The
village women speak to them in a curious neutral, official, slightly
contemptuous voice. They answer neutral and humble, though distinctly.
At the theatre, now the play is over, the peasants in their black hats
and cloaks crowd the hall. Only Pietro, the wharf-lounger, has no cloak,
and a bit of a cap on the side of his head instead of a black felt hat.
His clothes are thin and loose on his thin, vigorous, cat-like body, and
he is cold, but he takes no notice. His hands are always in his pockets,
his shoulders slightly raised.
The few women slip away home. In the little theatre bar the well-to-do
young atheists are having another drink. Not that they spend much. A
tumbler of wine or a glass of vermouth costs a penny. And the wine is
horrible new stuff. Yet the little baker, Agostino, sits on a bench with
his pale baby on his knee, putting the wine to its lips. And the baby
drinks, like a blind fledgeling.
Upstairs, the quality has paid its visits and shaken hands: the Syndaco
and the well-to-do half-Austrian owners of the woodyard, the Bertolini,
have ostentatiously shown their mutual friendship; our padrone, the
Signer Pietro Di Paoli, has visited his relatives the Graziani in the
box next the stage and has spent two intervals with us in our box;
meanwhile, his two peasants standing down below, pathetic, thin
contadini of the old school, like worn stones, have looked up at us as
if we are the angels in heaven, with a reverential, devotional eye, they
themselves far away below, standing in the bay at the back, below all.
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