make comparisons. Thus he had become convinced that the trade of selling
ham and sausages was far inferior to that of digging up antiquities....

One day he found some beautiful terra-cotta figures, for which the baron
paid him ten _scudi_. Who could tell what they might be worth, when the
old gentleman could bring himself to give as much as that.

After that he went much more frequently to the baron’s house,
accompanied by a little old man, whom Mastro Rocco called his assistant.
But they always brought figures exactly like the first ones, all soiled
with the earth they had been dug from; and at last, one day, the baron
said—

“Mastro Rocco, if you do not find something different, you might as well
save yourself the trouble of coming. Look here, I have a whole cupboard
full of these.”

He pointed to a number of statuettes of Ceres, seated with her hands on
her knees, arranged in rows behind the glass doors, along with Greek
vases, lamps, bronzes of every sort, and antique coins of every size....

It was a long time before Mastro Rocco was seen again at the baron’s.
When he next presented himself, along with the little old man, he
carefully set down a basket full of hay which he had carried up under
his arm, and began to gesticulate vehemently as he pointed out the
precious objects reposing in the basket and covered with the hay.

“Ah! _signor barone!_ what a novelty! what a novelty! Your worship will
be enchanted, upon my word of honour!”

The baron had put on his spectacles in order the better to admire; and
when he saw some half-dozen figures of Ceres, exactly like the others,
but with unmistakable pipes in their mouths, instead of being enchanted,
he roared aloud—

“Ah! Mastro Rocco, you thief! Ah! you scoundrel!”

And he would have put a pistol-bullet through the head of each if they
had not jumped from the window regardless of possible broken necks;
though, after all, it was not very high. Mastro Rocco only broke his
arm, and had a mass said to his patron saint for assistance rendered in
this extremity. With his arm in a sling he imprecated curses on his
rascally partner, who had suggested the charming novelty of the pipes!

“Was it not enough to have imitated the form of the little idols well
enough to take in even Baron Padullo?”

                                                        _Luigi Capuana._

                        _THE WAR OF THE SAINTS._

All of a sudden, while San Rocco was quietly proceeding on his way,
under his baldachin, with a number of wax candles lit all round him, and
the band, and the procession, and the crowd of devout people—there came
to pass a general helter-skelter, tumult, and confusion worse
confounded. There were priests running away, with the skirts of their
cassocks flying wildly, drummers and fifers upset on their faces, women
screaming, blood flowing in streams, and cudgels playing even under the
very nose of the blessed San Rocco. The Prætor, the Syndic, the
Carbineers all hastened to the spot;—the broken bones were carried off
to the hospital,—a few of the more riotous members of the community were
marched off to pass the night in prison,—the saint returned to his
church at a run rather than a processional step,—and the festival ended
like the comedies of Pulcinella.

And all this through the spite of the people in the parish of San
Pasquale. That year the pious souls of San Rocco had been spending the
very eyes out of their heads in order to do things in grand style;—they
had sent for the band from town,—they had let off more than two thousand
squibs,—and they had now got a new banner, all embroidered with gold,
which, it was said, weighed over a quintal, and tossed up and down in
the midst of the crowd, like a wave crested with golden foam. Which
thing, by sheer contrivance of the Evil One, was a thorn in the sides of
the followers of S. Pasquale,—so that one of the latter at last lost
patience, and began, pale as death, to yell at the top of his voice,
“_Viva San Pasquale!_” Then it was that the cudgels began to fly.

Because, after all, to go and cry “_Viva San Pasquale_” in the very face
of San Rocco, is really a good, sound, indisputable provocation;—it is
just like going and spitting in a man’s house, or amusing yourself by
pinching the girl who is walking arm in arm with him. In such a case
there is no longer any sense of right and wrong,—and that slight amount
of respect which people still have for the other saints—who, after all,
are all related to each other—is trampled under foot. If it happens in
church, seats are flung into the air,—if during a procession, there are
showers of torch stumps like swarms of bats, and at table the dishes
fly.

“_Santo diavolone!_” cried Compare Nino, panting, heated, and
dishevelled. “I’d like to know who has the face to cry _Viva San
Pasquale_ again!”

“I!” yelled Turi the tanner, who looked forward to being his
brother-in-law, quite beside himself with rage, and nearly blinded by a
chance blow received in the _mêlée_. “_Viva San Pasquale_ till death!”

“For the love of Heaven! for the love of Heaven!” shrieked his sister
Saridda, throwing herself between her brother and her betrothed. All
three had been going for a walk in all love and good fellowship up to
that moment.

Compare Nino, the expectant bridegroom, kept crying in derision, “Long
live my boots—_viva San Stivale!_”

“Take that!” howled Turi, foaming at the mouth, his eyes swollen and his
face like a tomato. “Take that for San Rocco, you and your boots!
There!”

In this way they exchanged blows which would have felled an ox, till
their friends succeeded in separating them by dint of cuffs and kicks.
Saridda, who by this time had grown excited on her own account, now
cried _Viva San Pasquale_, and was very nearly coming to blows with her
lover, as if they had already been husband and wife.

At such times parents quarrel most desperately with their sons and
daughters, and wives separate from their husbands, if by misfortune a
woman of the parish of San Pasquale has married a man from San Rocco.

“I won’t hear another word about that man!” cried Saridda, standing with
her hands on her hips, to the neighbours, when they asked her how it
happened that the marriage had not come off. “I won’t have him, if they
give him to me dressed in gold and silver from head to foot! Do you
hear?”

“Saridda may stay where she is till she turns mouldy, for all I care!”
said Compare Nino, in his turn, as he was getting the blood washed from
his face at the public-house. “A parcel of beggars and cowards, over in
the tanner’s quarter! I must have been drunk when it came into my head
to look for a sweetheart over there!”

“Since it is this way,” had been the Syndic’s conclusion, “and they
can’t carry a saint out into the square without sticks and fighting, so
that it’s perfectly beastly,—I will have no more festivals, nor
processions, nor services; and if they bring out so much as one single
candle—what you may call a candle—I’ll have them every one in gaol.”

In time, the matter became important; for the bishop of the diocese had
granted to the priests of San Pasquale the privilege of wearing copes.
The parishioners of San Rocco, whose priests had no copes, had even gone
to Rome to raise an outcry at the foot of the Holy Father, carrying with
them documents on stamped paper, and everything else; but all had been
in vain, for their adversaries of the lower town—who, as every one
remembered, had once been without shoes to their feet—had now grown as
rich as Jews, through this new industry of tanning. And, in this world,
one knows that justice is bought and sold like the soul of Judas.

At San Pasquale they were awaiting Monsignor’s delegate, who was a
person of importance, and had silver buckles on his shoes weighing half
a pound apiece—and a fine sight they were to see—and he was coming to
bring the copes to the canons. And for this reason, they, in their turn,
had now sent for the band, and they were going to meet Monsignor’s
delegate three miles outside the town; and it was said that in the
evening there were to be fireworks in the square, with _Viva San
Pasquale_ over and over again, in letters as big as those on a
shop-front.

The inhabitants of the upper town were therefore in a great ferment; and
some, more excited than others, were trimming certain staves of pear and
cherry wood, as big as clothes-props, and muttering—

“If there is to be music, we shall want to beat time!”

The Bishop’s delegate ran a great risk of coming out of his triumphal
entry with broken bones. But the reverend gentleman was cunning enough
to leave the band waiting for him outside the town, while he, taking a
short cut, quietly walked to the parish priest’s house, whither he
summoned the principal men of the two parties.

When these gentlemen found themselves face to face—after all this time
that the feud had lasted—each man began to look into the whites of his
neighbour’s eyes, as if he could scarcely keep his nails out of them;
and it required all the authority of his Reverence—who had put on his
new cloth soutane for the occasion—to get the ices and the other
refreshments served without accidents.

“That’s right!” said the Syndic approvingly, with his nose in his glass.
“When you want me for the cause of peace, you’ll always find me on the
spot.”

The delegate, in fact, said that he had come for the sake of
conciliation, with the olive-branch in his mouth, like Noah’s dove, and
made his exhortation, distributing smiles and hand-clasps all round, and
saying, “Gentlemen, will you do me the favour of coming into the
sacristy to take a cup of chocolate on the day of the festival?”

“Do leave the festival alone!” said the Vice-Prætor; “if not, more
mischief will come of it.”

“Mischief will come of it if this tyranny is to be allowed—if a man is
not to be free to amuse himself as he likes, and pay for it with his own
money!” exclaimed Bruno, the carter.

“I wash my hands of the matter. The orders of the Government are
explicit. If you celebrate the festival I shall send for the Carbineers.
I am for order.”

“I will answer for order!” said the Syndic, tapping the ground for
emphasis with his umbrella, and looking slowly around.

“Bravo! as if we did not know that it is your brother-in-law Bruno who
blows the bellows for you in the Town Council!” retorted the
Vice-Prætor.

“And you have joined the opposition party only on account of that
bye-law about the washing, which you can’t get over!”

“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” entreated the delegate. “We shall do nothing if
we go on in this way.”

“We’ll have a revolution, that we will!” shouted Bruno, gesticulating
with his hands in the air.

Fortunately the parish priest had quietly put away the cups and glasses,
and the sacristan had rushed off at the top of his speed to dismiss the
band, who, having heard of the delegate’s arrival, were already
hastening up to welcome him, blowing their cornets and clarionets.

“In this way we shall do nothing at all!” muttered the delegate, worried
to death by the thought that the harvest was already ripe for cutting in
his own village, while he was wasting his time here talking to Compare
Bruno and the Vice-Prætor, who were ready to tear one another’s souls
out. “What is this story about the prohibition of the washing?”

“The usual interference. Nowadays one can’t hang a handkerchief out of
the window to dry without getting fined for it. The Vice-Prætor’s
wife—feeling safe because her husband was in a position of trust, for
till now people always had some little regard for the authorities—used
to hang out the whole week’s washing—it was not much to boast of—on the
terrace.... But now, under the new law, that’s a mortal sin; and now
even the dogs and fowls are prohibited, and the other animals[12]—saving
your presence—that used to do the scavenging in the streets; and now the
first rain that comes it will be Heaven’s mercy if we don’t all get
smothered in the filth. The real truth is that Bruno, the assessor, has
a grudge against the Vice-Prætor, on account of a certain decision he
has given against him.”

The delegate, in order to conciliate the local mind, used to sit boxed
up in his confessional, like an owl in its nest, from morning till
evening, and all the women were eager to be shriven by the Bishop’s
representative, who had powers of plenary absolution for all sorts of
sins, just as though he had been Monsignor in person.

“Your Reverence,” said Saridda, with her nose at the grating, “Compare
Nino makes me commit sin every Sunday in church.”

“In what way, my daughter?”

“He was to have married me, before there was all this talk in the place;
but now that the marriage is broken off, he goes and stands near the
high altar, and stares at me, and laughs with his friends, all the time
holy mass is going on.”

