It was always soup in the evening. Then we played games
or cards, all playing; or there was singing, with the accordion, and
sometimes a rough mountain peasant with a guitar.
But it is all passing away. Giovanni is in America, unless he has come
back to the War. He will not want to live in San Gaudenzio when he is a
man, he says. He and Marco will not spend their lives wringing a little
oil and wine out of the rocky soil, even if they are not killed in the
fighting which is going on at the end of the lake. In my loft by the
lemon-houses now I should hear the guns. And Giovanni kissed me with a
kind of supplication when I went on to the steamer, as if he were
beseeching for a soul. His eyes were bright and clear and lit up with
courage. He will make a good fight for the new soul he wants--that is,
if they do not kill him in this War.
_5_
THE DANCE
Maria had no real licence for San Gaudenzio, yet the peasants always
called for wine. It is easy to arrange in Italy. The penny is paid
another time.
The wild old road that skirts the lake-side, scrambling always higher as
the precipice becomes steeper, climbing and winding to the villages
perched high up, passes under the high boundary-wall of San Gaudenzio,
between that and the ruined church.
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