people palm things off on you,” he heard her say. “If it were another day I would manage mother. But really, today you must take it back, and don’t forget the decorator. Argue it out with him, point by point, just as I told you. Decorators are a cunning lot, and have no conscience, but a man who can talk like you ought to be a match for anybody. The draw will be exactly a week after Lady Day, so that everything must be delivered the day before. If a single thing is missing a silver ducat will be struck off his pay. I want it exactly like a Corpus Christi altar, with drapery and wreaths in front, and the urn with the lottery tickets in the middle between arrangements of fresh flowers. He’s to charge no extras for putting it up. He’s to bring it here, and Zorzi will have to help in the arranging and decorating. Now go and tell him all that so that we may be proud of you, and leave your book here. I will cast it up.”
The old man was going away as Andreas entered. “Oh, there you are,” said Zustina. “Your luggage has just arrived, Zorzi will fetch men to carry it up. Then he will show you a good coffee-house, and takeyou to my sister’s if you like. She will be glad to see you. He’s useful for errands of that kind,” she added. “For that matter, there is absolutely no need for you to make a bosom friend of him at once. But after all, that’s your business. It takes all kinds to make a world, and we all have to get through it as best we can. What I say is, you must take the world as you find it.”
She ran to the stove, looked into the oven, basted the meat; a number of garments, which seemed to belong to her mother and brothers, vanished into a big cupboard. She chased the cat off the table, and attended to a bird hanging in a cage in the window. “There was something else I wanted to say to you,” she went on, coming to a stand-still in front of Andreas. “I don’t know whether you have much money on you, or a letter to a banker. If it’s money, then give it to a business friend or anyone you happen to know in the town to keep for you. Not that there are dishonest people in the house, but I won’t take the responsibility. I’ve got enough to do to keep the house tidy and teach my two brothers and look after my father, for my mother generally works away from home. Besides, you can imagine how much I have to work and plan to get ready for the lottery. How easily offended … I’m sorry we can’t possibly offer you a ticket, even though you are in the house, but you area foreigner, and our patrons are very particular in these things. The second prize is very nice too—it’s a gold and enamel snuff-box. I’ll show it to you as soon as it comes home from the jewellers.”
Meanwhile she added up the little account book, using for the purpose a tiny pencil which she had hidden in one of the curls of her
toupet
, for her hair was dressed as it might be for a ball, in a high
toupet
. She wore cloth slippers, a taffeta skirt, with silver lace, but over it a checked dressing-jacket which was much too big for her and left completely bare her charmingly slender, yet by no means childish, throat. Amid the half-exclamations with which she interspersed her talk, her eyes darted from Andreas to the stove and the cat. Suddenly something flashed through her mind; she flew to the window, leant far out, and called shrilly down: “Count Gasparo, Count Gasparo—listen! I’ve got something to say to you.”
“Here I am,” said the man with the hooked nose and the fish, unexpectedly coming through the door into the room. “Why scream at me through the window? Here I am”—and he turned to Andreas. “I have only just heard below that you are the young foreign nobleman whom I have the honour to welcome as my guest. I wish both for your and our own sakes that you may be happy under our humble roof. You occupy the rooms of my daughterNina. You do not yet know her, and so you cannot yet appreciate the proof of
The old man was going away as Andreas entered. “Oh, there you are,” said Zustina. “Your luggage has just arrived, Zorzi will fetch men to carry it up. Then he will show you a good coffee-house, and takeyou to my sister’s if you like. She will be glad to see you. He’s useful for errands of that kind,” she added. “For that matter, there is absolutely no need for you to make a bosom friend of him at once. But after all, that’s your business. It takes all kinds to make a world, and we all have to get through it as best we can. What I say is, you must take the world as you find it.”
She ran to the stove, looked into the oven, basted the meat; a number of garments, which seemed to belong to her mother and brothers, vanished into a big cupboard. She chased the cat off the table, and attended to a bird hanging in a cage in the window. “There was something else I wanted to say to you,” she went on, coming to a stand-still in front of Andreas. “I don’t know whether you have much money on you, or a letter to a banker. If it’s money, then give it to a business friend or anyone you happen to know in the town to keep for you. Not that there are dishonest people in the house, but I won’t take the responsibility. I’ve got enough to do to keep the house tidy and teach my two brothers and look after my father, for my mother generally works away from home. Besides, you can imagine how much I have to work and plan to get ready for the lottery. How easily offended … I’m sorry we can’t possibly offer you a ticket, even though you are in the house, but you area foreigner, and our patrons are very particular in these things. The second prize is very nice too—it’s a gold and enamel snuff-box. I’ll show it to you as soon as it comes home from the jewellers.”
Meanwhile she added up the little account book, using for the purpose a tiny pencil which she had hidden in one of the curls of her
toupet
, for her hair was dressed as it might be for a ball, in a high
toupet
. She wore cloth slippers, a taffeta skirt, with silver lace, but over it a checked dressing-jacket which was much too big for her and left completely bare her charmingly slender, yet by no means childish, throat. Amid the half-exclamations with which she interspersed her talk, her eyes darted from Andreas to the stove and the cat. Suddenly something flashed through her mind; she flew to the window, leant far out, and called shrilly down: “Count Gasparo, Count Gasparo—listen! I’ve got something to say to you.”
“Here I am,” said the man with the hooked nose and the fish, unexpectedly coming through the door into the room. “Why scream at me through the window? Here I am”—and he turned to Andreas. “I have only just heard below that you are the young foreign nobleman whom I have the honour to welcome as my guest. I wish both for your and our own sakes that you may be happy under our humble roof. You occupy the rooms of my daughterNina. You do not yet know her, and so you cannot yet appreciate the proof of
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