Manuccia brings in a great basket of grapes that
are grapes, which the wasp envies you as you eat, and comes to share.
And here are luscious figs bursting with seedy sweetness, and apricots
rusted in the sun, and velvety peaches that break into juice in your
mouth, and great black-seeded _cocomeri_. Nature empties her cornucopia
of fruits and flowers and vegetables all over your table. Luxuriously
you enjoy them and fan yourself and take your _siesta_, with full
appreciation of your _dolce far niente_. When the sun begins to slope
westward, if you are in the country, you wander through the green lanes
festooned with vines and pluck the grapes as you go; or, if you are in
the city, you saunter the evening long through the streets, where all
the world are strolling, and take your _granito_ of ice or sherbet, and
talk over the things of the day and the time, and pass as you go home
groups of singers and serenaders with guitars, flutes, and
violins,--serenade, perhaps, sometimes, yourself; and all the time the
great planets and stars palpitate in the near heavens, and the soft air
full of fragrance blows against your cheek. And you can really say,
This is Italy! For it is not what you do, so much as what you feel,
that makes Italy.
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