"Artichokes--good. Chicken--good again. I must be a fox--I was dreaming
of chicken all last night! Gnocchi! (potatoes and flour baked).
Agradolce! (sour and sweet). Fagioletti! (French beans boiled)
and--a half-flask of Chianti! Who said the son of my mother couldn't
order a dinner? All right, Riccardo; come back at Ave Maria."
The waiter went off, and the company sat down to their meal, Bruno and
his wife at either end of the table, and David Rossi on the sofa, with
the boy on his right, and the cat curled up into his side on the left,
while the old woman stood in front, serving the food and removing the
plates.
"Look at him!" said the old woman, who was deaf, pointing to David
Rossi, with his two neighbours. "Now, why doesn't the Blessed Virgin
give him a child of his own?"
"She has, mother, and here he is," said David Rossi.
"You'll let her give him a woman first, won't you?" said Bruno.
"Ah! that will never be," said David Rossi.
"What does he say?" said the old woman with her hand at her ear like a
shell.
"He says he won't have any of you," bawled Bruno.
"What an idea! But I've heard men say that before, and they've been
married sooner than you could say 'Hail Mary.'"
"It isn't an incident altogether unknown in the history of this planet,
is it, mother?" said Bruno.
"A heart to share your sorrows and joys is something, and the man is not
wise who wastes the chance of it," said the old woman. "Does he think
parliaments will make up for it when he grows old and wants something to
comfort him?"
"Hush, mother!" said Elena, but Bruno made mouths at her to let the old
woman go on.
"As for me, I'll want somebody of my own about me to close my eyes when
the time comes to put the sacred oil on them," said the old woman.
"If a man has dedicated his life to work for humanity," said David
Rossi, "he must give up many things--father, mother, wife, child."
The corner of Elena's apron crept up to the corner of her eye, but the
old woman, who thought the subject had changed, laughed and said: "That's just what I say to Tommaso. 'Tommaso,' I say, 'if a man is going
to be a policeman he must have no father, or mother, or wife, or
child--no, nor bowels neither,' I say. And Tommaso says, 'Francesca,' he
says, 'the whole tribe of gentry they call statesmen are just policemen
in plain clothes, and I do believe they've only liberated Mr. Rossi as a
trap to catch him again when he has done something.'"