And when his Reverence tried to touch Nino’s heart the countryman
replied—

“No, it is she who turns her back on me whenever she sees me—just as if
I were a beggar!”

He, on the other hand, if Gnà Saridda passed across the square on
Sundays, gave himself airs as if he had been the brigadier, or some
other great personage, and did not even seem to see her. Saridda was
exceedingly busy preparing little coloured paper-lanterns, and put them
out in a row on the window-sill, in his very face, under the pretext of
hanging them out to dry. Once they found themselves together in church,
at a christening, and took no notice of each other, just as though they
had never met before; nay, Saridda even Went so far as to flirt with the
godfather.

“A poor sort of a godfather!” sneered Nino. “Why the child’s a girl! And
when a girl is born, even the beams of the roof break down!”

Saridda turned away, and pretended to be talking to the baby’s mother.

“What’s bad does not always come to do harm. Sometimes, when you think
you’ve lost a treasure, you ought to thank God and St. Pasquale; for you
can never say you know a person till you have eaten seven measures of
salt.”

“After all, one must take troubles as they come, and the worst possible
way is to worry one’s self about things which are not worth the trouble.
When one Pope’s dead they make another.”

“It’s fore-ordained what sort of natures children are to be born with,
and it’s just like that with marriages. It’s far better to marry a man
who really cares for you and has no other ends to serve, even though he
has no money or fields, or mules or anything.”...

On the square the drum was beating to give notice of the festival.

“The Syndic says we shall have the festival,” was the murmur that went
through the crowd.

“I’ll go to law till doomsday, if it should leave me as poor as holy
Job, with nothing left but my shirt; but that five francs’ fine I will
not pay! not if I had to leave directions about it in my will!”

“Confound it all!” exclaimed Nino. “What sort of a festival are they
going to have, if we are all to die of hunger this year?”

Since March not a drop of rain had fallen, and the yellow corn, which
crackled like tinder, was “dying of thirst.” Bruno, the carter, however,
said that when San Pasquale was carried out in procession it would rain
for certain. But what did he care about rain? or all the tanners of his
neighbourhood either? In fact they carried San Pasquale in procession to
east and to west, and set him upon a hill to bless the country on a
stifling May day, when the sky was covered with clouds,—one of those
days when the farmers are ready to tear their hair before the burnt-up
fields, and the ears of corn droop as if they were dying.

“A curse on San Pasquale!” cried Nino, spitting in the air, and rushing
about among his crops like a madman. “You have ruined me, San Pasquale;
you’ve left me nothing but the reaping-hook to cut my throat with!”

The upper town was a desolate place enough. It was one of those long
years when the hunger begins in June, and the women stand at their doors
with their hair hanging about their shoulders—doing nothing—staring with
fixed eyes. Gnà Saridda, hearing that Compare Nino’s mule was to be sold
in the public square, to pay the rent of his farm, felt her anger melt
away in an instant, and sent her brother Turi in hot haste, with the few
_soldi_ they had put aside, to help him.

Nino was in one corner of the square, with his eyes averted and his
hands in his pockets, while they were selling his mule, with all its
ornaments and the new headstall.

“I don’t want anything,” he replied sullenly. “My arms are still left
me, please God. A fine saint that San Pasquale of yours, eh?”

Turi turned his back on him, to avoid unpleasantness, and went on his
way. But the truth is that people’s minds were thoroughly exasperated,
now that they had carried San Pasquale in procession to east and west,
with no more result than that. The worst of it was that many from the
parish of San Rocco had been induced to walk with the procession too,
thrashing themselves like asses, and with crowns of thorns on their
heads, for the sake of their crops. Now they relieved their feelings in
exceedingly bad language; and the Bishop’s delegate was obliged to leave
the town, as he entered it, on foot, and without the band.

The vice-prætor, by way of retaliation on his opponent, telegraphed that
people’s minds were excited, and the public peace compromised; so that
one fine day a report went through the town, that the soldiers had
arrived, and every one could go and see them.

“They have come on account of the cholera,” others; said, however. “Down
in the city, they say, the people are dying like flies.”

The chemist put up the chain of his shop door, and the doctor left the
place as speedily as possible, to escape being knocked on the head.[13]

“It will not come to anything,” said the few who had remained in the
place, having been unable to fly into the country like the rest. “The
blessed San Rocco will watch over his own town.”

Even the lower town folks had begun to go barefoot to San Rocco’s
church. But not long after that, deaths began to come thick and fast.
They said of one man that he was a glutton, and died of eating too many
prickly pears, and of another, that he had come in from the country
after nightfall.[14] But, in short, there was the cholera, there was no
disguising it,—in spite of the soldiers, and in the very teeth of San
Rocco,—notwithstanding the fact that an old woman in the odour of
sanctity had dreamed that the saint himself had said to her—

“Have no fear of the cholera, for I am looking after that. I am not like
that useless old ass of a San Pasquale.”

Nino and Turi had not met since the mule was sold; but scarcely had the
former heard that the brother and sister were both ill, than he hastened
to their house, and found Saridda, black in the face, and her features
all distorted, in a corner of the room. Her brother, who was with her,
was recovering, but could not tell what to do for her, and was nearly
beside himself with despair.

“Ah! thief of a San Rocco,” groaned Nino. “I never expected this. Gnà
Saridda, don’t you know me any more? Nino, your old friend Nino.”

Saridda looked at him with eyes so sunken that one had to hold a lantern
to her face before one could see them, and Nino felt his own running
over.

“Ah! San Rocco,” said he, “this is a worse trick than the one San
Pasquale played me!”

However, Saridda in time got better, and as she was standing at the
door, with her head tied up in a handkerchief, and her face yellow as
new wax, she said to Nino—

“San Rocco has worked a miracle for me, and you ought to come too, and
carry a candle at his festival.”

Nino’s heart was too full to speak, and he nodded assent. But before the
festival came round, he too was taken with the pestilence, and lay at
the point of death. Saridda tore her face with her nails, and said that
she wanted to die with him, and she would cut off her hair and have it
buried with him, and no one should ever look her in the face again as
long as she lived.

“No, no,” replied Nino, his face all drawn with agony. “Your hair will
grow again, but it will be I that will never see you again, for I shall
be dead.”

“A fine miracle that San Rocco has worked for you!” said Turi, by way of
comforting him.

Both of them slowly recovered; and when they sat sunning themselves,
with their backs to the wall and very long faces, kept throwing San
Rocco and San Pasquale in each other’s teeth.

One day Bruno, the carter, coming back from the country after the
cholera was over, passed by them, and said—

“We’re going to have a grand festival to thank San Pasquale for having
saved us from the cholera. We shall have no more demagogues and no more
opposition, now, that the vice-prætor is dead. He has left the quarrel
behind him in his will.”

“All very well; a festival for the dead!” sneered Nino.

“Perhaps it was San Rocco that kept you alive?”

“There!—do have done with it!” cried Saridda. “If you don’t, we shall
need another cholera to make peace between you!”

                                                       _Giovanni Verga._

                            _HIS REVERENCE._

He no longer went about now with the long beard and scapulary of the
begging friar. He got shaved every Sunday, and went for a walk in his
best soutane of fine cloth, with his silk-lined cloak over his arm. When
he looked at his fields, his vineyards, his cattle, and his ploughmen,
with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, if he had
remembered the time when he washed up the dishes for the Capuchin
fathers, and they put him into the frock out of charity, he would have
crossed himself with his left hand.

But if they had not taught him, for charity’s sake, to read and write
and say mass, he would never have succeeded in fixing himself in the
best property in the village, nor in getting into his books the names of
all those tenants who worked away and prayed for a good harvest for him,
and then blasphemed like Turks when settling-day came round. “Look at
what I am, and don’t ask who my parents were,” says the proverb. As for
his parents, every one knew about them; his mother swept out the house
for him. His Reverence was not ashamed of his family—not he; and when he
went to play at cards with the Baroness, he made his brother wait for
him in the anteroom, with the big lantern to light him home with.... He
was popular as a confessor, and always ready for a little paternal
gossip with his female penitents, after they had relieved their
consciences and emptied their pockets, of their own and other people’s
sins. You could always pick up some useful information, especially if
you were given to speculating in agricultural matters, in return for
your blessing!

Good gracious! He did not pretend to be a saint—not he! Holy men usually
died of hunger—like the vicar, who celebrated, even when his masses were
not paid for, and went about poor people’s houses in a ragged soutane
which was a perfect scandal to religion. His Reverence wanted to get on,
and get on he did, with the wind right aft, though a little hampered at
first by that unlucky monk’s frock, which would get in his way, till he
escaped from it by means of a suit before the Royal Courts. The rest of
the brethren backed him up in his application, only for the sake of
getting rid of him; for, as long as he was in the monastery, there was a
free fight in the refectory every time a new Provincial had to be
elected, and the forms and dishes flew about with such goodwill that
Father Battistino, who was sturdy as a muleteer, had been half-killed,
and Father Giammaria, the guardian, had had his teeth knocked down his
throat. His Reverence, after having stirred up the fire all he could,
always retired to his cell on those occasions, and remained quiet there;
and it was in this way that he had succeeded in becoming “His Reverence”
with a complete set of teeth, which served him exceedingly well; while
of Father Giammaria, who had been the man to get that scorpion up his
sleeve, every one said: “Serves him right!”

And Father Giammaria was still only guardian of the Capuchins, without a
shirt to his back or a sou in his pocket,—hearing confessions for the
love of God, and making soup for the poor.

When his Reverence was a boy, and saw his brother—the one who now
carried the lantern—breaking his back with digging, and his sisters
finding no husbands who would take them even at a gift, and his mother
spinning in the dark to save lamp-oil, he said, “I want to be a priest.”
His family sold their mule and their little plot of ground to send him
to school, in the hope that if ever they attained to having a priest in
the house, they would get something better than the land and the mule.
But more than that was required to keep him at the seminary. Then the
boy began to hang about the monastery, hoping to be taken on as a
novice; and one day when the Provincial was expected, and they were busy
in the kitchen, they called him in to help. Father Giammaria, a
kind-hearted old fellow, said to him, “Would you like to stay here?—so
you shall.” And Fra Carmelo, the porter—who was bored to death, sitting
for hours on the cloister wall, with nothing to do, swinging one sandal
against the other—patched him up a scapulary out of old rags which had
been hung out on the fig-tree to scare away the sparrows. His mother,
his brother, and sister protested that if he became a monk it was all up
with them—they would lose the money they had paid for his schooling, and
never get a brass farthing out of him in return. But he shrugged his
shoulders and replied, “It’s a fine thing if a man is not to follow the
vocation to which God has called him.”

Father Giammaria had taken a fancy to him because he was active and
handy in the kitchen, and at all other work; and served mass as though
he had never done anything else in his life, with his eyes cast down,
and his lips primmed up like a seraph. Now that he no longer served the
mass, he still had the same downcast eye and compressed lips, when it
was a question of some scandal among the gentry, or of the common lands
being put up to auction, or of swearing the truth before the magistrate.

