NICOLETTA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1295, 25 November 1911, Page 11

NICOLETTA.

Nicolctta, wherever she is found in the country, is at onco the charm and tho despair of Italy. Sho is forty-five, she cannot rend or write, sho is still pretty, and sho has had nine children. Sho speaks, therefore, tho privileged language of women all tho world over who have bornu nir.o children. "Signora, mia, have patience. I have such a head for forgetting, but it is no light matter to have children, and when one has borno nine one's brains become weakened." Shu does not mind her ignorance (which is that of books, not mankind), but sho minds that it may make her less pleasing (o her mistress. "Ah! what a misfortune.that I cannot write. If I could, there would be no need for you to write out my accounts. I would have them beautifully written foi you. , ' "How do you know that I make the accounts right, Colotta mia?" ' "Pazienzn, Signora! I count them on my fingers when you have gono upstairs." La Coletta and her kind are. tho problem of the civil guardians. It is, the tirao of cholera. I, who do. not frequent tho

piazza, ask for salad and again for grapes. "Signora raia, salad is bad for the Btomach." , "Why, Coletta?" ."Who knows, .Signora?" But for soni<-days-Teat salad,. until', .soiiledne comes, through the piazza. "There are notices posted everywhere forbidding peoplo to sell or to buy salad or grapes." '~, ' ' ••■.■ ' "Then, Coletta, why did you get ma ealad and- grapes when they were forbidden ':" "But you like salad and grapes, "But they are forbidden to be sold in the piazza." ..,,.,,. "In the piazza—no, Signora! I ditln t buy them in the piazza. When the peoplo bring them from the country and may not sell them in tho piazzit they take them to the shop and sclMhem there. I bought them in the shop." "Isn't that, tho same thing? "Che! Che!"

But the guardians?" "Oh! if tho guardians see these things they take them and throw them into the 'street, and so it is finished." "But is there cholera in the town?' "Signora mia enrissimi," says Coletta in some heat. "An old wife—quite as far the other side of the piazza as you are this," she. adds discreetly—"said' she had got cholera, so tho people in the house would not even put her clothes on, but wrapped her in a sheet and carried her in a hurry to the lazzaretto. She is already quite well, Signora," says Coletta in contempt. ■To-day I wake up to the noise of shouting and a train which passes my window. I run to look out, and find a hundred hands of soldiers throwing kisses to any who will catch them. They are in high anirits. Half awake, I think of the Turks, for across a few yards of sand is the Adriatic and an open way to Tripoli. "Why aro tho guns firing salutes, Coletta?"

"Why. Signora, it is a great Festa today. All the boats stay inshore and I cannot buy any eggs in tho piazza because everyone is makin? macaroni at home." "But what Festa?" "0, Signora! long ago there was a battle do you not understand?" (the Battle of Lepanto). "It has boon a Festa on the Ist of October ever since." "And the war with tho Turks, Coletta?" "Who knows?" says Coletta. "Havo a-;y f»onc from the town?"' "Yes of course! Those who have sons gone do not like tho war. One has gene who was to have been married in a week, and the lioii'o is ready. Sho who was tq have married him is in despair. Ont mother has two tons gone. What n thing! But Sicnora mia, when the officials soy 'Go!' there u nothing else to do." "Do the peoplo like war?"

"Chi lo sa? (Wts knows?) Som<j do and some don't, as is tho caso with everything in this life." Look at this picture,' Micolotta! Hero is Tripoli. Hero is a picture ol the. Italian soldiers, and hero are tho Turks." "Madame mia! and thoso aro tho lurks!" She looks at them carefully, and then with, imaginative apprehension and some envy exclaims: 'Clio genti robusti (What strong people). And how fat they are, Siguorn." It is tho Adriatic coast, where "the English do not come," and whero the other day I heard tho salutation "Salve!" in tho village shop. The bathers from tho little towns in tho mountains have nil gone back. "When the rain has fallen tho sen becomes damp," they wy. Tho great wine-casks which lay on tho shore fer the salt water to swell them have boon ■Iraggod homo by the white oxen aud are ready for the vintage. Acros3 that blue water, turning over so prettily at this edge, there- is a battle. ("Does your English journal—the one with the picturestoll yon what will bo tho end of the battle, Signora?"' "Alas! Coletta mia, who can:" "That is true, Signora. Ci vuole pazienza.") Tho soldiers pass, they "about to die" maybe, saluting gaily. Tho guns fire constantly. "I thought yon had gone to see the procession," says Coletta. "What procession? Oh! I remember. 'Long ago there was a battle,' eh?" —By Gertrude H. Bone, in the "Manchester Guardian."