The second Palio of 1953 was bloodless, but again it fell short of Giorgio's dreams. Not until the last moment did any contrada ask him to ride. Then on a cold-blooded horse he raced for the Panthers. A flashy bay won for the Forest, but of course Farfalla was not there. Things might have been different, he thought, if he had had the right mount. He wondered what had become of her, if she would ever race again.
On a morning soon afterward, Giorgio set out quite early for the weekly market held in the Piazza del Campo. He was leaving for Monticello that selfsame day, but first he had a purchase to make. He planned to walk all the way home to save for his mother the few lire he had left from his year in Siena. And since it was the season of the rains, he would need either a raincoat or an umbrella. A raincoat would make him look more like a successful fantino, but it would cost 5,000 lire, and for that sum he could buy four umbrellas! Besides, he had ruined his only satchel with blistering liniments and blue gentian for his horses, and he would need a carryall for his clothes. By rolling them into small, bread-size bundles he could pack them between the ribs of an umbrella. And so, for one price, he would have a traveling bag and a canopy against the rain.
As he trudged the steep hill of Via Fontebranda, he felt cross-arrows of sadness and gladness. The sadness was for his performance in the Palios. Two contradas had believed in him and he had failed them, miserably. He had failed his family, and himself, too. Even Signor Ramalli needed him no more; he was selling his horses and would not start up his stable again until spring, if then.
So now, defeated and discouraged, Giorgio was going back home where he belonged. That was the wonderful thing about Home. It waited patiently for you to come back, hero or failure. In his mind's eye he was already there, his mother singing as she whisked an egg for their soup; his father contentedly blowing smoke rings; the children poking their fingers through them. And pervading the whole house was the comforting, all-is-well feeling, as if downy wings were spread wide and all who came within were safe.
He was deep in these thoughts as he joined the procession of men with their baskets and women with their market bags. He decided not to make his purchase right away, but to move through the crowd, enjoying the sights and sounds. He had to laugh at a bearded old man in an ankle-length coat who picked up a lady's mirror and a goose quill from a counter of trinkets and trifles. Unmindful of anyone else, he studied his long yellow teeth in the mirror, picked them clean with the goose quill, and tossed both articles back on the table. Enraged, the man behind the counter promptly smashed the mirror on the cobblestones. "You miser! You horse's teeth!" he called out. "For you this means worst luck."
Giorgio walked on, still laughing. Life was fun, after all. He stopped at another stand, fascinated by a hawker of handkerchiefs. The man was wrapping one after another about his fist until the bundle grew big as a pumpkin. He kept his audience in an uproar as he wound and wound the white squares. "Peoples!" he shouted. "A thousand uses they have! To clean the rifle. To strain the jelly. To substitute for the diaper. To blow the nose, even great one like Pinocchio's. Now, who wants whole bundle for only two hundred lire. Who wants?"
Hands went up in coveys, like birds flushed from a hedgerow. And the money poured in. Giorgio could not help wondering if men like this—men who could make so much money and who could make people laugh, too—did they have worries inside them?