Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian Part 4

"I suggested it because it is so late," he mumbled, half churlishly, half timidly. "I also have something to do."

"The sermon, eh?--the sermon, the sermon!" the Moro repeated mechanically, looking at the fire, and ruminating. "See here," he concluded, "suppose we do this. There are pens, paper, and inkstand in the sitting-room. Sit down there and write your stuff. Meanwhile, if you will allow me, I will take a mouthful, as it is sixteen hours since I have eaten. When we have finished we will talk."

At first Don Rocco was not disposed to agree, but he was as halting in his secular utterances as he was fiery in his sacred eloquence. He could only squirm and give out a few low, doubtful grunts; after which, as the other man kept silence, he got up from his chair with about as much difficulty as if he had been glued to it.

"I will go to find out," said he, "but I am afraid I shall find very little, the servant--"

"Don't trouble yourself," interrupted the Moro. "Let me attend to it.

You go and write." He left the hearth, lighted another lamp and carried it into the neighboring sitting-room, which had windows facing the south on the courtyard, while the kitchen windows were at the back of the old convent on the north side, where the cellar and the well were placed. Then he came back quickly, and under the eyes of the astonished priest took down a key that was hanging in the darkest corner of the kitchen, opened a closet against the wall, put up his hand without hesitating and took down a cheese of goats' milk, the existence of which Don Rocco had not even suspected; he took bread from a cupboard, and a knife from a drawer in the table.

Now it happened for only the third or fourth time in the whole life of Don Rocco that the famous frown entirely disappeared for a few moments.

Even the eyelids stopped winking.

"You look surprised, Don Rocco," said the Moro complacently, "because I am at home in your house. But just keep on writing. You will understand later. We must also keep the fire going," he added, when the priest, having slowly recovered from his amazement, pa.s.sed into the sitting-room.

The Moro took the iron bellows, a sort of arquebuse barrel, turned one end toward the coals, and blew into the other in so unusual a way as to produce a strident whistle. Then he started on his supper.

What possessed him! At one moment he was devouring his food, at another he would raise his head and remain transfixed, while at another he would walk up and down the kitchen violently knocking the chairs and table. He seemed like an imprisoned wild beast which every now and then raises its fangs from the bone, listens and looks, seizes it again, leaves it, rushes around its cage in a rage and goes back to gnaw.

Meanwhile, Don Rocco was leaning over his paper, wondering still at what he had seen, unable in his unsuspiciousness to draw any inferences, listening to the steps and the noises in the next room with a torpid uneasiness that had about the same resemblance to fear as the intelligence of Don Rocco himself had to understanding. "'You will understand later,'" he repeated to himself. "What am I to understand?

That he knows where the money is?" He kept it in a box in his bed-chamber, but there were only two ten-franc pieces, and Don Rocco reflected with satisfaction that the new wine was not yet sold, and that that money at least was safe from the clutches of the Moro.

It did not appear as if the latter threatened violence. "At the worst I should lose twenty francs," concluded Don Rocco, seeking refuge in his philosophical and Christian indifference to money. He mentally abandoned the twenty francs to their destiny and sought to concentrate his thoughts on the sacred text: Nemo potest duobus dominis servire. At the same moment he seemed to hear, between the hasty steps of the Moro, a heavy, dull thud from a greater distance, as of a door being broken open; then the bang of a chair knocked down in the kitchen; then still another distant noise. The Moro entered the sitting-room and violently closed the door behind him.

"Here I am, Don Rocco," said he. "Have you also finished?"

"Now is the time," thought the priest, who immediately forgot everything but the presence of this man.

"Not finished yet," he answered. "But I will finish after you have gone. What do you wish?"

The Moro took a seat opposite him and crossed his arms on the table.

"I am living a bad life, sir," said he. "The life of a dog and not of a man."

At this Don Rocco, although he had resigned himself to the worst, felt his heart expand. He answered severely, and with his eyes cast down: "You can change, my son, you can change."

"That's why I am here, Don Rocco," said the other. "I want to make confession. Now, at once," he added when he saw that the priest remained silent.

Don Rocco began to wink and to squirm somewhat.

