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There was a postal service twice a week, and I was told that Count von Lira, whose name was no secret in the village, sent messengers very often to Subiaco. The post left that very day, and I wrote to Nino to tell him that I had found his friends in villeggiatura at Fillettino, advising him to come as soon as he could, and recruit his health and his spirits.
What a contrast was there between the hour when I had gone out of the cafe a prisoner and that when I returned rejoicing with a crowd about me, proclaiming my innocence, and shouting one to another that I was a tourist and had seventy-three lira on my person! The landlady smiled and bowed: she had before refused me a bed! The men at the tables made me a god! Nor did I think them worse for this.
As I rose to go out of Tizzano Val Parmense my guide said to me, 'Se chiama Tira-Buchon perche E' lira il buchon' And I said to him, 'Dominus Vobiscum' and left him to his hills. So I went up to a little wooded bank, and lay there in the shade sketching Tizzano Val Parmense, where it stood not much above me, and then I lay down and slept for an hour and smoked a pipe and thought of many things.
Marias and Maddalenas you find them everywhere. Why, my own mamma is Maddalena, and my wife is Maria, and so is my sister." "Exactly. And your name? I want it, so that when next I take a boat here I can ask for yours." "Fabiano, Signore, Lari Fabiano, and my boat is the Stella del Mare." "Thank you, Fabiano." Artois put a lira into his hand. "I shall take the Star of the Sea very soon."
For sixteen and often eighteen hours of hard work he received only his food and his performing clothes. When he was counted as one of the troupe his duties were lightened, but he got only enough money to pay his way with difficulty. Without a lira ahead, and with no clothes but his rough working-suit and his performing costume, he could not hope to escape from this sort of bondage.
Then I said to the molinar, 'Quanta? and he, holding up a tall finger, said 'Una Lira'. The young man leapt on to his stilts, the molinar stooped down and I got upon his shoulders, and we all attempted the many streams of the river Parma, in which I think I should by myself have drowned.
Supposing I obtain for you an engagement to read literature with the Contessina di Lira, will you not be a professor? If you prefer singing " But Nino comprehended in a flash the whole scope of the proposal, and threw his arm round Ercole's neck and embraced him. "What a mind! Oh, maestro mio, I will die for you!
"Now, then," said he, preparing for a tussle, "what is the matter, my dear maestro?" but Ercole had expended most of his fury already. "The matter!" he grumbled. "The matter is that I have lost an excellent pupil through you. Count Lira says he does not require my services any longer, and the man who brought the note says they are going away."
Gaspare was exclaiming, with indignant gestures of protest to the elderly couple who were in charge of the aprons; "it is not worth two soldi! It is not fit to be thrown to the pigs, and you ask me " "Gaspare!" "Two lire Madonna! Sangue di San Pancrazio, they ask me two lire! Macchè!" He took up another apron. "Gaspare!" "One lira fifty?
He had just received a formal note from the Graf von Lira, inclosing the amount due to him for lessons, and dispensing with his services for the future. Of course this was the result of the visit Nino had so rashly made; it all came out afterwards, and I will not now go through the details that De Pretis poured out, when we only half knew the truth.
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