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Updated: May 1, 2025
Many of you can remember why I was driven to sell my patrimony, the dear castello in the Sabines, with the good corn-land and the vineyards in the valley, and the olives, too. For I am not old yet; at least, Mariuccia is older, as I often tell her. These are queer times. It was not any fault of mine.
But before he left us there was noise enough and bustle of preparation, and I did not think I should miss him; for he, always was making music, or walking about, or doing something to disturb me just at the very moment when I was most busy with my books. Mariuccia, indeed, would ask me from time to time what I should do when Nino was gone, as if she could foretell what I was to feel.
"Nino mio," I said, as we went along, "you really make me laugh." "Which is to say " He was humming a tune again, and was cross because I interrupted him. "You are in love. Do not deny it. You are already planning how you can make the acquaintance of the foreign contessa. You are a fool. Go home, and get Mariuccia to give you some syrup of tamarind to cool your blood." "Well?
Just then Mariuccia came in with a bottle of wine, and we said no more about it, for Mariuccia is indiscreet. Nino thought nothing about his riches, because he was racking his brains for some good expedient whereby he might see the contessina and speak with her.
Mariuccia can read a little, though I never believed it until I found her one day teaching Nino his letters out of the Vite dei Santi. That was probably the first time that her reading was ever of any use to her, and the last, for I think she knows the Lives of the Saints by heart, and she will certainly not venture to read a new book at her age.
But Momolo, who knew my tastes, and whom I had made rich in the person of his daughters, added to the feast some delicate dishes and some excellent wine. Mariuccia was simply dressed, but her elegance and beauty and the modesty of her demeanour completely seduced me.
Indeed, it seemed to me that Nino had the more courage of the two; for De Pretis laughed and cried and blew his nose, and took snuff with his great fat fingers, and acted altogether like a poor fool; while Nino sat on a rush-bottomed chair and watched Mariuccia, who was stroking the old cat and nibbling roasted chestnuts, declaring all the while that Nino was the most beautiful object she had ever seen.
Besides, he would look like a different man two separate characters. "I do not care a cabbage for that," said Nino. If they cannot recognise me with their ears, they need not trouble themselves to recognise me at all." "It is a fact that their ears are quite long enough," said Mariuccia. "Hush, Mariuccia!" I said. "The Roman public is the most intelligent public in the world."
Besides, there was, as there is now, a certain marvellous neatness and spotlessness about his dress; but for his dusty boots you would not have guessed he had been travelling. Poor Nino. When he had not a penny in the world but what he earned by copying music, he used to spend it all with the washerwoman, so that Mariuccia was often horrified, and I reproved him for the extravagance.
Supper passed off in almost a similar manner to the supper of last Sunday; but there was an interesting novelty for me namely, the sight of my beloved mistress in her character of bride. Her husband seemed to be much more reserved with respect to me than at our first meeting. I was puzzled by his behaviour, and sat down by Mariuccia and proceeded to question her.
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