No one dared to go to law with him; and if he cast his eyes on a farm
for sale, or on a lot of the common land up at auction, the magnates of
the place themselves, if they ventured to bid against him, did so with
obsequious bows, offering him pinches of snuff. One day he and no less a
person than the Baron himself were at it a whole day—pull devil, pull
baker. The Baron was doing the amiable, and his Reverence, seated
opposite to him, with his cloak gathered up between his legs, at every
advance in the bidding offered him his silver snuff-box, sighing, “What
are you going to do about it, Baron?” At last the lot was knocked down
to him, and the Baron took his pinch of snuff, green with vexation.

This sort of thing quite met the views of the peasants; they were used
to seeing the big dogs fight among themselves over a good bone, and
leave nothing for the little ones to gnaw. But what made them complain
was that this man of God ground them down worse than the very
Antichrist, when they had to share the crops with him; and he had no
scruples about seizing his neighbour’s goods, because the apparatus of
the confessional was all in his hands, and if he fell into mortal sin he
could easily give himself absolution. “It is everything to have the
priest in one’s own house,” they sighed. And the shrewdest of them
denied themselves the very bread out of their mouths, so as to send one
of their sons to the seminary.

“When one gives himself up to the land, one has to do it altogether,”
his Reverence used to say, as an excuse for considering no one. The mass
itself he only celebrated on Sundays, except when there was nothing else
to do; he was not one of those wretched starveling priests who have to
run after the three _tari_ of the mass fee. He had no need of it. So
much so that the Bishop, arriving at his house on a pastoral visit, and
finding his breviary covered with dust, wrote thereon with his finger,
“_Deo gratias!_” But his Reverence had other things to think of besides
wasting his time in reading the breviary, and laughed at the Bishop’s
reproof. If the breviary was covered with dust, his oxen were sleek and
shining, his sheep were thick in fleece, and the crops as tall as a man,
so that his tenants, at any rate, could enjoy the sight of them, and
build fine castles in the air—till they had to settle accounts with
their landlord. It was a relief to their hearts, poor souls. “Crops that
are like witchcraft! The Lord must have passed by them in the night! One
can see that they belong to a man of God, and it is a good thing to work
for him who has the mass and the blessing in his hand!” In May, at the
season when they watched the sky with anxious looks for every passing
cloud, they knew that their landlord was saying mass for the harvest,
and was a better protection against the Evil Eye and the bad season than
pictures of saints or blessed loaves. As for the latter, his Reverence
would not have them scattered about among the crops, because, as he
said, they only served to attract sparrows and other noxious birds. Of
sacred pictures he had his pockets full; he got as many as he wanted, of
the best kind, in the sacristy, without spending a penny, and made
presents of them to his labourers.

But at harvest-time he came riding up on horseback, along with his
brother, who acted as his bailiff, with his gun over his shoulder, and
never left the spot. He slept out in the fields, in spite of the
malaria, so as to look after his interests, without troubling himself
about God or man. The poor wretches who, in the fine season, had
forgotten the hard days of the winter, remained open-mouthed, hearing
him run over the litany of their debts. “So many pounds of beans that
your wife came to fetch at the time of the snow. So many faggots handed
over to your son. So many bushels of grain you have had in advance, for
seed, with interest, at so much a month. Now make up the account.” A
confused account enough. In that year of dearth, when Uncle Carmenio had
left his sweat and his health in his Reverence’s fields, he was forced,
when harvest came, to leave his donkey there too, to pay his debts, and
went off empty-handed, with ugly words in his mouth—blasphemies that
were enough to freeze your very blood. His Reverence, who was not there
to hear confessions, let him swear,—and led the ass into his own stable.

But after 1860, when heresy had triumphed, what good did all his power
and influence do him? The country people learning to read and write, and
able to add up accounts better than he himself; parties fighting for
office in the municipal government, and sharing the spoils without a
consideration in the world for any one but themselves; the next beggar
in the street able to get legal advice for nothing, if he had a quarrel
with you, and force you to pay the costs alone! A priest was nothing
whatever nowadays—either for the judge or the militia captain; he could
no longer, by dropping a hint, get people imprisoned if they failed in
respect to him; in fact, he was good for nothing but to say mass and
hear confessions, just as though he were a servant of the public. The
judge was afraid of the papers—of public opinion—of what Tom, Dick, and
Harry would say—and balanced his decisions like Solomon! They even
envied his Reverence the property he had acquired in the sweat of his
brow; they had “overlooked” him and cast spells on him; the little he
ate at dinner tortured him at night; while his brother, who led a hard
life and dined on bread and garlic, had the digestion of an ostrich, and
knew very well that, in a hundred years’ time, when he, the priest, was
dead, he would be his heir, and find himself rich without lifting a
finger. His mother, poor body, was past work now—she survived only to
suffer herself and be a trouble to other people—helpless in her bed with
paralysis; she had to be waited on, instead of waiting on him.
Everything went wrong in these days.

“There’s no religion now—no justice—no anything!” he would grumble, as
he was growing old. “Now everybody wants to have his say. Those who have
nothing want to grab your share. ‘Get out of that and let me get in!’
That’s it! They’d like to reduce the priests to sacristans—leave them
nothing to do but say mass and sweep out the church. They don’t want to
obey God’s commandments any more—that’s what’s the matter with _them_!”

                                                             _G. Verga._

                      _PADRON ’NTONI’S POLITICS._

... Padron ’Ntoni knew nothing about politics, and contented himself
with minding his own affairs, for he used to say, “He who has charge of
a house cannot sleep when he pleases,” and “He who commands has to give
account.”

In December 1863, ’Ntoni, the eldest of his grandsons, had been called
out for the naval conscription. Padron ’Ntoni went at once to all the
big-wigs of the village, thinking that they would be able to help him.
But Don Giammaria the priest said that it served him right, and that
this was the fruit of that revolution of Satan they had brought about
when they hoisted the tricolour on the church tower. On the other hand,
Don Franco the chemist began to laugh under his great beard, and assured
Padron ’Ntoni, rubbing his hands, that as soon as they were able to rig
up a bit of a republic, which was what was wanted, every one who had to
do with the conscription and the taxes should be kicked out; that there
would then be no more soldiers, but every man in the country would go to
war if it were needed. Then Padron ’Ntoni prayed and entreated him to
get the Republic made soon—before his grandson ’Ntoni had to go for a
soldier, just as though Don Franco had the Republic in his pocket,
insomuch that the chemist ended by losing his temper. Then Don
Silvestro, the Syndic’s secretary, nearly killed himself with laughing,
and said that a nice little sum paid into the pockets of such and such
personages he knew of would have the effect of producing in ’Ntoni some
defect which would make him ineligible for service.

                                                             _G. Verga._

                        _MASTRO PEPPE’S MAGIC._

Mastro Peppe La Bravetta was a stout, stupid, good-natured man, living
in Pescara, who sold pots and pans, and was terribly in awe of his wife,
the severe and miserly Donna Pelagia, who ruled him with a rod of iron.
Besides the income derived from his business, he possessed a piece of
land on the other side of the river which produced enough to keep a pig.
To this property the couple were wont to repair every January, to
preside over the killing and salting of the pig which had been fattening
through the year.

Now one year it so happened that Pelagia was not very well, and La
Bravetta went to attend the execution alone. And to him, in the course
of the afternoon, came two of his friends, graceless vagabonds, Matteo
Puriello, nicknamed Ciávola, who was a poacher, and Biagio Quaglia,
better known as Il Ristabilito, whose most serious occupation was that
of playing the guitar at weddings and on other festive occasions.

When he saw these two approaching he welcomed them enthusiastically, and
then, leading them into the building where the wonderful pig was laid
out on the table, asked—

“What do you say to this, now? Isn’t he a beauty? What do you think of
him?”

The two friends contemplated the pig in silent wonder, and Ristabilito
clicked his tongue appreciatively against his palate. Ciávola asked,
“What are you going to do with it?”

“Salt it down,” replied La Bravetta, in a voice which trembled with
greedy delight of future banquets.

“Going to salt it?” cried Ristabilito suddenly. “Going to salt it? But,
Ciá, did you ever see any man so stupid as this fellow? To let such a
chance slip!”

La Bravetta, quite dumfoundered, stared first at one and then at the
other with his calf-like eyes.

“Donna Pelagge has always kept you under her thumb,” continued
Ristabilito. “This time she can’t see you; why shouldn’t you sell the
pig, and then we’ll feast on the money.”

“But Pelagge?” stammered La Bravetta, who was filled with an immense
consternation by the image of his wrathful wife presented to his mind’s
eye.

“Tell her that the pig was stolen,” said Ciávola, with a gesture of
impatience.

La Bravetta shuddered.

“How am I to go home and tell her that? Pelagge won’t believe me—she’ll
drive me—she’ll ... You don’t know what Pelagge is!”

“Uh! Pelagge! uh! uh! Donna Pelagge!” jeered the two arch-plotters in
chorus. And then Ristabilito, imitating Peppe’s whining voice, and his
wife’s sharp and strident one, acted a comic scene in which Peppe was
utterly routed, scolded, and finally cuffed like a naughty boy.

Ciávola walked round the pig, scarcely able to move for laughing. The
unfortunate butt, seized with a violent fit of sneezing, waved his arms
helplessly, trying to interrupt the dramatic representation. All the
window-panes trembled with the noise. The flaming sunset streamed in on
three very different human faces.

When Ristabilito stopped, Ciávola said—

“Well, let’s go away!”

“If you’ll stay to have supper——” began Mastro Peppe, somewhat
constrainedly.

“No, no, my dear boy,” interrupted Ciávola, as he turned towards the
door, “you do as Pelagge tells you, and salt the pig.”

As the two friends walked along the road Ristabilito said to Ciávola—

“_Compare_, shall we steal that pig to-night?”

“How?” said Ciávola.

“I know how, if they leave it where it was when we saw it.”

“Well, let’s do it. But, then?” said Ciávola.

The other’s whole face lit up, and fairly vibrated with a grin of
delight.

“Never mind—_I_ know,” was all he said.

They saw Don Bergamino Camplone coming along in the moonlight—a black
figure between the rows of leafless poplars with their silvery trunks.
They immediately quickened their pace to meet him; and the jolly priest,
seeing their festive looks, asked with a smile—

“What’s up now?”

The friends briefly communicated their project to Don Bergamino, who
assented with much cheerfulness. And Ristabilito added, in a low voice—

“Here we shall have to manage things cunningly. You know that Peppe,
ever since he took up with that ugly old hag of a Donna Pelagge, has
been getting very stingy, and at the same time he’s very fond of wine.
Now we must go and fetch him and take him to Assaù’s tavern. You, Don
Bergamino, must treat us all round. Peppe will drink as much as ever he
can, seeing it costs him nothing, and will get as drunk as a pig; and
then——”

The others agreed, and they went to Peppe’s house, which was about two
rifle-shots distant. When they were near enough Ciávola lifted up his
voice—

“Ohé! La Bravetta-a-a! Are you coming to Assaù’s? The priest is here,
and he’s going to pay for a bottle of wine for us. Ohé-é-é!”