"Very well," said he, still with his eyes cast down. "We can talk about it now, but the confession can come later. You can return for it to-morrow. It requires a little preparation. And it must be seen whether you have received proper instruction."

The Moro immediately fired off, with all placidity and sweetness, three or four sacrilegious oaths against G.o.d and the sacraments, as if he were reciting an Ave, and drew the conclusion that he knew as much about it as a member of the clergy.

"There, there, you see!" said Don Rocco, squirming more than ever. "You are beginning badly, my son. You want to confess, and you blaspheme!"

"Oh, you mustn't notice little things like that," answered the Moro. "I a.s.sure you that the Lord doesn't bother about it. It is a habit, so to speak, of the tongue, nothing more."

"Beastly habits, beastly habits," p.r.o.nounced Don Rocco, frowning and looking into his handkerchief, which he held under his nose with both hands.

"In fine, I am going to confess," insisted the man. "Hush, now, don't say no! You will hear some stiff ones."

"Not now, really not now," protested Don Rocco, rising. "You are not prepared at present. We will now thank the Lord and the Virgin who have touched your heart, and then you will go home. To-morrow you will come to holy Ma.s.s, and after Ma.s.s we will meet together again."

"Very well," answered the Moro. "Go ahead."

Don Rocco got down on his knees near the lounge and, with his head turned, seemed to wait for the other to follow his example.

"Go ahead," said the Moro. "I have a bad knee and will say my prayers seated."

"Very well; sit here on the sofa, near me, where you will be more comfortable; accompany my words with your heart, and keep your eyes fixed on that crucifix in front of you. Come, like a good fellow, and we will pray the Lord and the Virgin to keep you in so good a state of mind that you may have the fortune to make a good confession. Come, like a good, devout fellow!"

Having said this, Don Rocco began to recite Paters and Aves, often devoutly raising his knitted brows. The Moro answered him from his seat on the sofa. He seemed to be the confessor and the priest the penitent.

Finally, Don Rocco crossed himself and got up.

"Now sit right here while I confess," said the Moro, as if there were nothing against it. But Don Rocco caught him up. Had they not already arranged that he should confess the next day? But the other would not listen with that ear, and continued hammering away at his request with obstinate placidity.

"Let us stop this," he said, all at once. "Pay attention, for I am beginning!"

"But I tell you that it is not possible and that I will not have it,"

replied Don Rocco. "Go home, I tell you! I am going to bed at once."

He started to leave; but the Moro was too quick for him, rushed to the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.

"No, sir! you don't go out of here! Might I not die to-night? Wouldn't I, if the Lord just blew on me like this?"

And he blew on the petroleum lamp and put it out.

"And if I go to h.e.l.l," he continued in a sepulchral voice, in the dark, "you will go there too!"

The poor priest, at this unexpected violence, in the midst of this darkness, lost his presence of mind. He no longer knew where he was, and kept saying, "Let us go, let us go," trying to find the sofa, beating the air with his extended hands. The Moro lighted a match on his sleeve, and Don Rocco had a glimpse of the table, of the chairs, and of his strange penitent, before it became darker than ever.

"Could you see? Now I shall begin; with the biggest sin. It is fifteen years since I have been to confession, but my biggest sin is that I have made love to that ugly creature, your servant."

"Body of Bacchus!'" involuntarily exclaimed Don Rocco.

"If I am familiar with the kitchen," continued the Moro, "it is because I must have come here fifty times of an evening when you were not here, to eat and drink with Lucia. Perhaps you have even found that some few francs were missing..."

"I know nothing about it; no, I know nothing about it!" mumbled Don Rocco.

"Some of those few small bills in your box, first compartment to the left at the bottom."

Don Rocco gave forth a low exclamation of surprise and pain.

"Now, as for me, I have gotten through stealing," continued he; "but that witch would carry off even your house. She is a bad woman, a bad woman! We must get rid of her. Do you remember that shirt that you missed last year? I have it on now and she gave it to me. I cannot give it back because..."

"Never mind, don't bother, never mind," interrupted Don Rocco. "I'll give it to you."