“Never!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “Every day?”
“On my word of honour!”
Here Sor Cosimo smiled at me from the other side of the church, and waved his hand at the organ, as if to say, “What an instrument we have, and what an organist! You hear—eh?”
“That man beside Sor Cosimo, with the great black silk scarf round his neck,” my friend went on, “is Stelloni the miller, a member of the School Board. Sor Cosimo nominated him, because—considering the antipathy which Stelloni has shown towards all schools from his childhood up—he was able to assure the Council that he would never be one to advocate unnecessary expense! In fact, Stelloni, true to his principles, has never set foot inside a schoolhouse. He says it is from a desire not to compromise himself, knowing, as he does, that things are not managed in the way he would approve of; low and unmannerly people say it is because he is afraid of having to question the children. He’s a good-natured sort of fellow, though, and hates no one in the world except the schoolmaster—that pale young man standing over there by the pillar,—because he once corrected a grammatical mistake in a composition by the miller’s son. Stelloni felt a kindly compassion for the master as long as the point remained doubtful; but when it was established beyond question that the master was right, his compassion turned to implacable hatred, and now he would be glad of any excuse for turning him out into the road to starve.
“That little thin old man, at the end of the row on the right, is one of the richest landowners in the place; a retired lawyer, and Sor Cosimo’s predecessor as Syndic. His ruling passion is that of running his head against stone walls, and systematically contradicting, at every meeting of the Council, everything that Sor Cosimo proposes. He has immortalised himself by means of two inscriptions which he had put up—with his own name in capital letters—during his term of office: one on the public well, when he had the pump put up,—the other you see opposite you—when he had the ciborium in the Chapel of the Seven Sorrows re-gilt at his own expense. He got himself elected Syndic in order to get the new government road run past the gates of his villa. Afterwards, when he found this impossible, and also failed to get the title of ‘Cavaliere,’ he retired in a rage. Now he relieves his feelings by taking the opposition side in the Council;—he turns off one tenant every year, and imprecates the wrath of Providence on the Government at every possible opportunity—even when the frost ruined his early tomatoes.”
“And you are in the hands of these people?” I remarked.
“I am in the hands of these people.”
... At the moment of going to table, Sor Cosimo said to me, with a wink, “We must keep up our spirits to-day—bravo! bravo!” Signora Flavia repeated, for the sixth time, her fear that I should find it penitential fare at best, seeing that they had made no alteration in their usual Sunday’s dinner.
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, ostensibly because I was hurt by these apologies, but in reality because I felt I could not stand much more. Signorina Olimpia preceded us, curtseying backwards, after having presented me with a roguish glance and a little bunch of jessamine; and we entered the dining-room, prepared for a great occasion, as was evident from the odorous presence of table-linen fresh from the quinces and lavender of the store-closet.
“Here we are,” Sor Cosimo began again. “We have no ceremony here—a little soup, a bit of boiled meat, a sweet thing or two, and that’s all!” He crossed himself and said grace.