La Bravetta was not long in descending, and all four set off in a row,
joking and laughing in the moonlight. In the stillness the caterwauling
of a distant cat was heard at intervals, and Ristabilito remarked—

“Oh! Pé! don’t you hear Pelagge calling you to come back?”

They crossed the ferry, reached the tavern, and sat till late over
Assaù’s wine, which Mastro Peppe found so good that he was at last
discovered to be incapable of walking home. They assisted him back to
the house and left him to go upstairs alone, which he did with some
difficulty, talking disconnectedly all the time about Lepruccio the
butcher and the quantity of salt needed for the pig, and quite oblivious
of the fact that he had left the door unfastened. They waited a while,
and then, entering softly, found the pig on the table, and carried it
off between them, shaking with suppressed laughter. It was very heavy,
and they were quite out of breath when they reached the priest’s house.

In the morning, Mastro Peppe having slept off his wine, awoke, and lay
still a little while on his bed, stretching his limbs and listening to
the bells as they rang for the Eve of St. Anthony. Even in the confusion
of his first awakening he felt a contented sense of possession steal
through his mind, and tasted by anticipation the delight of seeing
Lepruccio cutting up and covering with salt the plump joints of pork.

Under the impulse of this idea, he rose, and hurried out, rubbing his
eyes the while to get a better view. Nothing was to be seen on the table
but a stain of blood, with the morning sun shining on it.

“The pig! Where is the pig?” cried the bereaved one hoarsely.

A furious excitement seized upon him. He rushed downstairs, saw the open
door, struck his forehead with his fists, and burst into the open air
yelling aloud—calling all his farm labourers round him, and asking them
if they had seen the pig—if they had taken it. He multiplied his
complaints, raising his voice more and more; and at last the doleful
sound, echoing along the river-bank, reached the ears of Ciávola and Il
Ristabilito.

They therefore repaired to the spot at their ease, fully agreed to enjoy
the sight and keep up the joke. When they came in sight, Mastro Peppe
turned to them, all afflicted and in tears, and exclaimed, “Oh! poor me!
They have stolen the pig! Oh! poor me! What shall I do?—what shall I
do?”

Biagio Quaglia stood for a while, looking at this most unhappy man out
of his half-shut eyes, with an expression midway between derision and
admiration, and his head inclined to one shoulder, as if critically
judging of some dramatic effort. Then he came closer and said—

“Ah! yes, yes—one can’t deny it.... You play your part well.”

Peppe, not understanding, lifted his face all furrowed with the tracks
of tears....

“To tell the truth, I never thought you would have been so cute,”
Ristabilito went on. “Well done! Bravo! I’m delighted!”

“What’s that you’re saying?” asked La Bravetta between his sobs. “What’s
that you’re saying? Oh! poor me! How can I ever go home again?”

“Bravo! bravo! that’s right!” insisted Ristabilito. “Go on! Yell
harder!—cry!—tear your hair! Make them hear! That’s it! Make them
believe it!”

And Peppe, still weeping—

“But I say they have really and truly stolen it! Oh, dear! oh, dear!”

“That’s it! Go on! Don’t stop! Again!”

Peppe, quite beside himself with exasperation and grief, redoubled his
asseverations.

“I’m telling the truth! May I die now, at once, if they haven’t stolen
that pig from me!”

“Oh, poor innocent!” jeered Ciávola. “Put your finger in your eye! How
can we believe you, when we saw the pig here yesterday evening? Has St.
Anthony given him wings to fly away with?”

“Oh, blessed St. Anthony! It is just as I say!”

“It’s not so!”

“It is.”

“No!”

“Oh! oh! oh! It is! it is! I’m a dead man! I don’t know how in the world
I am to go home. Pelagge won’t believe me, and if she does, I shall
never hear the end of it.... Oh! I’m dead!...”

At last they pretended to be convinced, and proposed a remedy for the
misfortune.

“Listen here,” said Biagio Quaglia; “it must have been one of the people
hereabouts; for it is certain that no one would have come from India to
steal your pig, would they, Pé?”

“Of course, of course,” assented Peppe.

“Well then—attend to me now,” continued Ristabilito, delighted at the
devout attention accorded to his words; “if no one came from India to
rob you, it is certain that one of the people hereabouts must have been
the thief; don’t you think so?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Well, what have we to do? We must get all these labourers together, and
try some charm to discover the thief. And if we find the thief, we’ve
found the pig.”

Mastro Peppe’s eyes brightened with eagerness, and he came closer, for
the hint at a charm had awakened all his innate superstition.

“Now, you know, there are three kinds of magic—the black, the red, and
the white. And you know there are three women in the village skilled in
the art: Rosa Schiavona, Rosaria Pajara, and Ciniscia. You have only to
choose.”

Peppe remained a moment in doubt. Then he decided for Rosaria Pajara,
who enjoyed great fame as a sorceress, and had in past times performed
several marvellous feats.

“Very well,” concluded Ristabilito; “there is no time to be lost. Now,
just for your sake, and only to do you a pleasure, I am going to the
town to get everything that will be wanted. I will talk to Rosaria, get
her to give me everything, and come back before noon. Give me the
money.”

Peppe took three _carlini_ from his waistcoat pocket, and held them out
hesitatingly.

“Three _carlini_?” shouted the other, putting back his hand. “_Three
carlini!_ She’ll want ten at least!”

On hearing this Pelagge’s husband was almost struck dumb.

“What? Ten _carlini_ for a charm?” he stammered, feeling with trembling
fingers in his pocket. “Here are eight for you. I have no more.”

“Well, well,” said Quaglia dryly; “we’ll see what we can do. Are you
coming along, Ciá?”

The two companions set off at a smart pace for Pescara, along the
poplar-bordered path, in Indian file, Ciávola demonstrating his delight
by mighty thumps on Ristabilito’s back. When they reached the town, they
entered the shop of a certain Don Daniele Pacentro, a chemist of their
acquaintance. Here they purchased certain drugs and spices, and got him
to make them up into little balls the size of walnuts, which were then
well coated with sugar and baked. Biagio Quaglia (who had disappeared in
the meantime) then returned with a paper full of dirt swept up in the
road, of which he insisted on having two pills made, in appearance
exactly similar to the others, but mixed with bitter aloes, and only
very slightly coated with sugar. The chemist did as he was desired,
putting a mark on the two bitter pills, at Ristabilito’s suggestion.

The two jokers now returned to Peppe’s farm, and reached it about noon.
La Bravetta was awaiting them with great anxiety, and as soon as he saw
them shouted, “Well?”

“Everything is in order!” replied Ristabilito triumphantly, showing the
little box of magic confectionery. “Now, seeing to-day is the Eve of St.
Anthony, and the peasants are taking a holiday, you must call them all
together, out here in the open air, and give them a drink. You have some
casks of Montepulciano; you might as well have some of that out for
once. And when they are all assembled it will be my business to do and
say all that has to be said and done.”

Two hours later, the afternoon being very warm, bright, and clear, and
La Bravetta having spread the report, all the farmers of the
neighbourhood and their labourers came in response to the invitation. A
great flock of geese went waddling about among the heaps of straw in the
yard; the smell of the stable came in puffs on the air. They stood
there, quietly laughing and joking with one another, as they waited for
the wine,—these rustics, with their bow-legs, bent by heavy labour,—some
of them with faces wrinkled and ruddy as old apples, and eyes that had
been made gentle by long patience, or quick with years of cunning;
others young and limber, with beards just coming, and home care
evidenced in their patched and mended clothes.

Ciávola and Ristabilito did not keep them waiting long. The latter,
holding the box in his hand, directed them to make a circle round him,
and then, standing in the middle, addressed them in a short oration, not
without a certain gravity of voice and gesture.

“Neighbours,” he began, “none of you, I am sure, knows the real reason
why Mastro Peppe de’ Sieri has summoned you here....”

A movement of astonishment at this strange preamble passed round the
circle, and the joy at the promised wine gave place to uneasy
expectations of various kinds. The orator continued—

“But, as something disagreeable might happen, and you might afterwards
complain of me, I will tell you what it is all about before we make the
experiment.”

The listeners looked into one another’s eyes with a bewildered air, and
then cast curious and uncertain glances at the little box which the
orator held in his hand. One of them, as Ristabilito paused to consider
the effect of his words, exclaimed impatiently—

“Well?”

“Presently, presently, neighbours. Last night there was stolen from
Mastro Peppe a fine pig which was going to be salted down. No one knows
who the thief is; but it is quite certain that he will be found among
you, because no one would come from India to steal Mastro Peppe’s pig.”

Whether it was a happy effect of the strange argument from India, or the
action of the mild winter sun, La Bravetta began to sneeze. The rustics
took a step backward, the whole flock of geese scattered in terror, and
seven consecutive sneezes resounded freely in the air, disturbing the
rural stillness of the spot. The noise restored some cheerfulness to the
minds of the assembly, who in a little while regained their composure,
and Ristabilito continued as gravely as ever—

“To find out the thief Mastro Peppe intends to give you to eat of
certain good _confetti_, and to drink of a certain old Montepulciano,
which he has tapped to-day on purpose. But I must tell you one thing
first. The thief, as soon as he puts the sweets into his mouth, will
find them bitter—so bitter that he will be forced to spit them out. Now,
are you willing to try? Or perhaps the thief, rather than be found out
in this way, would like to go and confess himself to the priest? Answer,
neighbours.”

“We are willing to eat and drink,” replied the assembly, almost with one
voice. And a wave of suppressed emotion passed through all these
guileless folk. Each one looked at his neighbour with a point of
interrogation in his eyes; and each one naturally tried to put a certain
ostentatious spontaneity into his laughter.

Said Ciávola: “You must all stand in a row, so that no one can hide
himself.”

When they were all ready he took the bottle and glasses, preparing to
pour out the wine. Ristabilito went to one end of the row, and began
quietly to distribute the _confetti_, which crunched and disappeared in
a moment under the splendid teeth of the rustics. When he reached Mastro
Peppe he handed him one of the pills prepared with aloes, and passed on
without giving any sign.

Mastro Peppe, who till then had been standing staring with his eyes wide
open, intent on surprising the culprit, put the pill into his mouth
almost with gluttonous eagerness and began to chew. Suddenly his cheeks
rose with a sudden movement towards his eyes, the corners of his mouth
and his temples were filled with wrinkles, the skin of his nose was
drawn up into folds, his lower jaw was twisted awry; all his features
formed a pantomimic expression of horror, and a sort of visible shudder
ran down the back of his neck and over his shoulders. Then, suddenly,
since the tongue could not endure the bitterness of the aloes, and a
lump rising in his throat made it simply impossible for him to swallow,
the miserable man was forced to spit.

