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Updated: October 5, 2025
"'Take back your soldi! said the lad, disdainfully, thrusting his head between the curtains of his berth; 'I do not accept alms from those who insult my country." November 1st. Yesterday afternoon I went to the girls' school building, near ours, to give the story of the boy from Padua to Silvia's teacher, who wished to read it. There are seven hundred girls there.
Then he looked curiously round the room, with a sharp intelligence that took in every detail in a moment. "Per Dio!" he ejaculated. "Per Dio!" He looked at Lucrezia, folded his brawny arms on the window-sill, and said: "They've got plenty of soldi." Lucrezia nodded, not without personal pride. "Gaspare says " "Oh, I know as much as Gaspare," interrupted Sebastiano, brusquely.
Could he go about in a long cloak and a slouch hat, curl up in doorways out of the blast, and be content in a feeling of his own picturesqueness? Could he sit all day on the stone pavement and hold out his chilblained hand for soldi?
As I came out into the road again, the younger of these modestly approached and begged me to give him a flower by choice, a rose. I did so, much to his satisfaction and no less to mine; it was a pleasant thing to find a wayside lad asking for anything but soldi. The Calabrians, however, are distinguished by their self-respect; they contrast remarkedly with the natives of the Neapolitan district.
Several had soldi to buy flowers or copy-books, and they brought them; some of the smaller girls gave centesimi; the one with the blue feather collected all, and counted them in a loud voice: "Eight, ten, fifteen!" But more was needed. Then one larger than any of them, who seemed to be an assistant mistress, made her appearance, and gave half a lira; and all made much of her.
At noon she went down into the Borgo and bought fried polenta for five soldi and a slice of chestnut cake at the cook shop, and filled her kettle with clear cold water from the fountain in the courtyard. Later, as she waited for the water to boil over her little spirit lamp, she made a list of absolute necessaries. She had paid a month's rent in advance, and fifty-three lire remained to her.
The conductor turned to him first, and when she proffered her four soldi she found that he had paid for both. Her hand shook as she put the money back in her purse, and her colour rose. Filippo, quite at his ease, leisurely, openly observant of her, whistled "Lucia" softly to himself. Roses, roses all the way, and all for him, he thought amusedly.
Could he go about in a long cloak and a slouch hat, curl up in doorways out of the blast, and be content in a feeling of his own picturesqueness? Could he sit all day on the stone pavement and hold out his chilblained hand for soldi?
He fails to get it, I think, at less than the usual rate, for he retires from the contest more shrunken and forlorn than ever, and walks up and down the station, startled at a word, shocked at any sudden noise. For curiosity, I ask how much he paid for crossing the river, mentioning the fabulous sum it had cost us. It appears that he paid sixteen soldi only.
The portress tells my mother everything: my sister Silvia heard him screaming from the terrace one day, when his father had sent him headlong down stairs, because he had asked for a few soldi to buy a grammar. His father drinks, but does not work, and his family suffers from hunger.
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