Page 60 - erewhon

ily, as it might well have been otherwise.
For my own part, I liked them and admired them, for
their quiet self-possession and dignified ease impressed
me pleasurably at once. Neither did their manner make
me feel as though I were personally distasteful to them—
only that I was a thing utterly new and unlooked for, which
they could not comprehend. Their type was more that of
the most robust Italians than any other; their manners also
were eminently Italian, in their entire unconsciousness of
self. Having travelled a good deal in Italy, I was struck with
little gestures of the hand and shoulders, which constantly
reminded me of that country. My feeling was that my wisest
plan would be to go on as I had begun, and be simply my-
self for better or worse, such as I was, and take my chance
accordingly.
I thought of these things while they were waiting for me
to have done washing, and on my way back. Then they gave
me breakfast—hot bread and milk, and fried flesh of some-
thing between mutton and venison. Their ways of cooking
and eating were European, though they had only a skewer
for a fork, and a sort of butcher’s knife to cut with. The more
I looked at everything in the house, the more I was struck
with its quasi-European character; and had the walls only
been pasted over with extracts from the Illustrated London
News and Punch, I could have almost fancied myself in a
shepherd’s hut upon my master’s sheep-run. And yet every-
thing was slightly different. It was much the same with the
birds and flowers on the other side, as compared with the
English ones. On my arrival I had been pleased at noticing