Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian Part 3

"It is not true at all, is it?" answered she. "Then I don't know what the village will say when certain novelties will happen to the servant of the priest."

Don Rocco became red as fire and frowned most portentously.

"But it is not true at all," said he, brusquely and shortly. "I questioned her myself as soon as I heard the gossip. It is nothing but the maliciousness of people. Why, the man does not even see her!"

"Oh! Don Rocco," said the lady. "You are good, good, good. But as the world is not made that way, and as there is a scandal, if you don't make up your mind to send the creature away, I must decide on something myself."

"You will do what you like," answered the priest dryly. "Have I not got to consider what is right?"

The countess looked at him, and said, with a sudden solemnity, "Very well. You will reflect on this to-night, and to-morrow you will give me your final answer."

She rang the bell to have a lantern brought for Don Rocco, as the night was very dark. But, to her great surprise, Don Rocco carefully extracted one from the back pocket of his cloak.

"What made you do that?" exclaimed she. "You have probably got a spot on my chair!"

She got up, notwithstanding the a.s.surances of Don Rocco, and taking one of the candles which still burned on the card table, she stooped down to look at the chair.

"There!" she said, "put your nose over that! It is spotted and ruined!"

Don Rocco came also, and, knitting his brows, bent down over a large spot of oil, a black island on the gray cloth, muttering most seriously, "Oh, yes!" and remaining absorbed in his gaze.

"Now, go!" said the lady. "What is done is done."

It seemed in fact, as if he were awaiting her permission to raise his nose from the repentant stool.

"Yes, I'll go now," he answered, lighting his lantern, "because I am alone at home at present, and I am even afraid that I left the door open."

Very suddenly he said "Good-night," and disappeared without even looking at the countess.

She was astonished. "Dear me, what a boor!" she said.

II.

It was a damp, cloudy night in November. Little Don Rocco was limping along towards his hermitage of St. Luke with awkward steps, his arms in parentheses, and his back arched, knitting his brows at the road-bed as he went along. He was ruminating over the dark words of Signora Carlotta, and their importance was gradually piercing his obtuse brain.

He was also ruminating over the next a.s.sembly of the ecclesiastical court, over the pereat mundus and the subtle reasonings of the professor, of which he had understood so little; not to speak of the exposition of the Gospels for the next day, which he had not yet fully prepared. All this would often get inextricably confused in his mind.

Certainly poor innocent Lucia must not be condemned, pereat mundus.

Signora Carlotta was almost a padrona to him; but what about that other great padrone? Nemo potest duobus dominis servire; thus, beloved brethren, says the Gospel for the day.

Poor Don Rocco, as usual, had also lost at terziglio; and this gave a somewhat gray cast to his ideas, notwithstanding his proverbial carelessness of every mundane interest. That hole in his pocket, that continuous dropping, made him reflect. Would it not have been better for him to give the same amount in alms?

"There is this good thing about it," he thought, "that it is a terrible bore, and that they all badger me. I certainly do not play for pleasure."

He pa.s.sed on the left of the road a dark clump of trees, ascending slowly in the darkness towards three large cypresses of unequal height, standing out black against the sky. There, between the old cypresses, stood the little country church of St. Luke, attached to a small convent which had had no inmates for a hundred years. The little hillock garlanded with vines had no other structures. From the convent, and from the gra.s.sy knoll, on which stood the little cypress-overhung church, the main road could not be seen, but only other knolls gay with vineyards, villas, and country houses, islands on an immense plain, extending from the hills further away as far as the Alps and blending eastward in the mists of the invisible sea. The simple chaplain of Countess Carlotta lived alone in the convent, like a priest of silence, content with his meagre prebend, content to preach with might and main in the little church, to be called during the day to bless the beans, and at night to a.s.sist the dying, to cultivate the vine with his own hands; content with everything, in fine; even with his servant, an ugly old maid of about forty, at whose discretion he ate, drank, and dressed himself most resignedly, without exchanging more than a dozen words with her throughout the year.

"If I send her away," he said to himself, as he pa.s.sed between the high hedges of the lane that led up from the main road to St. Luke, "it will damage and dishonor her. I cannot conscientiously do it, because I am sure that it isn't true. And with that Moro, of all men!"

The clock in the bell-tower struck eleven. Don Rocco began to think of his sermon, of which only three-quarters was written, and he rushed down from the church square to the door which led into his courtyard under the bell-tower at the end of a steep and stony lane. As he opened the gate and pa.s.sed across the yard he was brought suddenly to a standstill. A faint light was shining from the windows of his sitting-room, the former refectory of the monks, on the lower floor.

Don Rocco had left at four o'clock to pay his visit to the Countess Carlotta, and had not returned in the meanwhile. He could not have left the lamps lighted. Therefore Lucia must have returned before the time she had set; that must certainly be the reason. He did not fatigue his brain by making any other suppositions, but entered.

"Is it you, Lucia?" he called. No answer. He pa.s.sed through the vestibule, approached the kitchen, and stood motionless on the doorsill.

A man was sitting under the chimney-cap with his hands stretched out over the coals. He turned toward the priest and said, most unconcernedly:

"Don Rocco, your humble servant."

By the light of the smoky petroleum lamp which stood on the table, Don Rocco recognized the Moro. He was conscious of a feeling of weakness in his heart and in his legs. He did not move nor answer.

"Make yourself at home, Don Rocco," continued the Moro imperturbably, as if he were doing the honors of his own house. "You had better take a seat here also, for it is cold to-night and damp."

"Yes, it is cold," answered Don Rocco, infusing a forced benevolence into his tones; "it is damp."

And he put his lantern down on the table.

"Come here," said his companion. "Wait till I make you comfortable." He got a chair and placed it on the hearthstone near his own.

"There now," said he.

Meanwhile Don Rocco was getting his breath again, and carrying on, with a terrible knitting of his brows, most weighty reflections.

"Thanks," he answered, "I will go to put away my cloak and come back at once."

"Lay your cloak down here," replied the Moro, not without some haste and a new tone of imperiousness not at all pleasing to Don Rocco.

He silently placed his cloak and hat on the table and sat down under the chimney-cap beside his host.

"You will excuse me if I have made a little fire," he continued. "I have been here at least a half-hour. I thought you were at home studying. Isn't to-day Sat.u.r.day? And are you not obliged to say to-morrow morning the few customary absurdities to the peasants?"

"You mean the exposition of the Gospel," answered Don Rocco with warmth, for on that ground he knew no fear.

"A hint is all you need!" said the Moro. "Excuse me, I am a peasant myself, and talk crudely, maybe, but respectfully. Will you give me a pinch of snuff?"

Don Rocco held out the snuff-box to him.

"Is this da trozi?" said he with a wink. This word, as well as the expression "by-paths tobacco," was used in speaking of the tobacco which was smuggled into the State.

"No," answered Don Rocco, rising. "Perhaps I have a little of that upstairs."

"Never mind, never mind," the Moro hastened to say. "Give here." And sticking three fingers into the snuff-box he took up about a pound of snuff and breathed it in little by little, as he gazed at the fire. The dying flame illumined his black beard, his earthy complexion, and his brilliant, intelligent eyes.

"Now that you are warmed," Don Rocco made bold to say after a moment's silence, "you may go home."

"Hum!" said the man, shrugging his shoulders. "I have a little business to transact before I leave."

Don Rocco squirmed in his chair, winking hard, and frowning heavily.