Millionaire, and the "friend of
the family." Never in the dining-room. Why, of course not. Catch me
breakfasting in any dining-room.
Was it possible? There, at luncheon in the dining-room, while devouring
those miserable macaroni made with war-time flour, I beheld an over-tall
young Florentine lieutenant shamelessly engulfing huge slices of what
looked uncommonly like genuine butter, a miniature mountain of which
stood on a platter before him, and overtopped all the other viands. I
could hardly believe my eyes. How about those regulations? Pointing to
this golden hillock, I inquired softly:
"From the cow?"
"From the cow."
"Whom does one bribe?"
He enjoyed a special dispensation, he declared - he need not bribe.
Returned from Albania with shattered health, he had been sent hither to
recuperate. He required not only butter, but meat on meatless days, as
well as a great deal of rest; he was badly run down.... And eggs, raw
eggs, drinking eggs; ten a day, he vows, is his minimum. Enviable
convalescent!
The afternoon being clear and balmy, he took me for a walk, smoking
cigarettes innumerable. We wandered up to that old convent picturesquely
perched against the slope of the hill and down again, across the
rivulet, to the inevitable castle-ruin overhanging the sea.
