He looked at me with old, unblinking eyes. Owl eyes! That is what they were, and he slowly said,
"Each wrote or drew as his fancy led him, for they were the masters and could do as they wished."
"But what were the words?"
"I cannot speak English, or read it."
Evidently, the man was not going to talk. To me the entire situation was most interesting. Same servants, same villa, many masters. They came and bought and wrote on the wall and left, and then my real-estate friend sold the house again. A fine racket!
Downstairs, outdoors, under the grapevine, eating a good Italian meal, looking at the wonderful view, I came to laugh at my suspicions. I ate spaghetti, olives, dark bread and wine. Silence hung heavily over the sullen sleepy afternoon. The sky became copper-colored. It was about to rain. The old man came and showed me a place to put my car, a recess in the wall of the house, open at one end, but sheltered from the weather. The stone floor was black with grease; more than one automobile had been kept there.
"Other cars have been here," I ventured.
"All the masters had cars," the old man replied.
Back on the stone gallery I waited for the storm to break. At last it came in a solid wall of gray wetness across the valley. Nearer and nearer it came till it deluged my villa and drove me inside.