Those liberal poets, Franco and Luisa, had breathed upon things and changed their aspect. Franco's poetry was more ardent, fervid and passionate; Luisa's more prudent. Thus Franco's sentiments always flamed out in his eyes, his face, his words, while Luisa's seldom burst into flames, and only tinged the depths of her penetrating glance, and her soft voice. Franco was conservative only in matters of religion and art; he was an ardent radical as far as the domestic walls were concerned, always planning transformations of ceilings, walls, floors, and drapery. Luisa began by admiring his genius, but as nearly all the funds came from her uncle, and there was little margin for extraordinary undertakings, she persuaded him, very gently and little by little, to leave the walls, the ceilings, and the floors as they were, and to study how best to arrange the furniture without seeking to transform it. And she would make suggestions without appearing to do so, letting him believe the ideas were his own, for Franco was jealous of the paternity of ideas, while Luisa was quite indifferent to this sort of maternity. Thus, together, they arranged the hall as a music-room, drawing-room, and reading-room; the loggia as a card-room, while the terrace was sacred to coffee and contemplation. This small terrace became in Franco's hands the lyric poem of the house. It was very tiny and Luisa felt that here a concession might be made, and an outlet provided for her husband's enthusiasms. It was then that the king of Valsoldian mulberry-trees fell from his throne, the famous and ancient mulberry of the churchyard, a tyrant that deprived the terrace of the finest view. Franco freed himself from this tyrant by pecuniary means; then he designed and raised above the terrace an airy context of slim rods and bars of iron which formed three arches surmounted by a tiny cupola, and over this he trained two graceful passion-flower vines, that opened their great blue eyes here and there, and fell on all sides in festoons and garlands. A small round table and some iron chairs served for coffee and contemplation. As to the little hanging-garden, Luisa would have been willing to put up even with maize, with that tolerance of the superior mind which loves to humour the ideas, the habits, the affections of inferior minds. She felt a sort of respectful pity for the horticultural ideals of the poor caretaker, for that mixture of roughness and gentleness he had in his heart, a great heart, capable of holding at once, reseda and pumpkins, balsam and carrots. But Franco, generous and religious though he was, would not have tolerated a carrot or a pumpkin in his garden for love of any neighbour. All stupid vulgarity irritated him. When the unfortunate kitchen-gardener heard Don Franco declare that the little garden was a filthy hole, that everything must be torn up, everything thrown away, he was so dazed and humiliated as to excite pity; but when, working under his master's orders, tracing out paths, bordering them with tufa-stones, planting flowers and shrubs, he saw how skilful Franco himself was with his hands, and how many terrible Latin names he knew, and what a surprising talent he possessed for imagining new and beautiful arrangements, he conceived, little by little, an almost fearful admiration for him, which soon—in spite of many scoldings—developed into devoted affection.
The little hanging garden was transformed in Franco's own image and likeness. An olea fragrans in one corner spoke of the power of gentle things over the hot, impetuous spirit of the poet; a tiny cypress, not over-acceptable to Luisa, spoke in another corner of his religiosity; a low, brick parapet, in open-work pattern, ran between the cypress and the olea, supporting two parallel rows of tufa-stones, between which blossomed a smiling colony of verbenas, petunias, and wall-flowers, and spoke of the singular ingenuity of its author; the many rose-bushes scattered everywhere spoke of his love of classic beauty; the ficus repens which decked the walls towards the lake, the twin orange-trees between the two tiers, and a vigorous carob-tree, revealed a chilly temperament, a fancy turning always towards the south, insensible to the fascination of the north.
Luisa had worked far harder than her husband, and still continued to do so, but whereas he was proud of his labours and glad to speak of them, Luisa, on the contrary, never mentioned hers, nor was she in the least proud of them. She laboured with the needle, the crochet, the iron, the scissors, with a wonderful, calm rapidity; working for her husband, her child, the poor, herself, and for the adornment of her house. Each room contained some creation of hers; dainty curtains, rugs, cushions, or lamp-shades. It was also her duty to arrange the flowers in the hall and the loggia; no flowers in pots, for Franco did not have many, and did not wish them shut up in rooms; no flowers from the little garden, for to gather one of those was like tearing it out of Franco's heart. But the dahlias, the gladioles, the roses, and the asters of the kitchen-garden were at Luisa's disposal. These, however, were not sufficient, and as the village loved "Sciora Luisa" best after the Almighty, St. Margherita, and St. Sebastian, at a sign from her, its children would bring her wildflowers and ferns, and ivy to festoon between the great bunches, stuck in metal rings on the walls. Even the arms of the harp that hung from the ceiling of the hall, were always entwined with long serpents of ivy and passion-flower.
