Private Angelo [antikvár]

The trouble with you, Angelo,' said the Count severely, 'is that you lack the dono di coraggio^'That is perfectly true,' said Angelo, 'but am I to blame? Courage is a gift indeed, a great and splendid gift, and it is idle to pretend that any ordinary person can insist on receiving it; or go and buy it in the Black Market. We who have not been given the dono di coraggio suffer deeply, I assure you. We suffer so much, every day of our lives, that if there were any justice in the world we should receive sympathy, not reproof.'With the back of his hand he rubbed a tear from his cheek, and turned away to look through the tall window at the splendid view of Rome on which it opened. In the westering sun the walls of the buildings were the colour of ripe peaches; the domes of several churches rose serenely, firmly round and steeply nippled like the unimpaired and several breasts of a Great Mother whose innumerable offspring, too weak to drain them, had even lacked sufficient appetite to use them much; while in half a dozen places, within easy reach of sight, Victory in a four-horsed chariot drove superbly through the golden air. Soft green foliage clothed the river-bank, and somewhere a military band was playing a gallant march. How beautiful was Rome, how beautiful all the land of Italy!Sitdng behind his handsome large table - inlaid with intricately patterned brass about its flanks and furnished with a brass inkstand as big as a couple of flower-pots, with a statuette in bronze of the Wolf and the Twins, and a signed photograph of the Duce -seated in state though he was, the Count felt a softening of his heart, and his hands which had lain flat and severe upon the table half-rose, half-turned their palms, in a little gesture of understanding and sympathy; a gesture like the prelude to a softly acquiescent shrug. Angelo was a good-looking boy. True, he was very dirty, his ill-made uniform was sweat-stained and caked with dust, his left knee showed through a long rent in his breeches, his right boot was tied with string to keep a loose sole in position, and he stank a little; but his black hair curled and the bones of his face were as comely aS if Donatello in his prime had carved them; he had eyes like his mother's and in his voice the echoes rose and fell of hers.