but I'm going to get
married. (_She was sitting on the edge of the table swinging her legs_.)

ALESS:--that they shall all escape to Montalbano through the subterranean
road which the devils--

MYSELF: Why don't you tell me about Ettorina? Come to Ettorina.

ALESS: One moment, if you please--which the devils will make on Wednesday
evening--

CARM: You have not yet told me what it is in English.

MYSELF: What what is in English?

CARM: Io t'amo.

(_By the time I had given the information Papa_, _who had been proposing
my health in a speech of which I caught little except an occasional_ Do I
explain myself? _had begun perorating towards a close and was about to
crown his remarks with a brindisi in verse_.)

PAPA: Questa tavola--

GILDO (_taking the words out of his mouth_):

--oggi e assai piu bella.
Enrico! Bevo alla salute di tua sorella. {60}

ALESS:--which the devils will make on Wednesday evening by command of
Argantino the--

PAPA (_beginning again_):

Questa tavola non e sporca ma e netta.
Enrico! mangia, e non dare a loro retta. {61a}

MYSELF (_obediently taking a pear_._ It was a fine pear with a maggot in
it_;_ they wanted me to take another but I knew that those with maggots
are usually the best_. _Not seeing why I should not be a poet also_, _I
put it thus_):

Animale
Non fa male. {61b}

GILDO (_instantly raising his glass_):

Ora che ho mangiato non sono piu a dieta;
Bevo alla salute d'Enrico che e poeta. {61c}

ALESS:

Anch'io voglio brindar, da povero precoce,
Ad Enrico che sentir vuole la mia voce;
Da un anno non ti vedo, O caro fratello!
Vieni oggi, ti faro sentir l'_Otello_. {61d}

MYSELF (_bowing my acknowledgments_): Thank you very much.

GILDO: What did you say? Does that mean Good night? Is that what you
said before?

MYSELF: Very much means Molto, Thank you means Grazie, and Good night
means Buona notte.

GILDO: Let me try. Very much thank you good night?

MYSELF: Bravo, Gildo! You are making progress.

(_Nina was not so much preoccupied with her comments as to be unable to
take a line of her own when there was nothing particularly inspiring in
the conversation and_, _just now_, _she had laid her head down in an
empty plate and was unostentatiously putting out her tongue and making
faces sideways at me_.)

GILDO (_taking a fig in one hand and raising his glass with the other_):

Oggi mi