who owned a cantina adjoining Professor
Vela's, had brought their evening meal with them, and insisted on
giving us a quantity of excellent river cray-fish which looked like
little lobsters. I may be wrong, but I thought this family looked
at us once or twice as though they thought we were seeing a little
more of the Italians absolutely chez eux than strangers ought to be
allowed to see. We can only say we liked all we saw so much that
we would fain see it again, and were left with the impression that
we were among the nicest and most loveable people in the world.
I have said that the cantine are the cellars where the people keep
their wine. They are caves hollowed out into the side of the
mountain, and it is only certain localities that are suitable for
the purpose. The cantine, therefore, of any village will be all
together. The cantine of Mendrisio, for example, can be seen from
the railroad, all in a row, a little before one gets into the town;
they form a place of reunion where the village or town unites to
unbend itself on feste or after business hours.
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