United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And it was made for our shabbiness, its three tumbled-down little houses ranged round the three sides of an unkempt, mud-floored court; our bedroom without lock or latch and with a mirror cracked from side to side like the Lady of Shalott's, though for other reasons; the dining-room with earthen floor, walls decorated by a modern-primitive fresco of the padrone holding a plate of maccheroni in one hand and a flask of Lachrima Christi in the other, a central column spreading out branches like a tree and bearing for fruit row upon row of still unopened bottles, a door free to all the stray monks and beggars of Pompeii to all the fowls too, including the gorgeous peacock that strolled in after its evening walk with the young Swiss artist on the flat roof of the inn where, together, they went before dinner to watch the sunset.
But the manageress met my suggestions about eatables with a look of blank astonishment. Was there nothing in the house, then? No cheese, or meat, or maccheroni, or eggs no wine to drink? "Nothing!" she replied. "Why should you eat things at this hour? You must find them yourself, if you really want them. I might perhaps procure you some bread." Avis aux voyageurs, as the French say.
She reminds me of a cousin of mine famous for his imperturbable calm who, when his long curls once caught fire from being too near a candle, sleepily remarked to a terrified wife: "I think you might try to blow it out." But where shall a man still find those edible maccheroni those that were made in the Golden Age out of pre-war-time flour?
"Do you often think of to-morrow?" he suddenly said to the boatman, breaking from his silence. "Signore?" "Do you often wonder what is going to happen to-morrow, what you will do, whether you will be happy or sad?" The man threw up his head. "No, Signore. Whatever comes is destiny. If I have food to-day it is enough for me. Why should I bother about to-morrow's maccheroni?" Artois smiled.
Then he was induced to try the maccheroni, because they were "particularly good that morning"; he ate, or rather drank, an immense plateful. After that came some slices of meat and a dish of green stuff sufficient to satisfy a starving bullock. A little fish? asked the waiter. Well, perhaps yes, just for form's sake two fried mullets and some nondescript fragments.
So long as competition with the two others continues, the "Concordia" will presumably keep to its present level. Of freaks in the dining-room, I have so far only observed one whom Gissing might have added to his collection. He is a director of some kind, and his method of devouring maccheroni I unreservedly admire it displays that lack of all effort which distinguishes true art from false.
The boat was close in now to the platform of stone that projected beneath the wall of the Marina. As he stepped out he gave the boatman a generous buonamano. "You are quite right, comrade," he said. "It is the greatest mistake in the world to bother about to-morrow's maccheroni."
I may add, as a picturesque detail, that about one-third of them have never been inhabited, and are never likely to be. They were erected in the heat of enthusiasm, and there they will stay, empty and abandoned, until some energetic mayor shall pull them down and cook his maccheroni with their timber.
For the rest, it is only one of many such places that have been brought to a state of degradation by the earthquake, the present war, and governmental neglect. Not an ounce of bread was procurable for money, or even as a gift. The ordinary needs of life cigars, matches, maccheroni and so forth: there were none of them.
Thereupon he worked steadily and ceased to disturb his companions. In our "Children's Houses" for poor children in Rome, directed by Signorina Maccheroni, it was possible to make more methodical observations, and these were represented by diagrams, in order to demonstrate the course of the phenomena more clearly.
Word Of The Day