“Ohé, Mastro Pé, what are you doing?” exclaimed the sharp, harsh voice
of Tulespre dei Passeri, an old goatherd, greenish and shaggy as a swamp
tortoise.

Hearing this, Ristabilito, who had not yet finished distributing the
pills, turned suddenly round. Seeing that La Bravetta was contorting his
features and limbs in agony, he said, with an air of the greatest
benevolence—

“Well, perhaps that one was too much done! Here is another! swallow it,
Peppe!”

And with his finger and thumb he crammed the second aloe-pill into
Peppe’s mouth.

The poor man took it, and, feeling the goatherd’s sharp, malignant eyes
fixed on him, made a supreme effort to overcome his disgust; he neither
chewed nor swallowed the pill, but kept his tongue motionless against
his teeth. But when the aloes began to dissolve, he could bear it no
longer; his lips began to writhe as before, his eyes filled with tears,
which soon overflowed and ran down his cheeks. At last he had to spit
the thing out.

“Ohé, Mastro Pé, and what are you doing _now_?” cried the goatherd
again, with a grin which showed his toothless, whitish gums. “Oh! and
indeed, now, what does this mean?”

All the peasants broke from their ranks and surrounded La Bravetta, some
with laughing derision, others with angry words. The sudden and brutal
revulsions of pride to which the sense of honour of the rustic
population is subject—the implacable rigidity of superstition—now
suddenly exploded in a tempest of abuse.

“What did you make us come here for? To try and lay the blame on us with
a false charm? To cheat us? What for? Thief! liar! son of a dog! etc.,
etc. Would you cheat us? You scoundrel! you thief, you! We are going to
break all your pots and dishes! Thief! son of a dog!” etc., etc., _da
capo_.

Having smashed the bottle and glasses, they went their ways, shouting
back their concluding imprecations from among the poplars.

There remained on the threshing-floor Ciávola, Ristabilito, the geese,
and La Bravetta. The latter, filled with shame, rage, and confusion, and
with his mouth still sore from the bitterness of the aloes, could not
utter a word. Ristabilito, with a refinement of cruelty, stood looking
at him, shaking his head ironically, and tapping the ground with his
foot. Ciávola crowed, with an indescribable mockery in his voice—

“Ah! ah! ah! ah! Bravo, La Bravetta! Now do tell us—how much did you
make by it? Ten ducats?”

                                                  _Gabriele d’Annunzio._

                        _A DAY IN THE COUNTRY._

“It is no use talking, my dear fellow!—there are times when it is simply
impossible to say no. They urge you—they worry you—they lay you under
obligation by so many kind attentions, that a refusal would be an actual
breach of good manners towards people whose only thought is to do you a
kindness.”

You allege business. “Oh!” they reply, “the world will not come to an
end for one day’s absence.” It is too hot? “Come in the morning, when it
is cool.” The village is such a long way from the station? “We will send
the gig for you.” You have engaged to pass the day with a friend? “Bring
him along with you....” In short, I said yes,—and so on Sunday morning I
went and did the deed.

When I had reached the village, and found myself in the midst of a crowd
of peasants coming out from early mass, who looked at me as if I had
been a wild beast, I asked for Signor Cosimo’s house. Eight or ten
people immediately offered to accompany me thither.

“There it is—up there; do you see that house with a little tower on the
top?—that’s it. Do you know Sor Cosimo? Ah! he’s a good gentleman! And
his brother the priest? And his wife, Sora Flavia? She’s a kind lady, so
she is, and gives away ever so much money. And Sora Olimpia, too, Signor
Cosimo’s sister.... She’s one who has her own ideas ... as who should
say that she has such a passion for books that she always has one in her
hands, and has nearly lost her head over them; but afterwards, do you
see? she repeats them all by heart, in a way that no one could believe
it! And she is a good creature too; and, as for her family, when there
is anything to be put on paper, I don’t see how they could ever do
without her.... There used to be Bistino, Sor Cosimo’s eldest son, but
now he is in the seminary at Volterra, and they say that he does them so
much credit there that they won’t even let him come home for the
holidays. There’s a boy for you! When he was at home, and used to help
his uncle the chaplain at his net,[15] the two between them caught more
birds in a day than all the other nets in a week.... Look, sir, you turn
this way and go up hill, and you can’t miss it!”

All this varied information about my hosts, with whom I was already
slightly acquainted, was given me on the way by the peasants, who, each
in turn, vied with the rest in bestowing it on me, till, having escorted
me to the end of a short avenue leading to the villa, they quitted me
with respectful salutations, after asking me whether I required any
servants.

Scarcely had I rung the bell when the door was opened by a youth in his
shirt sleeves, and a white apron tucked into the waistband of his
trousers.

“Is Signor Cosimo in?”

“Oh! yes, sir! Come in, come in! You are that gentleman from Florence
who sent yesterday to say that perhaps he would come to-day—eh?”

“Yes.”

“Come, then, come along! The master said I was to show you into the best
room, and he will come presently. That’s right, sir! You’ve done well to
come. Such a long time as they’ve been talking about you, and expecting
you! Are they all well at Florence? See; come in here and sit down. Will
you excuse me, sir?”

“Go on, go on, my good fellow.”

I went and sat down by the window, and began to turn over an old
photograph album. In the meantime I perceived that my arrival might
truly be said to have created a sensation, since I could hear on the
first floor a great banging of doors and a going and coming of shod and
unshod feet, which caused a thick shower of whitewash to descend from
the ceiling, and the window-panes and the glass shade covering a wax
figure on the sideboard to vibrate as with an earthquake.

After a few minutes I heard a scratching at the door, then a kick
against it; it opened, and I saw a child of about six years, with a
half-eaten apple in his hand. He looked at me with an air of
displeasure, and asked—

“I say, is that your book? You’ve got to put it down at once—if you
don’t, I’ll tell my uncle the priest.”

I laid aside the album, but he continued to look daggers at me.

“Are you that stranger that was to come to-day?”

“Yes, little one.” Affecting a caressing gentleness, in order to
conciliate him, I held out my hand. The small boy retreated two paces,
and showed symptoms of being about to throw the apple at my head.

“Will you keep your hands to yourself? What did you come up here for?”

I was beginning to feel annoyed, and did not answer.

“Yes, yes—father told you to come—I know that well enough; but mother
didn’t want you, because she had to have all those fowls killed. Gostino
is plucking them just now. But you’re going away this evening?... Won’t
you answer? But I hope you are,—because, when mother saw you coming
along the road, she wished you all sorts of bad luck.”...

The door opened, and there appeared, shod in slippers, the magnificent
bulk of Signor Cosimo, who, smiling cordially, clapped his great hands
on my shoulders, saying, three times over, “Bravo, bravo, bravo!” Then,
turning to the small boy, he demanded—

“What are you doing here?”

“Just what I think fit!” replied the infant, who was thereupon expelled
from the room with a tremendous box on the ear, after which his father
turned to me and invited me to be seated.

My eye was at once caught by the grease-spots, and stains of wine and
coffee, which adorned Signor Cosimo’s shirt and trousers. To tell the
truth, I was uncomfortably affected by the sense of a want of
consideration towards myself, but was soon appeased by his apologies for
having kept me waiting, because he had gone upstairs to his own room, to
“clean himself up a bit.”

“Oh! but.... Don’t mention it, Signor Cosimo!”

“Oh! bravo! bravo! bravo! But what a season, eh? Look here, you must be
in need of some refreshment.... Gostino-o-o-o! What are they saying?
What do they say in Florence about the crops?... Bravo! bravo! It is
very good of you to have come; you have given us a regular treat!”

“Did you call, sir?”

“Go upstairs, Gostino, and ask your mistress to give you the keys of the
sideboard, and bring this gentleman some refreshments.” Then to the
child, who had returned in the wake of the servitor, “Go at once and get
your face washed and make yourself fit to be seen.” With that, he boxed
the small boy’s ears a second time, and turned him out of the room.

“And as to fruit, my dear sir, there’s nothing at all this year.”

“Ah!”

“Well, what is one to say? For the last three years it’s clear there has
been witchcraft in it. Just imagine it. I used to put aside four hundred
pounds in a year, and now ... sometimes fifty, sometimes sixty.... And
then, what stuff it is! Every bit worm-eaten! I beg your pardon, but
will you come down into the granary with me? But, no—I hear my brother
coming down; we’ll wait for him.”

“Let us wait for him, by all means.”

“He’s a queer sort of customer, you know—a confirmed grumbler!—but,
after all, a good sort at bottom. The other day, for instance, do you
see——he suffers so much from——”

These preliminaries to the introduction were interrupted by the
appearance of Don Paolo himself, who entered the room with a profound
bow. I rose, and was going to meet him, but he protested.

“No, no, I won’t have it—don’t disturb yourself, sir. If you will excuse
me, I will keep my hat on, as that is my custom. Sit down, sit down,
pray.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Sor Cosimo resumed the
conversation.

“You see, Paolo, this is the gentleman whom we were speaking of——”

“I know! I know! Bless you! can’t you make an end of it? How many times
do you find it necessary to repeat a thing?”

“No—I wanted to tell you——”

“Have you sent for refreshments?”

“I told Gostino. He is just coming.”

“And so you’re from Florence, eh?” asked the chaplain, turning to me.

“At your service.”

“A wretched year, my dear sir! If it does not rain soon we shall never
get any crops to speak of.... A year ago this very day I had taken
fifty-six birds by ten o’clock; and this morning, before I came away to
mass at eight, we had caught three miserable little things, and an
accursed hawk that has half bitten my hand to pieces—look! Are they
taking any at Florence?”

“To tell the truth, I have never asked.”

“Is the Prior of San Gaggio catching any this year?—is he catching any?”

“To my knowledge ... I could not say at all.”

“Ah! because last Friday he sent to tell me that he had not even had the
decoy-cages made. He says that Father Lorenzo della Santissima
Annunziata is not well. Is that true?”

“To tell the truth ... I do not know.”

“What!—do you know nothing, then?”

“I will tell you.... Let us rather speak of yourself. Signor Cosimo was
telling me just now——”

“I must run out for a moment to the net. I say, Cosimo, what time is
dinner?”

“Tell the women to get it at any hour that suits you.”

“Ah! here’s one of them,” said Don Paolo, who was just in the doorway.
“What o’clock do we dine, Flavia?—at twelve?”

Signora Flavia, the wife of my host, bowed her head in assent as she
entered the room, while the chaplain, an unsaluted guest, went off to
his nets. She came to meet me, asked me how I was, said that she was
pleased to hear it before I had time to answer “Well,” and planted
herself in a chair to look at me. Sor Cosimo, upon Whom all the
conversation seemed to devolve, remarked—

“See, Flavia, this is the gentleman who, as I was telling you the other
evening——” Whereupon Sora Flavia began again, _da capo_.

“How are you?—Well?”

“Yes, madam.”

