Two Gentlemen of Verona English Class 10th | Summary, Characters, NCERT Solutions & Study Materials

Summary

The narrator and his companion were driving through the foothills of the alps. Two small boys selling wild strawberries stopped their car on the outskirts of Verona. They looked quite shabby. The driver was not in favor of buying strawberries from them. The narrator’s companion learned that boys were brothers. The elder, Nicola, was aged 13 while his younger brother, Jacopo, was aged 12. The narrator and his companion learned that the biggest basket of strawberries from the boys and drove to the city. The next morning they saw the two boys engaged in the shoe shining job. The boys said that they did many things. They could even be guides to show the visitors places of interest in the town. The narrator asked them to take them to Juliet’s tomb. During the week of their stay in the town, the boys proved very useful to the visitors.

One night the boys were found with a bundle of unsold newspapers ready to sell the papers when the last bus arrived. The narrator took on them and asked them why they were working so hard. He said that they seemed to earn adequate money, and asked why they were then spending no money on clothes and food. Nicola said tat they had some plans in their minds but did not elaborate.

Jacopo requested the narrator to carry them in his car to the village polenta, 30 kilometers from there. He said it would be a great favor. Nicola did not like his brother’s thus troubling the narrator. The narrator readily agreed to oblige the boys. The following afternoon he and his companion drove to the village. The boys went into a large red-roofed villa which turned out to be a hospital.

The narrator refused to intrude into the room. He wanted the nurse to tell him about the girl and the boys. The nurse told him Lucia was the boys’ sister, afflicted with tuberculosis. During the war, a bomb destroyed their home. Their father, a widower, had been killed in the early part of the war. After his death, the tree children came near to starvation. The boys grew to hate the germans who came to rule the city. The even joined the resistance movement. After the war was over, Lucia was found afflicted with tuberculosis. The boys admitted her in the hospital. They had been making payment regularly to the hospital.

The narrator waited outside the room. He kept quiet and did not say a word in order to give the impression that the boys had safely kept their secret.