I Looked Round And Perceived A Man Standing Near Me At The Door Of
A Shop Contiguous To The Inn.
He appeared to be about sixty-five,
with a pale face and remarkably red nose.
He was dressed in a
loose green great coat, in his mouth was a long clay pipe, in his
hand a long painted stick.
"Who are you, and who is your countryman?" I demanded; "I do not
know you."
"I know you, however," replied the man; "you purchased the first
knife that I ever sold in the market-place of N-."
Myself. - Ah, I remember you now, Luigi Piozzi; and well do I
remember also, how, when a boy, twenty years ago, I used to repair
to your stall, and listen to you and your countrymen discoursing in
Milanese.
Luigi. - Ah, those were happy times to me. Oh, how they rushed back
on my remembrance when I saw you ride up to the door of the posada.
I instantly went in, closed my shop, lay down upon my bed and wept.
Myself. - I see no reason why you should so much regret those times.
I knew you formerly in England as an itinerant pedlar, and
occasionally as master of a stall in the market-place of a country
town. I now find you in a seaport of Spain, the proprietor,
seemingly, of a considerable shop. I cannot see why you should
regret the difference.
Luigi (dashing his pipe on the ground). - Regret the difference! Do
you know one thing? England is the heaven of the Piedmontese and
Milanese, and especially those of Como. We never lie down to rest
but we dream of it, whether we are in our own country or in a
foreign land, as I am now. Regret the difference, Giorgio! Do I
hear such words from your lips, and you an Englishman? I would
rather be the poorest tramper on the roads of England, than lord of
all within ten leagues of the shore of the lake of Como, and much
the same say all my countrymen who have visited England, wherever
they now be. Regret the difference! I have ten letters, from as
many countrymen in America, who say they are rich and thriving, and
principal men and merchants; but every night, when their heads are
reposing on their pillows, their souls auslandra, hurrying away to
England, and its green lanes and farm-yards. And there they are
with their boxes on the ground, displaying their looking-glasses
and other goods to the honest rustics and their dames and their
daughters, and selling away and chaffering and laughing just as of
old. And there they are again at nightfall in the hedge alehouses,
eating their toasted cheese and their bread, and drinking the
Suffolk ale, and listening to the roaring song and merry jest of
the labourers. Now, if they regret England so who are in America,
which they own to be a happy country, and good for those of
Piedmont and of Como, how much more must I regret it, when, after
the lapse of so many years, I find myself in Spain, in this
frightful town of Coruna, driving a ruinous trade, and where months
pass by without my seeing a single English face, or hearing a word
of the blessed English tongue.
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