At last, as she went off to the kitchen to take up with her own hands the famous estoufato, she again called out to him:
"Whatever you do, don't break the boteglia."
Unluckily, the moment his wife had disappeared, the poet seized the opportunity to talk about art, theatres, success, so freely and with so much gusto and vivacity, that—crash! By a gesture more eloquent than the others, the wonderful bottle was thrown down and fell to the ground in a thousand pieces. Never have I beheld such terror. He stopped short, and became deadly pale. At the same moment, Assunta's contralto was heard in the next room, and the Italian appeared on the threshold with flashing eyes, lips swollen with rage, red with the heat of the kitchen range.
"The boteglia!" she roared in a terrible voice.
Then timidly bending down to me, he whispered:
"Say it's you."
And the poor devil was so frightened, that I felt his long legs tremble under the table.
