The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty [342]
Mama returned Mr. Ugone's card.
"I go to Rome," Mr. Ambrogio said.
"Say, mister," said Poldy. "What you say sounds worth coming all the way to Italy to see."
"Signore," said Mr. Ugone, turning toward Poldy—he had to lean across Mr. Fossetta and his pasta—"you will see this and more. Oh, I guarantee, you will find it sad! You want to see tear on little child's cheek? Solid tear?" Mr. Ugone made a gesture of silence at the waiter coming with the fish. "Ecco! Bringing the news! Is turned over, the little boat. Look how hand holds tight the hat. Mmm!"
"No sardine!" said Mama, ahead of the old lady, but there was no need of warning. The waiter had dropped his tray on the floor.
But Mr. Ugone, with his untoward respect for Poldy, went on above all confusion. "Signore, we have in Genoa a sculptor who is a special for angels. See this tomb! Don't you see that soul look glad to be reaching Heaven? Oh! Here a sister die young. See her dress—the fold is caught in the tomb-door—delicato, you accord? How she enjoin the other sister she die too, before her wedding day. Sad, mmm?"
"Say!" said Poldy.
"Gabriella, you please listen to me, hold tight that hat!" said Mama. "You shake your head and it goes round and round."
"I show you," said Mr. Ugone to all, "the tomb my blessed mother."
Back in the corner, old Papa had been fixing his eye on Mr. Ugone for some time. Now he blew his whistle.
"Go ahead," said Poldy. Mr. Ugone had stopped with his napkin over his heart. "He does that all the time—we're used to it."
"Of course," said Mr. Ugone, "other beautiful things I show to you in Genoa. I enjoin you direct your attention to back of old wall where Paganini born."
"Say, what are you?" Gabriella asked him, holding her crown on straight.
"Who's Paganini?" said Poldy.
But Mr. Ugone, who had never really taken his eyes off Papa, waiting there still in that red engineer's cap with his whistle raised, now rose to his feet. With the words, "Also well-known skyscraper!" flung to them all, he suddenly left them—almost as though he hadn't ever come.
Mr. Fossetta brushed off his hands, and poured more wine around. Under cover of Mr. Ugone's departure, the old lady stole a roll from Mama's plate, and Mama watched it disappearing into that old, old mouth. But Mama remained throughout the evening just as nice to the old lady as Gabriella was nice to Mama. Even when the old lady described the Cathedral of Monreale from front to back, and more than one time said, "First church in the world for beauty, Saint Peter second," Mama only closed her eyes and gave a brief click of the tongue.
"Mama," said Gabriella," are we coming back home on this boat too?"
"No more Pomona!" said Mama. "We come home Colomba. By grace of Holy Mother it will not rock—beautiful white boat, Colomba."
"You are full of thoughts too." Mr. Ambrogio turned to Gabriella. "I am still missing my tiepin. Do you feel I will ever find it?"
"Who knows?" said Mama. "You never know when you find something. That's what I tell my poor daughter every morning she wants to sleep late the nice bed."
"Ah, it could have been lost into the sea—before we start, who knows? Standing to wave at friends, from the rail—'Good-by! Good-by!'" and Mr. Ambrogio half rose from his chair to wave at them now.
"But you're wearing a tiepin!" said Poldy, and laughed loudly at poor Mr. Ambrogio, who sat down; and it was true that he was doing so, and true too that he had been showing them from the first night out the way he had said good-by to all those friends he had in America.
"It is my second pin, not my first. Only a cameo." Mr. Ambrogio's feelings were hurt now. He was going eventually home to Sicily but