"Where's the wine?" he called to Gaspare. "Wine, cameriere, wine!"
"You must not drink wine with the pasta, signorino!" cried Gaspare. "Only
afterwards, with the vitello."
"Have you ordered vitello? Capital! But I've finished my pasta and I'm
thirsty. Well, what do you want to buy at the auction, Gaspare, and you,
Amedeo, and you Salvatore?"
He plunged into the talk and made Salvatore show his keen desires,
encouraging and playing with his avarice, now holding it off for a
moment, then coaxing it as one coaxes an animal, stroking it, tempting it
to a forward movement. The wine went round now, for the vitello was on
the table, and the talk grew more noisy, the laughter louder. Outside,
too, the movement and the tumult of the fair were increasing. Cries of
men selling their wares rose up, the hard melodies of a piano-organ, and
a strange and ecclesiastical chant sung by three voices that, repeated
again and again, at last attracted Maurice's attention.
"What's that?" he asked of Gaspare. "Are those priests chanting?"
"Priests! No, signore. Those are the Romani."
"Romans here! What are they doing?"
"They have a cart decorated with flags, signorino, and they are selling
lemon-water and ices. All the people say that they are Romans and that is
how they sing in Rome."
The long and lugubrious chant of the ice-venders rose up again, strident
and melancholy as a song chanted over a corpse.
"It's funny to sing like that to sell ices," Maurice said. "It sounds
like men at a funeral."
"Oh, they are very good ices, signorino. The Romans make splendid ices."
Turkey followed the vitello.
Maurice's guests were now completely at ease and perfectly happy. The
consciousness that all this was going to be paid for, that they would not
have to put their hands in their pockets for a soldo, warmed their hearts
as the wine warmed their bodies. Amedeo's long, white face was becoming
radiant, and even Salvatore softened towards the Inglese. A sort of
respect, almost furtive, came to him for the wealth that could carelessly
entertain this crowd of people, that could buy clocks, chairs, donkeys at
pleasure, and scarcely know that soldi were gone, scarcely miss them. As
he attacked his share of the turkey vigorously, picking up the bones with
his fingers and tearing the flesh away with his white teeth, he tried to
realize what such wealth must mean to the possessor of it, an effort
continually made by the sharp-witted, very poor man. And this wealth--for
the moment some of it was at his command! To ask to-day would be to have.
Instinctively he knew that, and felt like one with money in the bank. If
only it might be so to-morrow and for many days! He began to regret the
limit, almost to forget the sound of the laughter of the Catania
fishermen upon the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio. His pride was
going to sleep, and his avarice was opening its eyes wider.