If they wrote to Uncle Piero of these innovations he would answer little or nothing. At most he would caution them not to keep the kitchen-gardener too busy, but to leave him time for his own work. The first time he came to Oria after the transformation of the little garden he paused and contemplated it as he had contemplated the six stocks of maize, and murmured under his breath: "Oh dear me!" He went out to the terrace, looked at the little cupola, touched the iron bars, and pronounced an "Enough!" that was resigned, but full of disapproval of so much elegance, which he considered above the position of his family and himself. But when he had examined in silence all the nosegays and bunches of flowers, the pots and the festoons of the hall and the loggia, he said, with his good-natured smile: "Look here, Luisa! Don't you think it would be better to keep a couple of sheep with all this fodder?"
But the housekeeper was delighted that she no longer need kill herself for dust and cobwebs, and the kitchen-gardener was for ever praising the wonderful works of "Signor Don Franco," so that Uncle Piero himself soon began to grow accustomed to the new aspect his house had assumed, and to look without disapproval upon the little cupola, which, indeed, afforded a most grateful shade. At the end of two or three days he asked who had made it, and he would sometimes pause to examine the flowers in the garden, to inquire the name of one or another. At the end of eight or ten days, standing with little Maria at the door leading from the hall to the garden, he would ask her: "Who planted all those beautiful flowers?" and teach her to answer: "Papa!" He exhibited his nephew's creations to an employé of his who one day came to visit him, and listened to his expressions of approval with a fine assumption of indifference, but with the greatest satisfaction. "Yes, yes, he is clever enough." Indeed he ended by becoming one of Franco's admirers, and would even listen, in the course of conversation, to other projects of his. And in Franco, admiration and gratitude were growing for that great and generous bounty that had vanquished conservative nature, and the old aversion for elegance of every description; for that same bounty that at all such opposition rose silently and even higher behind the uncle's resistance, until it surmounted all, covered all in a broad wave of acquiescence, or at least with the sacramental phrase: "However, fate vobis; do as you like." One innovation only Uncle Piero had not been willing to accept—the disappearance of his old cushion. "Luisa," said he, gingerly lifting the new, embroidered cushion from the easy-chair, "Luisa, take this away." And he would not be persuaded. "Will you take it away?" When Luisa, smiling, brought him the little abortive mattress he sat down upon it with a satisfied, "That's it!" as if he were solemnly taking possession of a lost throne.
At the present moment, while the violet dusk was invading the green of the waves and running along the coast from village to village, eclipsing, one after another, the shining white houses, the engineer was seated upon his throne holding little Maria on his knees, while out on the terrace Franco was watering the pots of pelargonia, his heart and his face as full of affectionate satisfaction as if he had been slaking the thirst of Ishmael in the desert. Luisa was patiently untangling a fishing-line belonging to her husband, a frightful snarl of string, lead, silk, and hooks. She was talking, meanwhile, with Professor Gilardoni, who always had some philosophical snarl to untangle, but who greatly preferred a discussion with Franco, who always contradicted him, right or wrong, believing him to possess an excellent heart, but a confused head. Uncle Piero, his right knee resting on his left, held the child on this elevation, and for the hundredth time at least, was repeating a little scrap of verse to her, with affected slowness, and a slight distortion of the foreign name—
Proud shade of the river,
Of Missipipì——
As far as the seventh word the child would listen, motionless and serious, with earnest eyes; but when he reached "Missipipì," she would burst out laughing, pound hard with her little legs, and clap her tiny hands over the uncle's mouth, who would also laugh merrily, and after a short pause he would begin again, speaking slowly, slowly, in the same approved tone:
Proud shade of the river——
The child did not resemble either father or mother; she had the eyes, the delicate features of Grandmother Teresa. She exhibited a strange impetuous tenderness for the old uncle, whom she so seldom saw. Uncle Piero did not use sweet words to her; indeed, when necessary, he would even chide her gently, but he always brought her toys, often took her out to walk, danced her upon his knee, laughed with her, and repeated comic verses to her—the one beginning with the "Missipipì," and that other, ending with the words: