The small boy whose acquaintance I had made in the morning, had, on entering the room, remained open-mouthed for a time; but when he had taken in all the preparations, and more especially a side-table covered with pastry, sweets and bottles, he could control himself no longer, and turning to me, yelled, bringing down both his fists on the table—
“Oh! I say, this is jolly! Look what a lot of nice things there are to-day, because you’re here!”
Sor Cosimo aimed a kick at him under the table, which fortunately missed its mark; and immediately a frozen silence fell upon the guests.
The women sighed,—the men glared upon that boy with looks which ought to have reduced him to ashes on the spot,—and I turned to Signor Cosimo and asked him, with an air of innocent bewilderment, what his son had said. My stratagem was perfectly successful, and every one’s face had brightened up when Gostino appeared in his shirt sleeves, bringing in the soup. Signora Flavia called him to her, and whispered something in his ear. At the next course Gostino returned in his shooting-jacket, and with his hat on. Signora Flavia called him again; and when he next appeared, with the boiled meat, he had left his hat behind, and cast a questioning glance at his mistress, as much as to say, “Is it right now?” She nodded an affirmative, but Sor Cosimo signified to him, by another glance, that he ought to have known these things without being told. Gostino signified, in reply, by a shrug of his shoulders, that they had been bothering him unnecessarily, and requested me to take another piece of chicken.
This politeness on Gostino’s part was the signal for attack. The wine had begun to revive the spirits of the company, and had affected Sor Cosimo more than the rest. A tenant came in to say that at Don Paolo’s net in the garden they had taken seven bullfinches, by which means he too was cheered up; and now I found myself overwhelmed by the avalanche of attentions these good people bestowed on me. They heaped my plate with eatables, and pressed on me one dish after another, new ones appearing every time I imagined dinner was at an end. I must take some spinach, because it was a rarity at this time of year; I must taste that other dish, because Signorina Olimpia had made the sauce herself. And all the time Gostino was behind my chair, reproaching me for eating nothing, and Signora Flavia was lamenting that the dinner was not to my taste....
At last it was at an end....
And the conversation during dinner? There was none! There was a continual, dull succession of “Take some——”—“Thank you”—“You’re not eating”—“You’re not drinking”—and of roars of laughter whenever they had hit upon a new device for cramming me to death.
“The poems, Olimpia, the poems!” yelled Signor Cosimo at last. “The sonnet for Calamai!”
I turned at once to Signorina Olimpia, to read in her eyes the gravity of the calamity which threatened me, and I saw there an expression which made me sorry for her. Signora Flavia had the same look, and even in the face of that irrepressible child I thought I read something like fear. They all gazed at Sor Cosimo in a piteously questioning manner, and then simultaneously turned towards the place at the end of the table, at his right.
At that point the master of the house called Gostino, in a tone of vexation, and the latter appeared, in company with two tenants, who, seizing Don Paolo under the arms, dragged him like a log out of the room. I jumped up to offer my assistance, but Sor Cosimo stopped me, telling me, with a look of mingled pain and humiliation, that I was not to be frightened—it was quite a customary thing.