[Illustration: GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI]
I wondered if he really meant that he wanted to see us again; I doubt it, and did not take his remark seriously. On the contrary, I had the feeling that he was more than indifferent to the pleasure our visit had given him.
When we were driving back to Rome the horses took fright and began running away. They careered like wildfire through the gates of the Porta del Popolo, and bumped into a cart drawn by oxen and overloaded with wine- casks. Fortunately one of the horses fell down, and we came to a standstill. The coachman got down from the box and discovered that one of the wheels was twisted, the pole broken, and other damage done. We were obliged to leave the carriage and walk down the Corso to find a cab.
Just as we were getting into one we saw on the opposite side of the street a man who, while he was cleaning the windows in the third story of a house, lost his balance and fell into the street.
We dreaded to know what had happened, and avoided the crowd which quickly collected, thus shutting out whatever had happened from our view. We hurried home, trembling from our different emotions.
The next morning I awoke from my sleep, having had a most vivid dream. I thought I was in a shop, and the man serving me said, "If you take any numbers in the next lottery, take numbers 2, 18, and 9." This was extraordinary, and I immediately told the family about it: 2, 18, 9 (three numbers meant a terno, in other words, a fortune). Mr. H—— said, "Let us look out these numbers in the Libro di Sogni (the Book of Dreams)," and sent out to buy the book. Imagine our feelings! Number 2 meant caduta d'una finestra (fall from a window); number 18 meant morte subito (sudden death), and number 9 meant ospedale (hospital).
Just what had happened; the man had fallen from the window and had been carried dead to the hospital!
Perhaps you don't know what a tremendous part the lottery plays in Italy; it is to an Italian what sausages and beer are to a German. An Italian will spend his last soldo to buy a ticket. He simply cannot live without it. The numbers are drawn every Saturday morning at twelve o'clock, and are instantly exposed in all the tobacco-shops in the town.
An hour after, whether lucky or unlucky, the Italian buys a new ticket for the following week, and lives on hope and dreams until the next Saturday; and when any event happens or any dream comes to him he searches in the dream-book for a number corresponding to them, and he is off like lightning to buy a ticket. I was told that the Marquis Rudini, on hearing that his mother had met her death in a railroad accident, sought in the dream-book for the number attached to "railroad accident," and bought a ticket before going to get her remains.
A winning terno brings its lucky owner I don't know exactly how much— but I know it is something enormous.