I believe, with my uncle, its a kind of Roman fever! she cried. I never expected to hear a Frenchman renounce his native land.
It is not that I renounce France, the young man remonstrated. I lofe France as much as ever, but I open my arms to Italy as well. To lofe another land and peoples besides your own makes you, not littler, but, as you say, widerbroader. We arewe are Ah, mademoiselle! he broke off, if you would let me talk in French I could say what I mean; but how can one be eloquent in this halting tongue of yours?
Coraggio, Benoit! You are doing bravely, Sybert laughed.
We are, the young man went on with a sudden inspiration, what you call in English, citizens of the world. You, mademoiselle, are American, La Signora Contessa is Italian, Mr. Carthrope is English, I am French, but we are all citizens of the same world, and in whatever land we find ourselves, there we recognize one another for brothers, and are always at home; for it is still the world.
The young mans eloquence was received with an appreciative laugh. And how about paradise? some one suggested.
Ah, my friends, it is there that we will be strangers! Benoit returned tragically.
Citizens of the world, Sybert turned the stem of his wine glass meditatively as he repeated the phrase. It seems to me, in spite of Miss Marcia, that one cant do much better than that. If youre a patriotic citizen of the world, I should think youd done your duty by mankind, and might reasonably expect to reap a reward in Benoits paradise.
He laughed and raised his glass. Heres to the World, our fatherland! May we all be loyal citizens!
I think, said Mrs. Melville, since this is a farewell dinner and we are pledging toasts, we should drink to Villa Vivalanti and a happy spring in the Sabine hills.
Copley bowed his thanks. If you will all visit the villa we will pledge it in the good wine of Vivalanti.
And heres to the Vivalanti ghost! said the young Frenchman. May it lif long and prosper!
Italys the place for such ghosts to prosper, Copley returned.
Heres to the poor people of Italymay they have enough to eat! said Marcia.
Sybert glanced up in sudden surprise, but she did not look at him; she was smiling across at her uncle.
CHAPTER IV
The announcement that a principe Americano was coming to live in Villa Vivalanti occasioned no little excitement in the village. Wagons with furnishings from Rome had been seen to pass on the road below the town, and the contadini in the wayside vineyards had stopped their work to stare, and had repeated to each other rumours of the fabulous wealth this signor principe was said to possess. The furniture they allowed to pass without much controversy. But they shook their heads dubiously when two wagons full of flowering trees and shrubs wound up the roadway toward the villa. This foreigner must be a grasping personas if there were not trees enough already in the Sabine hills, that he must bring out more from Rome!
The dissection of the character of Prince Vivalantis new tenant occupied so much of the peoples time that the spring pruning of the vineyards came near to being slighted. The fountainhead of all knowledge on the subject was the landlord of the Croce dOro. He himself had had the honour of entertaining their excellencies at breakfast, on the occasion of their first visit to Castel Vivalanti, and with unvarying eloquence he nightly recounted the story to an interested group of loungers in the trattoria kitchen: of how he had made the omelet without garlic because princes have delicate stomachs and cannot eat the food one would cook for ordinary men; of how they had sat at that very table, and the young signorina principessa, who was beautiful as the holy angels in paradise, had told him with her own lips that it was the best omelet she had ever eaten; and of how they had paid fifteen lire for their breakfast without so much as a word of protest, and then of their own accord had given three lire more for mancia]. Eighteen lire. Corpo di Bacco! that was the kind of guests he wished would drop in every day.
But when Domenico Paterno, the baker of Castel Vivalanti, heard the story, he shrugged his shoulders and spread out his palms, and asserted that a prince was a prince all over the world; and that the Americano had allowed himself to be cheated from stupidity, not generosity. For his part, he thought the devil was the same, whether he talked American or Italian. But it was reported, on the other hand, that Bianca Rosini had also talked with the forestieri when she was washing clothes in the stream. They had stopped their horses to watch the work, and the signorina had smiled and asked if the water were not cold; for her part, she was sure American nobles had kind hearts.
Domenico, however, was not to be convinced by any such counter-evidence as this. Smiles are cheap, he returned sceptically. Does any one know of their giving money?
No one did know of their giving money, but there were plenty of boys to testify that they had run by the side of the carriage fully a kilometre asking for soldi, and the signore had only shaken his head to pay them for their trouble.
Si, si, what did I tell you? Domenico finished in triumph. American princes are like any othersperhaps a little more stupid, but for the rest, exactly the same.
There were no facts at hand to confute such logic.
And one night Domenico appeared at the Croce dOro with a fresh piece of news; his son, Tarquinio, who kept an osteria in Rome, had told the whole story.
His name is CopliSignor Edoardo Copliand it is because of himDomenico scowledthat I pay for my flour twice the usual price. When the harvests failed last year, and he saw that wheat was going to be scarce, he sent to America and he bought all the wheat in the land and he put it in storehouses. He is holding it there now while the price goes upupup. And when the poor people in Italy get very, very hungry, and are ready to pay whatever he asks, then perhapsvery charitablyhe will agree to sell. Già, that is the truth, he insisted darkly. Everybody knows it in Rome. Doubtless he thinks to escape from his sin up here in the mountainsbut he will seeit will follow him wherever he goes. Maché! It is the story of the Bad Prince over again.
Finally one morningone Friday morningsome of the children of the village who were in the habit of loitering on the highway in the hope of picking up stray soldi, reported that the Americans horses and carriages had come out from Rome, and that the drivers had stopped at the inn of Sant Agapito and ordered wine like gentlemen. It was further rumoured that the principe himself intended to follow in the afternoon. The matter was discussed with considerable interest before the usual noonday siesta.
It is my opinion, said Tommaso Ferri, the blacksmith, as he sat in the bakers doorway, washing down alternate mouthfuls of bread and onion with Vivalanti wineit is my opinion that the Signor Americano must be a very reckless man to venture on so important a journey on Fridayand particularly in Lent. It is well known that if a poor man starts for market on Friday, he will break his eggs on the way; and because a rich man has no eggs to break, is that any reason the buon Dio should overlook his sin? Things are more just in heaven than on earth, he added solemnly; and in my opinion, if the foreigner comes to-day, he will not prosper in the villa.