Gambara | Page 7

was seeking when Signor
Giardini, with a grotesque shrug, looked knowingly at his customer, a
bland smile on his lips.
"/Basta/!" he exclaimed. "/Capisco/. Your Excellency has come spurred
by two appetites. La Signora Gambara will not have wasted her time if
she has gained the interest of a gentleman so generous as you appear to
be. I can tell you in a few words all we know of the woman, who is
really to be pitied.
"The husband is, I believe, a native of Cremona and has just come here
from Germany. He was hoping to get the Tedeschi to try some new
music and some new instruments. Isn't it pitiable?" said Giardini,
shrugging his shoulders. "Signor Gambara, who thinks himself a great
composer, does not seem to me very clever in other ways. An excellent
fellow with some sense and wit, and sometimes very agreeable,
especially when he has had a few glasses of wine--which does not often
happen, for he is desperately poor; night and day he toils at imaginary
symphonies and operas instead of trying to earn an honest living. His
poor wife is reduced to working for all sorts of people--the women on
the streets! What is to be said? She loves her husband like a father, and
takes care of him like a child.
"Many a young man has dined here to pay his court to madame; but not
one has succeeded," said he, emphasizing the word. "La Signora
Marianna is an honest woman, monsieur, much too honest, worse luck
for her! Men give nothing for nothing nowadays. So the poor soul will
die in harness.
"And do you suppose that her husband rewards her for her devotion?
Pooh, my lord never gives her a smile! And all their cooking is done at
the baker's; for not only does the wretched man never earn a sou; he
spends all his wife can make on instruments which he carves, and
lengthens, and shortens, and sets up and takes to pieces again till they
produce sounds that will scare a cat; then he is happy. And yet you will
find him the mildest, the gentlest of men. And, he is not idle; he is
always at it. What is to be said? He is crazy and does not know his
business. I have seen him, monsieur, filing and forging his instruments
and eating black bread with an appetite that I envied him --I, who have

the best table in Paris.
"Yes, Excellenza, in a quarter of an hour you shall know the man I am.
I have introduced certain refinements into Italian cookery that will
amaze you! Excellenza, I am a Neapolitan--that is to say, a born cook.
But of what use is instinct without knowledge? Knowledge! I have
spent thirty years in acquiring it, and you see where it has left me. My
history is that of every man of talent. My attempts, my experiments,
have ruined three restaurants in succession at Naples, Parma, and Rome.
To this day, when I am reduced to make a trade of my art, I more often
than not give way to my ruling passion. I give these poor refugees some
of my choicest dishes. I ruin myself! Folly! you will say? I know it; but
how can I help it? Genius carries me away, and I cannot resist
concocting a dish which smiles on my fancy.
"And they always know it, the rascals! They know, I can promise you,
whether I or my wife has stood over the fire. And what is the
consequence? Of sixty-odd customers whom I used to see at my table
every day when I first started in this wretched place, I now see twenty
on an average, and give them credit for the most part. The Piedmontese,
the Savoyards, have deserted, but the connoisseurs, the true Italians,
remain. And there is no sacrifice that I would not make for them. I
often give them a dinner for five and twenty sous which has cost me
double."
Signore Giardini's speech had such a full flavor of Neapolitan cunning
that the Count was delighted, and could have fancied himself at
Gerolamo's.
"Since that is the case, my good friend," said he familiarly to the cook,
"and since chance and your confidence have let me into the secret of
your daily sacrifices, allow me to pay double."
As he spoke Andrea spun a forty-franc piece on the stove, out of which
Giardini solemnly gave him two francs and fifty centimes in change,
not without a certain ceremonious mystery that amused him hugely.
"In a few minutes now," the man added, "you will see your /donnina/. I
will seat you next the husband, and if you wish to stand in his good
graces, talk about music. I have