The Patriot Part 5

"You must pardon me," he said, in his peculiar dialect, which was a mixture of many elements. "You must pardon me, most worshipful engineer, but I really need----"

"Need what?" said the engineer, somewhat annoyed. The door opened, and the keen and yellow face of the servant appeared.

"Oh! _Scior Parento!_ Sir Relative!" said she respectfully. She claimed I know not what degree of relationship with the engineer's family, and always addressed him thus. "At this hour? Have you perhaps been to see the _Sciora Parenta_? The Lady Relative?"

The "Lady Relative" was the engineer's sister, Signora Rigey.

Ribera answered shortly: "Oh! Marianna! How are you?" and went upstairs followed by Marianna, carrying the light.

"My respects," Signor Giacomo began, coming towards him with another light. "I understand and recognise the great inconvenience I am causing, but really----"

Signor Giacomo's small, clean-shaven, pink face, rose above an enormous white stock, and a lean little body, b.u.t.toned up in a great, black overcoat, and in the convulsive workings of his lips and eyebrows as well as in his troubled eyes, the most comical anxiety was expressed.

"What is the matter now?" asked the engineer, somewhat sharply. He, the most upright and straightforward man alive, had little sympathy with the hesitation of poor, timid Signor Giacomo.

"Allow me," Puttini began, and, turning to the servant, said harshly:

"Begone, you! Go into the kitchen. You will come when I call for you.

Go, I say! Why don't you do what I tell you? Where is your respect for me? I command here! I am the master!"

It was the servant's curiosity, her insolent disregard for the orders of her superior, which had provoked this outburst of despotic fury in "Sior Zacomo."

"Whew! What a violent man!" she said, lifting the lamp on high. "There is no need to shout in that way! What do you think of it, _Scior Parento_?"

"Look here!" the engineer exclaimed. "Would it not be better for you to take yourself off, instead of standing there and jabbering?"

Marianna went away grumbling, and Signor Giacomo began to communicate his most secret thoughts to the worshipful engineer, interlarding his sentences with many _buts_ and _ifs_, _that is_ and _reallys_. He had promised to be present in the capacity of witness at Luisa's secret marriage, but now, when it was time to start for Castello, he was a.s.sailed by an overpowering fear of compromising himself.

He was "first political deputy," as the highest communal authority was then called. If the worshipful Imperial and Royal Commissary of Porlezza should get wind of this affair, how would he look upon it? And the Marchesa? "A terrible woman, most worthy engineer! A vindictive woman!"

Besides he had so many other worries! "There is that cursed bull!" This bull, a bone of contention between the town and the _alpador_, or tenant of the hill-pastures, had, for the last two years, been a moral incubus to poor Signor Giacomo, who, in speaking of his troubles and trials, always began with "that perfidious servant," and ended with "that cursed bull!" In speaking these words he would raise his small face, his eyes full of pained execration, and stretch out accusing hands towards the brow of the hill which overhung his house, towards the home of that fiendish beast. But the engineer, whose fine, honest features betrayed marked disapproval and a growing contempt for this cowardly little man, who stood wriggling there before him, exclaimed several times impatiently: "Oh, dear me!" as if pitying himself for the poor company he was in. Finally, his patience entirely exhausted, he extended his arms with the elbows turned outwards, and shaking them as if he were holding the reins of a lazy old horse, exclaimed: "What is all this?

What is all this? It is absurd! This is the language of a fool, my good Signor Giacomo! I would never have believed that a man like you, a man let us say----"

Here the engineer, being really at a loss for a suitable phrase wherewith to describe his companion, simply puffed out his cheeks, emitting a long-drawn-out rumble, a sort of rattling noise, as if he had an epithet in his mouth which was so big that he could not spit it out.

Meanwhile Signor Giacomo, who had turned very red, was protesting eagerly: "Enough! Enough! Pray excuse me! I am quite ready! I will come!

Don't get excited! I only expressed a doubt, most worshipful engineer.

You know the world. So did I, at one time, but I know it no longer."

He withdrew for a moment to reappear again presently carrying an enormously high hat with a broad brim, which had seen Ferdinand enter Verona in 1838, the so-called "emperor's year."

"I feel this sign of respect and satisfaction is fitting," said he.

When the engineer caught sight of the thing, he once more e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his "What is all this?" But the little man, who had a ceremonious spirit, stuck to his point. "It is my duty, my duty!" and he called to Marianna to light them down stairs. When the servant saw her master with that immense "sign of satisfaction" on his head, she gave voice to her astonishment. "Hold your tongue!" puffed the unfortunate Signor Giacomo.

"Be quiet!" and as soon as he was out of the door his wrath burst forth.

"There is no doubt about it, that cursed servant will be the death of me!"

"Why don't you send her away, then?" the engineer enquired.

Signor Giacomo had already placed one foot on the first step of the narrow lane that leads upwards on one side of the Puttini house, when he was brought to a stand-still by this pointed question, which pierced his conscience like a dagger.

