She thought of rejoining Jason but suddenly she and Ferruccio were involved in a high-speed conversation going on in Italian, English, and French—all at once and with swift switches from one language to another, accurate and brilliant—about the upcoming beauty contest for the best legs of the region. All of those legs, declared the prefect of Cosenza, as well as the eleven bishops and other souls of the region, were under his special protection.

Somehow the silly chatter excited her, as did Ferruccio’s closeness, which made him continually rub up against her, even as he kept saying “Pardon!”

Dinner for twenty was served under trees strung with lanterns at a long table set with plates bearing the count’s motto: Ex rivis novis maximum flumen. Tina giggled at the motto and thought of a rhyme from long ago in a book her mother used to read to her and Weezy:

Large streams from little fountains flow,

Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

She told herself to remember to tell Ferruccio later. Or did she mean Jason? She gave herself over totally to the superb food.

Waiters with white gloves served plates of tiny stuffed eggplants and peppers, a timbale of macaroni and béchamel, and then a platter of roast boar from the count’s own preserve at Belvedere Calabro, which was greeted by a round of applause.

In between courses and above the chatter of the other guests came occasionally the loud, authoritative voice of Count Rivolonovo.

“Of course they live better now that the factory is here: The girls can pick up dress-lengths for only 700 lire and make themselves two or three outfits a season where they once had only one. Everyone is employed, or could be, and the new income is spread through the whole community. There’s a casa di riposo for the old people, and a hospital. Still, I wonder sometimes if progress is worth it all.”

“Well, it’s progress of some sort to have the women’s legs out in the open,” said Baron Dall’Airone.

“Indubitably!” laughed the count. “And the Artisans’ Fair, and the staging of the two Pirandello plays in the piazza. But is it better for these people to have civilized pressures upon them when, before, they had their bread and a little oil to spread on it and the sun to sit in and were without competitiveness and anxiety?”