It was just what he wanted. He immediately began a profuse verbal explanation of why one thing was sometimes better to say than another, why one was truer than another, and so mixed up his una cosa and un' altra cosa as to put me quite hors de combat, and send me into the house with the impression that I ought to be ashamed of myself for having told somebody a lie. It brought to my mind one of my father's favorite quotations: "Some things can be done as well as some other things."
I was shown to my room, which was rough, as all rooms in Asisi are, but large and high. As Sor Filomena said, it had un' aria signorile in spite of the coarse brick floor and the ugly doors and lumpy walls. Some large dauby old paintings gave a color to the dimness, there were a fine old oak secretary black with age, a real bishop's carved stool with a red cushion laid on it, and a long window opening on to a view of the wide plain with its circling mountains and its many cities and paesetti—Perugia shining white from the neighboring hill; Spello and Spoleto standing out in bold profile in the opposite direction; Montefalco lying like a gray pile of rocks on a southern hilltop; the village and church of Santa Maria degli Angeli nestled like a flock of cloves in the plain; and half a dozen others.
I ordered writing-table and chair to be set before the window, and enthroned upon the bishop's tabouret an unabridged Worcester—this being probably his first visit to Asisi—and I was immediately at home.
The servant, Maria, whose maternal grandmother was a countess, was making some last arrangements in the room.
"Come and see what a beautiful new moon there is," I said to her.
She came to the window and looked toward the west. "That isn't the moon: it is a star," she said, fixing her eyes upon Venus.
It was quite characteristic of her class. They all think forestieri do not know the moon from a star.
I pointed lower down, to where an ecstatic crescent was melting in the sunset gold.
She gazed at it a moment, then said: "It is beautiful: I never noticed it before. I never look at the sky except to see what the weather is to be. It is for you signori to look at beautiful things, not for us poveretti.—Do you see the sky in America?" she asked presently.
I assured her that we do, and that the sun, moon and stars shine in it just as here in Italy.