Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XXXI. The Regatta
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his vineyard, he was the only man on the island
who had not trapped a bird or flogged a donkey.
A devoted old servant cancels the name of
master. He had become my friend, the honour
was mine, he was a far better man than I.
Although he belonged to another world than I,
a world almost unknown to me, we understood
each other quite well. During the long days and
nights we were together alone on the sea he
taught me many things I had not read in my
books or heard from the lips of other men. He
was a taciturn man, the sea had taught him its
silence long ago. His thoughts were few and
so much the better for him. But his sayings
were full of poetry and the archaic simplicity of
his similes was pure Greek. Many of his very
words were Greek, he remembered them from
the time he had sailed down that very coast as
one of the crew in Ulysses’ ship. When we were
at home he continued his life as usual working
in my garden or down in his beloved masseria by
the sea. I did not fancy these expeditions up
and down the steep cliffs, I thought his arteries
were getting very hard and he often returned
from his long climb rather out of breath.
Otherwise he looked just the same, he never complained
of anything, ate his macaroni with his usual
appetite and was on his legs from daybreak till
sunset. All of a sudden he refused one day to
eat, we tried to coax him with all sorts of things
but he said no. He admitted that he felt “un
poco stanco,” a little tired, and seemed quite
content to sit for a couple of days under the
pergola looking out on the sea. Then he insisted
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