BAVENO AND ISOLA PESCATORI, LAGO MAGGIORE
‘I have written it,’ he said.
‘And when shall you publish it?’
‘Dear Lamia, it is published already.‘ ‘I do not understand,’ she said, ‘for certainly it is unknown to me.’
‘I fancy not,’ he replied. ‘Indeed, I gather that you have paid me the compliment of reading much of it more than once.’
As Lamia still seemed puzzled, Veronica broke in with a slight touch of impatience:
‘You are scarcely as intelligent as usual, Lamia. Surely what he means you to understand is that a man’s works are his autobiography.‘
‘Exactly. But enough surely—perhaps somewhat too much—of that subject; and our little horses are ringing a carillon with their bells, as if to remind us it is time we were again on our way.’
‘One moment,’ said Lamia, raising her hand deprecatingly. ‘Before we quit this first fair spot of rest in Southern air, grace must be said for our al fresco repast. You know what form we like that grace to take. Be it as brief as you will, but it must be in verse.’
‘We are not in Sicily,’ he said, ‘nor am I Theocritus. But Veronica asked me the other day if I could give her some idea of the short pastoral idylls written two thousand years ago, which not all of us can read, but of which all of us have heard. I am not so presumptuous as to suppose I have succeeded in responding adequately to her wish; but perhaps our almost Sicilian surroundings, and the indulgent temper of the hour, may confer on the attempt something of the appropriateness it would otherwise lack.