The colonello, protector of the poor and purveyor of pantaloons to suffering donkeys, is at this hotel. He is a delightful, warm-blooded creature, who cannot be quite comfortable unless everybody else in sight—even an ass—is comfortable too. Like the others, he had a great deal to say about Lucia; of all the personages we have met—the place is full of personages—she seems to have the most marked character.
“Gad, sir, the old woman is right,” said the colonel. “The day she goes out of the guide business she will go to pieces. Why should she give up her job because her daughter has married into another sphere? I’m d—d if I don’t like her spirit!”
“What is the daughter like?” I asked.
“She is a good sort,” said the colonel. “When her husband took her to his mother’s house, what do you suppose they did with her? sent her to school, had her taught like a child. She learned many things, how to talk small talk, how to behave at table, how to dress and all the rest of it. When they thought she had learned enough she came home to her husband. He gave a great dinner to introduce her to his family—oh, they all acted sensibly. The bride behaved very nicely and quietly, they all liked her for her pretty manners (you know the people hereabouts have excellent manners, better than half the aristocracy at home, I tell them) as well as for her remarkable beauty; she must have been worth seeing in those days. After the dinner was over and the guests had left the dining-room, the husband coming back for something found his wife going round the table collecting the ends of the cigars the men had left on their plates.
“‘What on earth do you want with those nasty things?’ he asked.
“‘I shall send them to my poor old father at Ischia!’
“She had been in the habit of picking up the ends of the travellers’ cigars for the old man. Do you wonder that she has made a good wife and mother? I tell you she has a good heart; if a woman has that, what else matters?”
When we made our second trip to Epomeo to keep faith with Orlando, Lucia was nowhere visible; we made the ascent without her. Orlando held undisputed possession of Epomeo.
“Where is your friend Lucia?” we asked.
He fairly spluttered, “Una vecchiarella stupida senza educazione (A stupid old woman without education)! Do you know what I believe? I believe that her daughter and son-in-law are in Ischia. When they are on the island, Lucia sits all day at her window dressed in her Sunday clothes. To see her you would never fancy that she was the guide to Mt. Epomeo—not that there is any need of a guide, as you yourselves perceive.”