"Alas!" he replied, sighing.

"I understand," said the engineer.

"Besides, what good would that do?" the other went on, after a short pause. "This is the same as that!"

This old Venetian saying concerning the unfortunate ident.i.ty of the two relative p.r.o.nouns, Signor Giacomo p.r.o.nounced as an epilogue, and then, puffing loudly, emitted a loud breath, and once more started forward.

Puttini leading and the engineer following, they climbed steadily for a few minutes, up the steep and narrow path, dimly lighted by the moon which was hidden among the clouds. No sound was heard save their slow steps, the thumping of their sticks on the stones, and Signor Giacomo's regular puffing: "Apff! Apff!" At the foot of the narrow stairway leading to Pianca, the little man stopped, removed his hat, wiped away the perspiration with a big, white handkerchief, and glancing up at the great walnut-tree, and the stables of Pianca to which he must ascend, puffed harder than ever.

"By the body of the rogue Bacchus!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The engineer encouraged him. "Up with you, Signor Giacomo. It is all for love of Luisina."[E]

Signor Giacomo started on again without a word, and when they reached the stables, beyond which the path becomes less rough, he seemed to forget the stairs, his scruples, the perfidious servant, the Imperial and Royal Commissary, the vindictive Marchesa and the cursed bull, and began talking of Signora Rigey with great enthusiasm.

"There is no doubt about it, when I have the honour of being in the company of your niece, of Signorina Luisina, I a.s.sure you I really feel as if I were back into the days of Signora Baratela and the Filipuzze girls, of the three Sparesi sisters from San Piero Incarian, and of many others, whose graces used to charm me, in the old days. From time to time I go to see the Marchesa, and I sometimes meet the girls of to-day there. No--no--no, they do not behave in a becoming manner. They are either sullenly silent or over-talkative. But just look at Signorina Luisina, how easy is her manner with every one! She knows how to behave with young and old, rich and poor, the servant and the priest. I really fail to comprehend why the Marchesa----"

The engineer interrupted him.

"The Marchesa is right," said he. "My niece is neither of n.o.ble birth, nor has she a penny. How can you expect the Marchesa to be satisfied?"

Signor Giacomo stopped short, rather disconcerted, and stared at the engineer, blinking his sorrowful eyes.

"How is this? You don't really mean to say she is right?"

"I never approve of acting contrary to the wishes of parents, or of those who represent the parents. But I, dear Signor Giacomo, am an old-fashioned man like yourself, a man of the time of Carlo Umberto, as they say hereabouts. Now, the world wags differently, and we must let it wag. Therefore, having expressed my opinions on this point, I said to my relatives: 'Now do as you like. But when you have decided one way or another, let me know what is to be done, and I shall be ready!'"

"And what does Signora Teresina say?"

"My sister? My sister, poor creature, says: 'If I can see them settled in life, I shall no longer dread death.'"

Signor Giacomo breathed hard, as was his habit whenever he heard that last, unpleasant word p.r.o.nounced.

"But it is surely not so bad as that?" said he.

"Who can tell?" the engineer replied, very seriously. "We must trust in the Almighty."

They had reached a sharp bend where the narrow path, pa.s.sing the last of the small fields belonging to the territory of Albogasio, turns towards the first of those belonging to Castello, and winds on, on the left, along the top of a jutting crag, suddenly coming in sight of a deep cleft in the mountain's bosom, of the lake far below, of the villages of Casarico and San Mamette, crouching on the sh.o.r.e as if in the act of drinking. Castello is perched a little higher up, and not far distant, facing the bare and forbidding peak of Cressogno, the whole of which is visible, from the gorges of Loggio to the sky. It is a beautiful spot even at night in the moonlight, but if Signor Giacomo paused there, striking a contemplative att.i.tude and forgetting to puff, it was not because he considered the scene worthy of any one's attention, to say nothing of that of a political deputy, but because, having a weighty argument to expound, he felt the necessity of concentrating all his strength in his brain, and of suspending all other effort, even that of the legs.

"That is a fine maxim," said he. "Let us trust in the Almighty. Yes, my dear sir. But permit me to observe that in our time we were always hearing of prayers being answered, of conversions and miracles. Am I not correct? But now the world is not the same, and it appears to me the Almighty is sick of it all. The world is in much the same condition as our parish church at Albogasio, which the Almighty used to visit once a month. Now He comes only once a year."

"Listen, my good Signor Giacomo," said the engineer, who was impatient to reach Castello. "The Almighty is not to blame because the parish has been transferred from one church to another. However, we will push on, and let the Almighty arrange things as He thinks best."

Whereupon he started forwarded so briskly that presently Signor Giacomo was obliged to stop again, puffing like a pair of bellows.

"Pardon me," said he, "if I yield, in a measure, to that curiosity which is inborn in man. Might one inquire your worshipful age?"

The engineer understood the hidden meaning of his question, and answered in a low tone, with triumphant and ironical meekness--