There had
been grand doings of some sort, and, though the doings were over,
the moral and material debris were not yet quite removed. The
famiglia Bonvicino was gone, and so was Cricco. The cook, the new
waiter, and the landlord (who sings a good comic song upon
occasion) had all drunk as much wine as they could carry; and later
on I found Veneranda, the one-eyed old chambermaid, lying upon my
bed fast asleep. I afterwards heard that, in spite of the autumnal
weather, the landlord spent his night on the grass under the
chestnuts, while the cook was found at four o'clock in the morning
lying at full length upon a table under the veranda. Next day,
however, all had become normal again.
Among our fellow-guests during this visit was a fiery-faced
eructive butcher from Turin. A difference of opinion having arisen
between him and his wife, I told the Signora that I would rather be
wrong with her than right with her husband. The lady was
delighted.
"Do you hear that, my dear?" said she. "He says he had rather be
wrong with me than right with you. Isn't he a naughty man?"
She said that if she died her husband was going to marry a girl of
fifteen. I said: "And if your husband dies, ma'am, send me a
dispatch to London, and I will come and marry you myself." They
were both delighted at this.
She told us the thunder had upset her and frightened her.
"Has it given you a headache?"
She replied: 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.
