Chapter 3
My remembering was interrupted by a discreet touch at the door. Mr Winningoes entered holding a tray in a hand on which there was a stumpy teapot in porcelain and three handless cups, decorated with Chinese ideograms.
«I apologize for leaving you alone for such a long time »he said happily–«but to make tea is a very serious matter that requires time and skill. Help yourselves please».
I filled the three cups with a lot of attention. George, taking one on his hand, gazed at its outside and the inside for a long time. He seemed particularly interested in the small yellowish petals that floated on the surface.
«They are jasmine's flowers», said the old man. «I get this tea directly from China. It is delicious, isn't it?» he added, turning to me, while I was trying to sip it slowly, in order not to burn me.
«Yes, certain. It is very tasty. Do you also like Chinese cuisine?», I returned him on time.
«Oh, yes, for sure! I do it so much», he answered with a light flash on his face. «I remember when my son Adam was still alive…»
But suddenly we saw that flash of light illuminating his face transformed into a dark and sad countenance.
«My son Adam…» he echoed bitterly himself, with a smile of self-pity on the pale lips. We observed a respectful silence for the pain of that man who appeared at times a proud lion, full of projects for his future, to become instead afterward, a man tired of striving, bent by disgraces and by the time.
I wished I had mastered a better English to show him my solidarity and tell him that I didn't even know he had had some children, not even he had gotten married, forming a proper family; apart, of course, his father and mother, whom he had spoken of to us for long time throughout his story.
But who was really that strange man? Was it enough to know him well, what he had told us himself rightly on that same day? I made an effort to collect my ideas recalling the story in his own words.
