Don Ferdinando entered as usual, and
sat mute through his unchanging meal; the grumbler grumbled and ate,
as perchance he does to this day.
I forced myself to believe that
the food had a savour for me, and that the wine did not taste of
drugs. As I sat over my pretended meal, I heard the sirocco moaning
without, and at times a splash of rain against the window. Near me,
two military men were exchanging severe comments on Calabria and its
people. "Che paese!" - "What a country!" exclaimed one of them
finally in disgust. Of course they came from the north, and I
thought that their conversation was not likely to knit closer the
bond between the extremes of Italy.
To my delight I looked forth next morning on a sunny and calm sky,
such as I had not seen during all my stay at Cotrone. I felt better,
and decided to leave for Catanzaro by train in the early afternoon.
Shaking still, but heartened by the sunshine, I took a short walk,
and looked for the last time at the Lacinian promontory. On my way
back I passed a little building from which sounded an astonishing
noise, a confused babble of shrill voices, blending now and then
with a deep stentorian shout. It was the communal school - not
during playtime, or in a state of revolt, but evidently engaged as
usual upon its studies. The school-house was small, but the volume
of clamour that issued from it would have done credit to two or
three hundred children in unrestrained uproariousness.
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