Another experience was of a different sort, and illustrates the Italian love of bargaining, and their notion of a sliding scale of prices.One of our expeditions to the hills was one day making its long, straggling way through the narrow street of a little village of the Piano, when I lingered behind my companions, attracted by a handcart with several large baskets of oranges.The cart stood untended in the street; and selecting a large orange, which would measure twelve inches in circumference, I turned to look for the owner.After some time a fellow got from the open front of the neighboring cobbler's shop, where he sat with his lazy cronies, listening to the honest gossip of the follower of St.Crispin, and sauntered towards me.
"How much for this?" I ask.
"One franc, signor," says the proprietor, with a polite bow, holding up one finger.
I shake my head, and intimate that that is altogether too much, in fact, preposterous.
The proprietor is very indifferent, and shrugs his shoulders in an amiable manner.He picks up a fair, handsome orange, weighs it in his hand, and holds it up temptingly.That also is one, franc.
I suggest one sou as a fair price, a suggestion which he only receives with a smile of slight pity, and, I fancy, a little disdain.
A woman joins him, and also holds up this and that gold-skinned one for my admiration.
As I stand, sorting over the fruit, trying to please myself with size, color, and texture, a little crowd has gathered round; and Isee, by a glance, that all the occupations in that neighborhood, including loafing, are temporarily suspended to witness the trade.
The interest of the circle visibly increases; and others take such a part in the transaction that I begin to doubt if the first man is, after all, the proprietor.
At length I select two oranges, and again demand the price.There is a little consultation and jabber, when I am told that I can have both for a franc.I, in turn, sigh, shrug my shoulders, and put down the oranges, amid a chorus of exclamations over my graspingness.My offer of two sous is met with ridicule, but not with indifference.Ican see that it has made a sensation.These simple, idle children of the sun begin to show a little excitement.I at length determine upon a bold stroke, and resolve to show myself the Napoleon of oranges, or to meet my Waterloo.I pick out four of the largest oranges in the basket, while all eyes are fixed on me intently, and, for the first time, pull out a piece of money.It is a two-sous piece.I offer it for the four oranges.
"No, no, no, no, signor! Ah, signor! ah, signor!" in a chorus from the whole crowd.
I have struck bottom at last, and perhaps got somewhere near the value; and all calmness is gone.Such protestations, such indignation, such sorrow, I have never seen before from so small a cause.It cannot be thought of; it is mere ruin! I am, in turn, as firm, and nearly as excited in seeming.I hold up the fruit, and tender the money.
"No, never, never! The signor cannot be in earnest."Looking round me for a moment, and assuming a theatrical manner, befitting the gestures of those about me, I fling the fruit down, and, with a sublime renunciation, stalk away.
There is instantly a buzz and a hum that rises almost to a clamor.Ihave not proceeded far, when a skinny old woman runs after me, and begs me to return.I go back, and the crowd parts to receive me.
The proprietor has a new proposition, the effect of which upon me is intently watched.He proposes to give me five big oranges for four sous.I receive it with utter scorn, and a laugh of derision.Iwill give two sous for the original four, and not a centesimo more.
That I solemnly say, and am ready to depart.Hesitation and renewed conference; but at last the proprietor relents; and, with the look of one who is ruined for life, and who yet is willing to sacrifice himself, he hands me the oranges.Instantly the excitement is dead, the crowd disperses, and the street is as quiet as ever; when I walk away, bearing my hard-won treasures.
A little while after, as I sat upon the outer wall of the terrace of the Camaldoli, with my feet hanging over, these same oranges were taken from my pockets by Americans; so that I am prevented from making any moral reflections upon the honesty of the Italians.
There is an immense garden of oranges and lemons at the village of Massa, through which travelers are shown by a surly fellow, who keeps watch of his trees, and has a bulldog lurking about for the unwary.
I hate to see a bulldog in a fruit orchard.I have eaten a good many oranges there, and been astonished at the boughs of immense lemons which bend the trees to the ground.I took occasion to measure one of the lemons, called a citron-lemon, and found its circumference to be twenty-one inches one way by fifteen inches the other,--about as big as a railway conductor's lantern.These lemons are not so sour as the fellow who shows them: he is a mercenary dog, and his prices afford me no clew to the just value of oranges.
I like better to go to a little garden in the village of Meta, under a sunny precipice of rocks overhung by the ruined convent of Camaldoli.I turn up a narrow lane, and push open the wooden door in the garden of a little villa.It is a pretty garden; and, besides the orange and lemon-trees on the terrace, it has other fruit-trees, and a scent of many flowers.My friend, the gardener, is sorting oranges from one basket to another, on a green bank, and evidently selling the fruit to some women, who are putting it into bags to carry away.
