"What is it? It must be very small to be in your waistcoat pocket."

"It is a new form of death."

He beamed on everybody with increasing benevolence; but somehow nobody
smiled, and the Signora Corbario shivered and drew her light cloak more
closely round her, as the first gust of the night breeze came up from
the rustling reeds that grew in the pool below.

"It is time to get ready for supper," said Folco. "I hope you are not
hungry, Kalmon, for you will not get anything very elaborate to eat!"

"Bread and cheese will do, my dear fellow."

When Italians go to the country they take nothing of the city with them.
They like the contrast to be complete; they love the total absence of
restraint; they think it delightful to dine in their shooting-coats and
to eat coarse fare. If they had to dress for dinner it would not be the
country at all, nor if dinner had to begin with soup and end with sweets
just as it does in town. They eat extraordinary messes that would make a
Frenchman turn pale and a German look grave. They make portentous
pasties, rich with everything under the sun; they eat fat boiled beef,
and raw fennel, and green almonds, and vast quantities of cream cheese,
and they drink sour wine like water; and it all agrees with them
perfectly, so that they come back to the city refreshed and rested after
a gastronomic treatment which would bring any other European to death's
door.

The table was set out on the verandah that evening, as usual in spring,