“And your wife?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Remember me to her.” Then, looking at her husband as if to ask him
whether she ought to say any more to me, she relapsed into silence, and
fell to contemplating me again.

Fortunately Signor Cosimo relieved me from the embarrassment of choosing
the subject of conversation by reverting to politics. The Tunis Question
being then at its height, he naturally fell upon it tooth and nail, grew
heated and excited, and blurted out, puffing and blowing, all his ideas
touching foreign politics, concluding with the statement that if he and
his brother the priest had been in the Cabinet, there would not be a
Frenchman in Tunis.... At this point Signora Flavia interrupted him by
asking me if there was any cotton in the material of my coat. I choked
down a burst of laughter, and hazarded the answer that there was not.

“Then it is very dear, is it not?”

“Yes; I think it was seven francs a mètre.”

“Ah! they measure by mètres, do they? It must be good stuff, though.
Just look, Cosimo; you ought to have one made like it——”

“Yes, yes; just like you—always interrupting! We’ll speak of that
afterwards.”... Then, turning to me again—

“Because, if France——” He was just about to recommence the attack on
Tunis when the door opened to admit his sister Olimpia, a maiden lady of
fifty or so, the same whose literary reputation had made so great an
impression on the peasants.

She had on a faded light blue dress, wore a crinoline, and carried a
puce-coloured mantilla over her arm. On her head she had a broad-brimmed
straw hat of a dingy yellow, adorned with a wreath of real ivy, and two
small locks of well-greased hair fell in soft folds on the slightly
roughened skin of her cheeks. In one hand she carried her parasol and a
bunch of lavender; in the other a book, in which she kept her finger to
mark the place. She advanced with ostentatious ease of manner, and
bowed, half-shutting her eyes.

“Sir,” she said, “you are welcome to this modest habitation.”

“A delicious habitation, Signorina, where I should be very sorry to be
troublesome.” She again half-shut her eyes, and smiled on me. Retiring
backwards, as gracefully as she could, she went and sat down with her
back to the window. She was evidently well acquainted with the clumsy
artifices of a very mature young lady.

I was contemplating her with the utmost attention, when I felt a heavy
hand on my shoulder, and Sor Cosimo said to me—

“You ought to hear what poetry this girl writes! Have you got it here,
Olimpia—that sonnet you made last Sunday?”

“That ode, you mean—come!”

“Well, well—sonnet or ode—it’s the same thing. But if you could hear
it—with rhymes, and all! I tell you! Come, let us hear it!”

“Afterwards, Cosimo, afterwards!”

Heaven preserve me! Turning to Signorina Olimpia, who still kept her
finger in her book, I asked—

“What are you reading, may I ask?”

“I am just glancing over Leopardi.”

“Ah! ah!” And Sor Cosimo broke in—

“Fine! fine!—ah! very fine!”

“Are you acquainted with his works, Sor Cosimo?”

“Oh! most certainly! She read it to us last Sunday at dessert, and made
us all cry like babies.”

“No, Cosimo, you do not understand. The gentleman means this book that I
have here.”

“Ah! what! Well, well!... I was speaking of the sonnet. But you shall
hear it afterwards.... And you must repeat that one too that you wrote
when Calamai’s son was made a priest. Oh! _that!_ And then.... But don’t
imagine, sir, that she has only one. She has a whole drawer full, and
you may say that, if one is fine, others are not so bad.... Well, you
shall hear.”

I was eager to hear her opinion of Leopardi, and asked—

“What do you think of this book, Signorina?”

“I will tell you,” she replied. “To say the truth, I have scarcely got
at the bottom of it as yet, ... but, if I must speak sincerely, it seems
to me there is not much interest in it.”

“Ah!”

“Don’t you think so too?”

“Well—yes—in a manner of speaking, yes!”

“If you will allow me to say so, no story is ever finished properly. You
find Consalvo—that, now, is stolen from Tasso, the scene of Clorinda and
Tancred.... Well, you find Consalvo. What then? Consalvo dies, and, at
least as far as I have got, one hears no more of her. And the same thing
with the characters. There is that one of that Nerina; it would be fine
enough, but, good heavens! it is so little developed ... and one does
not know what to make of it...! Do you agree with me?”

“Well ... to tell the truth ...”

“You see, Cosimo, whether or not I was right when we were discussing the
subject the other evening with Signora Amalia.”

“I should think so, indeed!” exclaimed Sor Cosimo, testifying his
approval by a great guffaw of laughter. “Do you mean to say you would
compare yourself with that conceited creature? Let her go for seven
years to school with the Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, as you have
been, and then come and talk to us....”

The amazing literary criticisms of Sor Cosimo and his sister completely
took away my breath. I was relieved from the necessity of answering by
the appearance of Gostino with a bottle and a tray of glasses.

“I am sure you’ll like this wine, sir; you’ll see!” said Gostino as he
poured me out some wine.

“Come, come, Gostino!” said Signorina Olimpia.

“Look sharp, Gostino,” continued Sor Cosimo; “go and fetch two more
bottles—one of ’62 (you’ll find it on the table at the end of the
cellar), and the other of ’59 (the year of the Revolution), and you
shall see”—he turned to me again—“you shall see you have never tasted
any like this!”

“But ... that’s enough, Signor Cosimo!”

“Come, come; no compliments. While it’s coming you’ll take another drop
of this, won’t you?”

“Thanks, but I could not.... I am not accustomed....”

“Sir—I’m going to have another glass too—as the friar took a wife, for
company’s sake.... Shall I pour you some out? You can throw it away
afterwards, if you like—but I must pour if out”

“Very well, then; since you wish it so, another sip.... Enough,—that’s
enough!”

“No, sir—the glass full, or none!”

Gostino returned with the other bottles, and then they all fell upon me,
beginning with Signora Flavia, and not excluding Gostino, beseeching me
to try those also. Signor Cosimo nudged my elbow, Gostino poured out the
wine, and the two ladies entreated me with eloquent glances not to do
them the wrong of refusing this attention.

I resisted for a little, but had to give way at last; and then my evil
genius inspired me with the notion of praising the quality of the wine,
and remarking that not only must the grapes have been exquisite, but the
casks and cellars first-rate also. I regretted the words the moment they
were out of my mouth.

“I’m going to show you them,” said Sor Cosimo immediately.

He took my arm, and, leaving the ladies in the dining-room, dragged me
off to the cellar, with Gostino to light the way—now warning me of a
step, and again requesting me to stoop where the ceiling was low, and at
last showing himself more astonished than I could possibly be at the
beauty of a cobwebbed vault, with a few casks along one wall, and two
smaller barrels in a corner.

As it was necessary for me to be astonished, and to admire something, I
began to praise the solid construction of the house, which I inferred
from an inspection of the basement walls.

“Well, you shall see it now!”

From the cellar we ascended to the ground floor, which I had to review
in detail—dining-room, ironing-room, kitchen, oven, larder,
cupboards.... Then the new staircase—the first one was where the
store-room is now.... Then the study, which his brother the priest had
wished to have on the site of the stable they had had pulled down, but
that was too damp.... Then up to the first floor—drawing-room,
sitting-rooms, bed-rooms, and everything,—in fact, before I knew what I
was about, I beheld Sora Olimpia trying on her puce-coloured mantle
before the looking-glass.... “Look out of the window—now isn’t that a
view? There’s the kitchen-garden. We’ll go there afterwards, but first
you must see the second floor.”

We went up to the second floor, where he led me round for some twenty
minutes, explaining in detail the destination of every apartment,
together with the most noteworthy events which had taken place in the
same—from the large room where the silkworms lived to the dark den where
the chaplain kept the bullfinches he was teaching to pipe....

At the foot of the stairs we met Don Paolo returning from his quail
nets, puffing and blowing, and grumbling at the Provost’s hurry to get
to church. “Was he afraid of not finishing mass in time to get back to
dinner, the great glutton? Do, for any sake, go on, Cosimo; do me the
kindness—bad luck to this sort of work!—and tell them to be getting
ready in the meantime, and I’ll come in ten minutes—if they don’t like
that, they may sing mass by themselves....”

“Do you see?” whispered Sor Cosimo to me, “that’s his way. If he doesn’t
catch any birds he becomes a regular beast. Come, let us go on; the
ladies will follow by themselves.”

“They have already started, sir,” said Gostino.

“All the better; come along.”

I should have been thankful to sit down and rest for a minute, but had
to follow Sor Cosimo, who, in order to get away from his brother, set
off at such a pace that it was difficult to keep up with him.

Mountains stand firm, and men move on. When Sor Cosimo, hurrying into
the door of the canon’s house, left me under the church-porch, my eye
fell on a well-dressed man whose face somehow seemed familiar. As we
passed each other, in walking up and down, I saw that his eyes were
fixed on me, and that he was smiling, as if about to address me. I was
just about to speak to him, as we met for the third time, when he
uttered my name, and I suddenly recalled his.

“After nineteen years! How in the world did you get here?”

“I’m the parish doctor. And you?”

“I only came out for the day.”

“You’ll come and dine with me?”

“I am engaged.”

“To whom?”

“We’ll speak of that afterwards. Now tell me about yourself.... How are
you getting on?”

“As well as a country doctor ever does.”

“And with the peasants.”

“Badly.”

“Why?”

“Because, being a gentleman, I am not a beast like themselves.”

“I understand. And how about the local authorities?”

“No better. I am not on good terms with the Syndic; and, by-the-bye, I
must be off before he comes.”

“The reason?”

“I was imprudent enough to contradict him in public—in the chemist’s
shop, when, speaking of books on etiquette, he mentioned Monsignor della
Casa and _Flavio_ Gioja!”[16]

“Who is this portent of erudition?”

“The wealthiest, the most cultured, the most respectable person in the
commune—a certain Signor Cosimo.”

“My host!”

“Are you staying at his house?”

“I am!”

“How in the world—— But never mind now,—after dinner you must come to me
and tell me about everything, and we shall be together till you leave. I
have a great deal to talk to you about—I’ll drive you down to the
station.... Now let us go in.”

“Here you see my masters,” he said, with a smile, as we came to a halt
in a corner at the upper end of the church. “They are all up there. Do
you know any of them?”

“Only Signor Cosimo’s family.”

“I’ll tell you the names of some—they are quite worth your attention.
They wouldn’t be bad sort of people if it were not for the intolerable
airs they give themselves on the strength of their ignorance. All well
known, though!—all honest folks,—and all of them very much admired,
because the rest of the parish are greater asses than they. Do you see
the priest who is celebrating? That is the Provost of Siepole. A
profound theologian—a thriving dealer in oil—confessor to the nunnery—a
great eater.... He doesn’t like me, but he puts up with me ever since I
cured him of an indigestion which he brought on by eating salted cheese
and beans.”

“He’s not young,” I observed.

