XXIII HIS OWN VINE AND FIG-TREE O IN the outskirts of a hamlet of the western bank of Como, between Gravedona and Colico, stands a way side osteria of modest pretensions. The road is usually white with dust, the inn small, as a resort of refreshment from the heat, and consists of two rooms on the ground-floor, with several additional, irregular chambers, gained by a ladder-like stairway, under the roof of crimped and fluted brown tiles. The house is coloured a warm saffron pink hue, the shutters of the small windows are yellowish green, and vines of the striped gourd climb around the upper casements in a not ungraceful canopy of leaves. A niche above the door holds a statuette of the Madonna of terra-cotta in a robe of deep, hard blue. The gate which encloses garden patch, and a few fruit trees, is wide open on the arid highway, as if inviting a thirsty wayfarer to enter. The approach to the habitation is characteristic of northern Italy and the Tyrol, the work of the kitchen being turned out-of-doors, as it were, in an easy, unkempt fashion. Fowls peck about the threshold, and pigeons strut on the roof. The Grandmother Agata shells peas or beans in an earthen basin, or washes salad and vegetables on the bench placed along the wall, while the buxom mistress of the premises rinses linen, dresses small fish, or attends to other culinary preparations in view of possible customers, the actual triumph of frying or roasting belonging to the skill of the host, with his one arm. The osteria faces the lake, with an arbour (pergola) leading in the direction of the water, covered with luxuriant grapevine, and a strip of shingle along the shore where boats may push up on occasion. A rustic simplicity pertains to the little inn, yet it is a shrine with a history sufficiently com plete to have rounded the sphere of experience to the participants. The charming custom has long prevailed of having Manzoni's Promessi Sposi performed at the town of Lecco, each season, by a good dramatic company. In how many nooks of Como the drama may be enacted in real life, with each new generation! The pedestrian tempted to seek simple fare and enter the osteria is welcomed with an easy grace of courtesy that any Boniface might envy. Leandro, the host, a sun-bronzed man, with a frank and good-humoured physiognomy, a vigorous, muscular figure, and an empty sleeve where a stalwart right arm should serve him through life, invites the stranger to be seated at a table under the pergola, shaded by the canopy of green vine-leaves, and breakfast on a dish of eggs, fish of the lake, or a stufato (stew), and a morsel of Gorgonzola cheese; the repast completed by a flask of sound wine (vino sincero). Laura, the hostess, assists in these preparations. She is a handsome young woman, with a sympathetic face, a true daughter of autumn sunshine and the lake district in the warm tones of skin, and the supple outline of throat, shoulder, and bust. Her black hair is braided in tresses and surrounded by an aureole of silver pins, while coral beads and filigree of gold encircle her neck. Her dark eyes look out from beneath level brows with a steadfast expression. Probably the stranger, keenly observant of types in foreign lands, will wonder where such girls of the people obtain their proud bearing, finely moulded limbs, and noble features. The Grandmother Agata, bent, careworn, and wrinkled, knitting a stocking, will pause beyond the entrance of the arbour, looking on, like St. Anna in the background of the altar pictures of the early masters. The children gather near the decrepit fig-tree at the angle of the house, with the house dog, a mastiff of sagacious aspect, whose bearing to customers is bland at this hour. If the stranger is affable, as tourists are apt to be in such places, he elicits the modest history |