I
look for a moment at the rich pulp in its soft incasement, and then
try a delicious morsel. I nod. My gardener again shrugs his
shoulders, with a slight smile, as much as to say, It could not be
otherwise, and is evidently delighted to have me enjoy his fruit. I
fill capacious pockets with the choicest; and, if I have friends with
me, they do the same. I give our silent but most expressive
entertainer half a franc, never more; and he always seems surprised
at the size of the largesse. We exhaust his basket, and he proposes
to get more.
When I am alone, I stroll about under the heavily-laden trees, and
pick up the largest, where they lie thickly on the ground, liking to
hold them in my hand and feel the agreeable weight, even when I can
carry away no more. The gardener neither follows nor watches me; and
I think perhaps knows, and is not stingy about it, that more valuable
to me than the oranges I eat or take away are those on the trees
among the shining leaves. And perhaps he opines that I am from a
country of snow and ice, where the year has six hostile months, and
that I have not money enough to pay for the rich possession of the
eye, the picture of beauty, which I take with me.
FASCINATION
There are three places where I should like to live; naming them in
the inverse order of preference,--the Isle of Wight, Sorrento, and
Heaven.
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