Of all the people in the whole of proud old Tuscany assuredly none were so easy-going and vivacious, none so light-hearted and full of poetry as those Livornese people passing to and fro below us. The more I had dwelt among the Tuscan people the more I loved them. There is surely no other people on the face of the earth so entirely lovable, even with their many sad faults, as they; none so gregarious, so neighbourly, so courteous, kindly or poetic, none so content upon the most meagre fare that ever held body and soul together.
Your popolano even in his rags will bring a flower to a woman with the air of a king, and he will resent an insult with a withering scorn to which no regal trappings could lend further dignity. It is the land where Love still reigns just as supreme as it did in the days of La Fiammetta, of Beatrice, of Laura, or of Romeo—the Land of Amore—the sun-kissed land where even in this prosaic century of ours men and women live and die—often by the knife-thrust, be it said—for “amore,” that king who is greater and more powerful even than good Vittorio Emanuele himself.
At Lucie’s side I stood in silence, gazing down upon the gay scene below. In those people’s eyes were always dreams, and in the memories there was always greatness.
A writer has asked with deep truth, who, having known fair Tuscany, can forsake her for lesser love? Who, having once abode with her, can turn their faces from the rising sun and set the darkness of the Pisan mountains betwixt herself and them?
Yes. I had been back again in Tuscany for those few brief hours only, yet the glamour of Italy had again fallen upon me, that same glamour that holds so many of the English-speaking race—irrevocably compelling them to return again and again to those amethystine hills and mystical depths of seven-chorded light—the land that is grey-green with sloes and rich with trailing vines, the land of art and antiquity, of youth and of loveliness.
“And your father went on from Pisa?” I said at last, turning to my neat-waisted little companion. “He did not come home with you?”
“No. He has some urgent business down in Rome, and sent me back here to wait for him.”
“When does he arrive?”
“He does not know. His business is very uncertain always. Sometimes when he goes away he’s absent only three days, and at other times three months. Dear old dad is awfully tiresome. He never writes, and Marietta and I wait and wait, and wonder what’s become of him.”
“Is he staying with friends in Rome?”