As If They Had Expected Him To Pass About This
Time, His Wife And His Five Children Were Sitting At His Door And
Playing Before It.
He proudly pointed them out with his whip, and one of
the little ones followed on foot far enough to levy tribute.
They were
sufficiently comely children, but blond, whereas the boy on the box was
both black-eyed and black-haired. When we required an explanation of the
mystery, the father easily solved it; this boy was the child of his
first wife. If there were other details, I have forgotten them, but we
made our romance to the effect that the boy, to whose beautiful eyes we
now imputed a lurking sadness, was not happy with his step-mother, and
that he took refuge from her on the box with his father. They seemed
very good comrades; the boy had shared with his father the small cakes
we had given him at the cafe. At the station, in recognition of his
hapless lot, I gave him half a franc. By that time his father was
radiant from the small extortion I had suffered him to practice with me,
and he bade the boy thank me, which he did so charmingly that I almost,
but not quite, gave him another half-franc. Now I am sorry I did not.
Pisa was worth it.
IX
BACK AT GENOA
There is an old saying, probably as old as Genoa's first loot of her
step-sister republic, "If you want to see Pisa, you must go to Genoa,"
which may have obscurely governed us in our purpose of stopping there on
our way up out of Italy.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 317 of 353
Words from 87063 to 87343
of 97259