“Over sixty. The one at his right is his chaplain, who is at daggers
drawn with me, and gives it out all over the country that I am a
lunatic, because I once refused to make him out a false certificate of
illness. I think there is not much love lost between the two, for family
reasons.... And yet they are never apart; the chaplain’s chief
occupation is to water down his superior’s oaths. Every time the Provost
takes a trick at cards he says ‘_Giuraddio_,’ and the chaplain qualifies
it with ‘_Bacco_.’ So they go on, for the sake of saving appearances and
their souls; but sometimes the Provost feels it as an insult to his
dignity, and takes it ill, and then he snubs the chaplain, and in his
wrath the oaths come dropping out like the beads off a broken rosary,
while the chaplain goes on counteracting them with his ‘_Bacco! bacco!_’
quite unmoved, and ready to face martyrdom rather than yield. He is the
best shot about here, and could beat the whole village at _briscola_.
The poor people adore him, because he says mass in ten minutes, is easy
at confession, and has no scruples about thrashing any man that tries to
play tricks on him.

“The little thin man on this side is an unattached priest—a good
fellow—miserably poor, and in wretched health. He contrives to worry
along somehow and support an elder sister and two grand-children of
hers, whom he teaches himself. He is master, father, and uncle to them,
all in one; and ekes out his means by the help of four or five other
pupils, whom he picks up wherever he can at a franc a month. No one
knows how he does it, but he pays his way, and keeps an honoured name as
a good citizen and blameless priest; and, above all, he is such a _rara
avis_ as not to call down the curse of heaven on his country.[17]... In
the village, as you may easily understand, people either don’t trouble
their heads about him, or else they despise him.

“That other is Sor Cosimo’s brother, whom you know.... I’ll tell you
something about him too; but hush!... every one is kneeling down....”

The silence was followed by the usual shuffling of feet, tinkling of
medals, and indispensable volley of previously suppressed coughs. The
air was becoming more and more unendurably close. The doctor recommenced
his remarks in an undertone.

“And Sor Cosimo’s brother ... he is nicknamed ‘Thickskull’, and yet...”
Here he leaned over and whispered in my ear....

“Never!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “Every day?”

“On my word of honour!”

Here Sor Cosimo smiled at me from the other side of the church, and
waved his hand at the organ, as if to say, “What an instrument we have,
and what an organist! You hear—eh?”

“That man beside Sor Cosimo, with the great black silk scarf round his
neck,” my friend went on, “is Stelloni the miller, a member of the
School Board. Sor Cosimo nominated him, because—considering the
antipathy which Stelloni has shown towards all schools from his
childhood up—he was able to assure the Council that he would never be
one to advocate _unnecessary_ expense! In fact, Stelloni, true to his
principles, has never set foot inside a schoolhouse. He says it is from
a desire not to compromise himself, knowing, as he does, that things are
not managed in the way he would approve of; low and unmannerly people
say it is because he is afraid of having to question the children. He’s
a good-natured sort of fellow, though, and hates no one in the world
except the schoolmaster—that pale young man standing over there by the
pillar,—because he once corrected a grammatical mistake in a composition
by the miller’s son. Stelloni felt a kindly compassion for the master as
long as the point remained doubtful; but when it was established beyond
question that the master was right, his compassion turned to implacable
hatred, and now he would be glad of any excuse for turning him out into
the road to starve.

“That little thin old man, at the end of the row on the right, is one of
the richest landowners in the place; a retired lawyer, and Sor Cosimo’s
predecessor as Syndic. His ruling passion is that of running his head
against stone walls, and systematically contradicting, at every meeting
of the Council, everything that Sor Cosimo proposes. He has immortalised
himself by means of two inscriptions which he had put up—with his own
name in capital letters—during his term of office: one on the public
well, when he had the pump put up,—the other you see opposite you—when
he had the ciborium in the Chapel of the Seven Sorrows re-gilt at his
own expense. He got himself elected Syndic in order to get the new
government road run past the gates of his villa. Afterwards, when he
found this impossible, and also failed to get the title of ‘Cavaliere,’
he retired in a rage. Now he relieves his feelings by taking the
opposition side in the Council;—he turns off one tenant every year, and
imprecates the wrath of Providence on the Government at every possible
opportunity—even when the frost ruined his early tomatoes.”

“And you are in the hands of these people?” I remarked.

“I am in the hands of these people.”

... At the moment of going to table, Sor Cosimo said to me, with a wink,
“We must keep up our spirits to-day—bravo! bravo!” Signora Flavia
repeated, for the sixth time, her fear that I should find it penitential
fare at best, seeing that they had made no alteration in their usual
Sunday’s dinner.

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, ostensibly because I was hurt by these
apologies, but in reality because I felt I could not stand much more.
Signorina Olimpia preceded us, curtseying backwards, after having
presented me with a roguish glance and a little bunch of jessamine; and
we entered the dining-room, prepared for a great occasion, as was
evident from the odorous presence of table-linen fresh from the quinces
and lavender of the store-closet.

“Here we are,” Sor Cosimo began again. “We have no ceremony here—a
little soup, a bit of boiled meat, a sweet thing or two, and that’s
all!” He crossed himself and said grace.

The small boy whose acquaintance I had made in the morning, had, on
entering the room, remained open-mouthed for a time; but when he had
taken in all the preparations, and more especially a side-table covered
with pastry, sweets and bottles, he could control himself no longer, and
turning to me, yelled, bringing down both his fists on the table—

“Oh! I say, this is jolly! Look what a lot of nice things there are
to-day, because you’re here!”

Sor Cosimo aimed a kick at him under the table, which fortunately missed
its mark; and immediately a frozen silence fell upon the guests.

The women sighed,—the men glared upon that boy with looks which ought to
have reduced him to ashes on the spot,—and I turned to Signor Cosimo and
asked him, with an air of innocent bewilderment, what his son had said.
My stratagem was perfectly successful, and every one’s face had
brightened up when Gostino appeared in his shirt sleeves, bringing in
the soup. Signora Flavia called him to her, and whispered something in
his ear. At the next course Gostino returned in his shooting-jacket, and
with his hat on. Signora Flavia called him again; and when he next
appeared, with the boiled meat, he had left his hat behind, and cast a
questioning glance at his mistress, as much as to say, “Is it right
now?” She nodded an affirmative, but Sor Cosimo signified to him, by
another glance, that he ought to have known these things without being
told. Gostino signified, in reply, by a shrug of his shoulders, that
they had been bothering him unnecessarily, and requested me to take
another piece of chicken.

This politeness on Gostino’s part was the signal for attack. The wine
had begun to revive the spirits of the company, and had affected Sor
Cosimo more than the rest. A tenant came in to say that at Don Paolo’s
net in the garden they had taken seven bullfinches, by which means he
too was cheered up; and now I found myself overwhelmed by the avalanche
of attentions these good people bestowed on me. They heaped my plate
with eatables, and pressed on me one dish after another, new ones
appearing every time I imagined dinner was at an end. I must take some
spinach, because it was a rarity at this time of year; I must taste that
other dish, because Signorina Olimpia had made the sauce herself. And
all the time Gostino was behind my chair, reproaching me for eating
nothing, and Signora Flavia was lamenting that the dinner was not to my
taste....

At last it was at an end....

And the conversation during dinner? There was none! There was a
continual, dull succession of “Take some——”—“Thank you”—“You’re not
eating”—“You’re not drinking”—and of roars of laughter whenever they had
hit upon a new device for cramming me to death.

“The poems, Olimpia, the poems!” yelled Signor Cosimo at last. “The
sonnet for Calamai!”

I turned at once to Signorina Olimpia, to read in her eyes the gravity
of the calamity which threatened me, and I saw there an expression which
made me sorry for her. Signora Flavia had the same look, and even in the
face of that irrepressible child I thought I read something like fear.
They all gazed at Sor Cosimo in a piteously questioning manner, and then
simultaneously turned towards the place at the end of the table, at his
right.

At that point the master of the house called Gostino, in a tone of
vexation, and the latter appeared, in company with two tenants, who,
seizing Don Paolo under the arms, dragged him like a log out of the
room. I jumped up to offer my assistance, but Sor Cosimo stopped me,
telling me, with a look of mingled pain and humiliation, that I was not
to be frightened—it was quite a customary thing.

“In an hour or two he’ll be all right—heart complaint. The attacks come
on when he has over-eaten himself a little....”

“But why does he not try to moderate himself?”

Sor Cosimo shrugged his shoulders.

“Does it often happen?” I inquired.

“Every day, poor uncle!” replied Signorina Olimpia. “Ah! it is indeed a
great inconvenience!”

“And what does the doctor say?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sor Cosimo. “Precisely!—you know him, that—that——” He
had no epithet wherewith to qualify the doctor. “The doctor laughs....
I’ll tell you what he says—he laughs; and when I sent for him the second
time, after one of these attacks, ... and when it was I who had got him
his appointment, you understand? _I_ got it for him! Well, he had the
audacity to say to that poor fellow, ‘Chaplain, if I were you, I’d put a
little water in it next time!’ There, do you understand now what the
doctor says? But he has never set foot in my house since, and I hope....
Where are you going to give us coffee, Flavia, here, or in the garden?”

The matter being referred to me, I voted at once for the garden, eager
to get a mouthful of fresh air, and all the more as it was a lovely
day.... There was a ring at the gate bell, and Gostino having opened, I
saw five persons advancing up the avenue—three priests and two laymen,
all red in the face as turkey-cocks, and talking at the very top of
their voices. Sor Cosimo took me by the arm, and drawing me forward,
introduced me to the Provost of Siepole and his chaplain, then to the
parish priest of the village, and lastly to the assessor Stelloni and
the communal secretary.

The talk went on, chiefly on personal and local topics, beginning with
the small-pox, which, according to Stelloni, was being “promulgated” in
the neighbouring villages, and ending with Sor Cosimo’s fountain, which
he regretted he could not turn on for our edification, as Don Paolo kept
the key of the mechanism in his own chest of drawers.

Signora Flavia looked at us absently, with sleepy eyes, which she opened
wide every time she heard an extra loud clatter of crockery from the
kitchen, where Gostino was washing up. Signorina Olimpia, perhaps
disgusted with a conversation which was unworthy of her, was wandering
round the garden, casting loving looks at her flowers, till at last,
stopping before a monthly rose with two bees on it, she exclaimed: “Dear
insects,

                   “Sucking, for one brief moment,
                     Now this, now the other flower,
                   Alas! she said——”

“Always a poetess, Signorina Olimpia!” cried the Provost, “always a
poetess! Are those your own verses, madam, are they yours?”

“Come now, Olimpia, out with it, before it is too late,” urged Sor
Cosimo. “The sonnet to Calamai—we must have that at once, for it’s a
beauty!”

“It is a wonder!” observed the Provost. “Do you know, I have it by
heart; I could say it off, as though it were before me in print. It is
the only one of yours I have heard.”

“Rejoice, O youthful boy...”

