So I
was content, coming down into Airolo.
We found the streets were Italian, the houses sunny outside and dark
within, like Italy, there were laurels in the road. Poor Emil was a
foreigner all at once. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened his
shirt-neck, put on his coat and collar, and became a foreigner in his
soul, pale and strange.
I saw a shop with vegetables and grapes, a real Italian shop, a dark
cave.
'_Quanto costa l'uva?_' were my first words in the south.
'_Sessanta al chilo_,' said the girl.
And it was as pleasant as a drink of wine, the Italian.
So Emil and I ate the sweet black grapes as we went to the station.
He was very poor. We went into the third-class restaurant at the
station. He ordered beer and bread and sausage; I ordered soup and
boiled beef and vegetables.
They brought me a great quantity, so, whilst the girl was serving
coffee-with-rum to the men at the bar, I took another spoon and knife
and fork and plates for Emil, and we had two dinners from my one. When
the girl--she was a woman of thirty-five--came back, she looked at us
sharply.
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