There
came a pedlar to the door; she sighed deeply at the sight of the
brilliant red; so I gave it her.
She is a great lover and a connoisseur of wine, like myself. We taste
and drink together every dinner-time. As she always waits upon me, I
often give her a little cake and wine while I am eating. Now we have
begun a new wine, white Roman muscat. But I change my wine almost every
other day. Filomena had taken the one large bottle and stacked up
newspapers round it on the table, so that if K.B. came he should not see
it. It so happened that he came to-day, whilst I was dining and she
eating with me. There was a ring; she wanted to go. "Stay; perhaps it is
not for me at all; and in any case, I do not ask anyone's permission for
you to be here." He came in, and said in Danish, as he put his hat down:
"Oh, so you let the girl of the house dine with you; I should not care
for that." Filomena, who noticed his glance in her direction, and his
gesture, said, with as spiteful a look, and in as cutting a voice as she
could muster: "_Il signore prende il suo pranzo con chi lui pare e
piace._" (The gentleman eats with whomsoever he pleases.) "Does she
understand Danish?" he asked, in astonishment. "It looks like it," I
replied. When he had gone, her _furia_ broke loose. I saw her
exasperated for the first time, and it sat very comically upon her.
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