A cenar teco
They went down a rutted cartroad and Keats pointed out everything in their path. The grass on the high slopes was for pasturing sheep. The lower growth was green hemp. There were stands of mulberry trees, farmhouses with fenced orchards. The honey-colored fields were wheat that the padrone sold abroad. The pale green stalks were maize that he sold back to the contadini who grew it.
“The padrone?” Shelley asked. “Is there only one?”
“It is the Grand Duke,” said Keats. “The village is his personal property, though he little attends it. You may see his factor within the castello—a fox-faced man, who twitches his nose at the window and writes reports to Florence.”
“Hateful,” said Shelley, “that an institution should pervert a people’s love for the land.”
“They do not love the
