A little too fast,
that recitativo!"
"The Signore is a musician?"
"A proprietario. But I delight in music, and I beguiled myself with
the fiddle as a youngster. Nowadays - look here!" And he extended his
hand; it was crippled. "Rheumatism. I have it here, and here" - pointing
to various regions of his body - "and here! Ah, these doctors! The
baths I have taken! The medicines - the ointments - the embrocations: a
perfect pharmacopceia! I can hardly crawl now, and without the help of
these two devoted boys even this harmless little diversion would have
been denied me. My nephews - orphans," he added, observing the direction
of my glance.
They sat on his other side, handsome lads, who spoke neither too much
nor too little. Every now and then they rose with one accord and
strolled among the surging crowd to stretch their legs, returning after
five minutes to their uncle's side. His eyes always followed their
movements.
"My young brother, had he lived, would have made men of them," he once
observed.
The images revive, curiously pertinacious, with dim lapses and gulfs. I
can see them still, the two boys, their grave demeanour belied by mobile
lips and mischievous fair curls of Northern ancestry; the other, leaning
forward intent upon the music, and caressing his moustache with bent
fingers upon which glittered a jewel set in massive gold - some scarab or
intaglio, the spoil of old Magna Graecia. His conversation, during the
intervals, moved among the accepted formulas of cosmopolitanism with
easy flow, quickened at times by the individual emphasis of a man who
can forsake conventional tracks and think for himself.
