The man is a market-gardener with
wife and children, a humble serf, Eumaeus-like, steeped in the rich
philosophy of earth and cloud and sunshine. I bring him a cigar in the
cool of the evening and we smoke on the threshold of his two-roomed
abode, or wander about those tiny patches of culture, geometrically
disposed, where he guides the water with cunning hand athwart the roots
of cabbages and salads. He is not prone to talk of his misfortunes;
intuitive civility has taught him to avoid troubling a stranger with
personal concerns.
The mother is more communicative; she suffers more acutely. They are
hopelessly poor, she tells me, and in debt; unlucky, moreover, in their
offspring. Two boys had already died. There are only two left.
"And this one here is in a bad way. He has grown too ill to work. He can
only mope about the place. Nothing stays in his stomach--nothing; not
milk, not an egg. Everything is rejected. The Alatri doctor treated him
for stomach trouble; so did he of Frosinone. It has done no good. Now
there is no more money for doctors. It is hard to see your children
dying before your eyes. Look at him! Just like those two others."
I looked at him.
"You sent him into the plains last summer?" I ventured.
"To Cisterna. One must make a little money, or starve."
"And you expect to keep your children alive if you send them to
Cisterna?"
I was astonished that the local medicine man had not diagnosed malaria.
I undertook that if she would put him into the train when next I went to
Rome, I would have him overhauled by a competent physician and packed
home again with written instructions.
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