Signorina Olimpia was preparing to repeat the much-desired sonnet when
Don Paolo appeared in the doorway of the house, looking as though he had
gone to sleep in his clothes and were just out of bed, and stopped on
the threshold, looking fixedly on the ground. They all went up to him,
to congratulate him and ask how he felt....

“The heart, gentlemen! the heart!” He put both hands to the left side of
his chest, half closing his eyes and twisting his mouth, as if to
indicate a spasm which was taking away his breath. Then he asked—

“Have they done anything more at the nets, Cosimo?”

“Five more, Don Paolo!” shouted Gostino from the kitchen.

“Five! Then we’ve made it fifteen to-day!” cried Don Paolo, reviving as
if by magic. “Gostino, my hat and stick!”

Sor Cosimo cast a glance at us to signify that we ought to go to the
nets as well, and that this attention would be extremely grateful to his
brother. The clergy, however, were brave enough to refuse, alleging that
it would soon be time for vespers. The remaining four of us started—Sor
Cosimo, the Secretary, Stelloni, and myself—to the great delight of Don
Paolo, who led the way with somewhat uncertain steps, telling me that he
had reserved a fine cock bullfinch for the Prior of San Gaggio, and
hoped I would do him the favour of taking it to him.

It was now three, and the train left at six. I made various attempts to
get away and keep my engagement with my old friend, but no excuse would
serve. To say that I had an appointment with the doctor after what I had
heard would have been like dealing my hosts a slap in the face, and
every stratagem which I devised was vain. I said I wanted to go into the
village for cigars, as I had none left; Stelloni offered me half of his.
I said I wished to write a post-card; the Secretary informed me I should
find the post-office closed, and Sor Cosimo added that he would give me
one, and I should write it when we returned from the nets, so that there
was nothing for it but to give in.

We had to hurry back, as no one would have dreamed of beginning vespers
without Sor Cosimo and Stelloni in the choir. The ladies had a new set
of refreshments ready for us when we reached the house; Gostino came to
ask when the horse would be wanted, and we set off for the church at
increased speed.

Returning from church, I saw the doctor in the distance. He signed to me
that he hoped we should meet at Florence, and I went on, feeling like a
traitor going to execution, who sees his friends in the crowd and cannot
speak to or take leave of them....

Gostino had already harnessed the horse, and seeing this I uttered a
sigh of satisfaction. Truly, I was in a pitiable state. I could scarcely
stand, tired out with the dawdling but continued motion of the whole
day; my digestion was upset, for obvious reasons; my head was on fire,
and heavy as lead.... Oh, for my own house! But the sigh was abruptly
cut short when, just as I was settling myself in the gig, Signora Flavia
came calmly up and began to say, while the rest of the household stood
motionless to listen—

“See now, as you are so obliging, would you do us a kindness? I have
written out all the things, so that you will not forget anything.” And
she read out, by the twilight—

“1. _To take Sora Amalia’s spectacles to that spectacle-maker at the
Canto Alla Paglia_, and have the broken glass mended. Gostino has them
in his pocket, and will give them to you at the station.

“2. Five mètres, or else seven yards, just as you think best, of stuff
like that of your coat; to be sent on Thursday by the carrier——”

“Have you written down the bird-seed, Flavia?”

“I have put down everything. Now be quiet ... by the carrier who puts up
just outside the Porta San Frediano, where there is a board with
‘Stabling and coach-house.’”

“And about the wine?” asked Sor Cosimo.

“Here it is. To tell Scatizzi, the wine-seller in Borgognissanti—of
course you know him—that if he wants another cartload of the same wine,
now is the time.”

“But you’ve forgotten the bird-seed and the bullfinch, after all!” said
Don Paolo impatiently.

“Here—now comes your turn.

“4. Three pounds of bird-seed from the man in the little alley which
runs from the Via Calzaioli into the Ghetto. Have you put the measure
into the box, Gostino?”—

“Yes, ma’am; but please make haste, or we shall be late.”

“5. A bullfinch to be taken to the Prior of San Gaggio.”

“Have you taken it, Gostino?”

“Yes, Master Paolo. He’s tied under the gig.”

“And you’ll remember me to him?” said Don Paolo, “and tell him that I
caught fifteen to-day, and he is to send and tell me how his nets are
doing.”

“And here,” said Signora Flavia, pointing to a huge bundle tied up at
the back of the gig, “I have put together a little country green-stuff
for you, as you said you liked it.”

“But I ... really ... Thank you, Signora Flavia, many thanks.”

“And this,” said Signorina Olimpia, approaching, “will you keep this in
remembrance of me?” She handed me a sheet of paper folded in four, shook
my hand three times over, and wished me a pleasant journey.... The
farewells were said, and we were off....

When we had left the village behind us I cast my eye over Signorina
Olimpia’s souvenir, and relieved my feelings by one of those hearty
laughs which make one feel like a new creature. It was an autograph copy
of the sonnet on the ordination of Calamai’s son.

                                                        _Renato Fucini._

                      _THE THEOREM OF PYTHAGORAS._

“The forty-seventh proposition!” said Professor Roveni, in a tone of
mild sarcasm, as he unfolded a paper which I had extracted, very
gingerly, from an urn standing on his desk. Then he showed it to the
Government Inspector who stood beside him, and whispered something into
his ear. Finally, he handed me the document, so that I might read the
question with my own eyes.

“Go up to the blackboard,” added the Professor, rubbing his hands.

The candidate who had preceded me in the arduous trial, and had got out
of it as best he could, had left the school-room on tiptoe, and, in
opening the door, let in a long streak of sunshine, which flickered on
wall and floor, and in which I had the satisfaction of seeing my shadow.
The door closed again, and the room was once more plunged into twilight.
It was a stifling day in August, and the great sun-blinds of blue canvas
were a feeble defence against the glass, so that the Venetian shutters
had been closed as well. The little light which remained was
concentrated on the master’s desk and the blackboard, and was, at any
rate, sufficient to illuminate my defeat.

“Go to the blackboard and draw the figure,” repeated Professor Roveni,
perceiving my hesitation.

Tracing the figure was the only thing I knew how to do; so I took a
piece of chalk and conscientiously went to work. I was in no hurry; the
more time I took up in this graphic part, the less remained for oral
explanation.

But the Professor was not the man to lend himself to my innocent
artifice.

“Make haste,” he said. “You are not going to draw one of Raphael’s
Madonnas.”

I had to come to an end.

“Put the letters now. Quick!—you are not giving specimens of
handwriting. Why did you erase that G?”

“Because it is too much like the C I have made already. I was going to
put an H instead of it.”

“What a subtle idea!” observed Roveni, with his usual irony. “Have you
finished?”

“Yes, sir,” said I; adding under my breath, “More’s the pity!”

“Come,—why are you standing there moonstruck? Enunciate the theorem!”

Then began my sorrows. The terms of the question had escaped my memory.

“In a triangle ...” I stammered.

“Go on.”

I took courage and said all I knew.

“In a triangle ... the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares
of the other two sides.”

“In any triangle?”

“No, no!” suggested a compassionate soul behind me.

“No, sir!” said I.

“Explain yourself. In what sort of a triangle?”

“A right-angled triangle,” whispered the prompting voice.

“A right-angled triangle,” I repeated, like a parrot.

“Silence there, behind!” shouted the Professor; and then continued,
turning to me, “Then, according to you, the big square is equal to each
of the smaller ones?”

Good gracious! the thing was absurd. But I had a happy inspiration.

“No, sir, to both of them added together.”

“To the sum then,—say to the sum. And you should say _equivalent_, not
equal. Now demonstrate.”

I was in a cold perspiration—icy cold—despite the tropical temperature.
I looked stupidly at the right-angled triangle, the square of the
hypothenuse, and its two subsidiary squares; I passed the chalk from one
hand to the other and back again, and said nothing, for the very good
reason that I had nothing to say.

No one prompted me any more. It was so still you might have heard a pin
drop. The Professor fixed his grey eyes on me, bright with a malignant
joy; the Government Inspector was making notes on a piece of paper.
Suddenly the latter respectable personage cleared his throat, and
Professor Roveni said in his most insinuating manner, “Well?”

I did not reply.

Instead of at once sending me about my business, the Professor wished to
imitate the cat which plays with the mouse before tearing it to pieces.

“How?” he added. “Perhaps you are seeking a new solution. I do not say
that such may not be found, but we shall be quite satisfied with one of
the old ones. Go on. Have you forgotten that you ought to produce the
two sides, DE, MF, till they meet? Produce them—go on!”

I obeyed mechanically. The figure seemed to attain a gigantic size, and
weighed on my chest like a block of stone.

“Put a letter at the point where they meet—an N. So. And now?”

I remained silent.

“Don’t you think it necessary to draw a line down from N through A to
the base of the square, BHIC?”

I thought nothing of the kind; however, I obeyed.

“Now you will have to produce the two sides, BH and IC.”

Ouf! I could endure no more.

“Now,” the Professor went on, “a child of two could do the
demonstration. Have you nothing to observe with reference to the two
triangles, BAC and NAE?”

As silence only prolonged my torture, I replied laconically, “Nothing.”

“In other words, you know nothing at all?”

“I think you ought to have seen that some time ago,” I replied, with a
calm worthy of Socrates.

“Very good, very good! Is that the tone you take? And don’t you even
know that the theorem of Pythagoras is also called the Asses’ Bridge,
because it is just the asses who cannot get past it? You can go. I hope
you understand that you have not passed in this examination. That will
teach you to read _Don Quixote_ and draw cats during my lessons!”

The Government Inspector took a pinch of snuff; I laid down the chalk
and the duster, and walked majestically out of the hall, amid the
stifled laughter of my school-fellows.

Three or four comrades who had already passed through the ordeal with no
very brilliant result were waiting for me outside.

“Ploughed, then?”

“Ploughed!” I replied, throwing myself into an attitude of heroic
defiance; adding presently, “I always said that mathematics were only
made for dunces.”

“Of course!” exclaimed one of my rivals.

“What question did you have?” asked another.

“The forty-seventh proposition. What can it matter to me whether the
square of the hypothenuse is or is not equal to the sum of the squares
of the two sides?”

“Of course it can’t matter to you—nor to me—nor to any one in the
world,” chimed in a third with all the petulant ignorance of fourteen.
“If it is equal, why do they want to have it repeated so often? and if
it is not, why do they bother us with it?”

“Believe me, you fellows,” said I, resuming the discussion with the air
of a person of long experience, “you may be quite certain of it, the
whole system of instruction is wrong; and as long as the Germans are in
the country, it will be so!”

So, being fully persuaded that our failure was a protest against the
Austrian dominion, and a proof of vivid and original genius, we went
home, where, for my part, I confess I found that the first enthusiasm
soon evaporated.

My ignominious failure in this examination had a great influence on my
future. Since it was absolutely impossible for me to understand
mathematics, it was decided that very day that I was to leave school,
especially as the family finances made it necessary for me to begin
earning something as soon as might be.

It was the most sensible resolution that could have been come to, and I
had no right to oppose it; yet, I confess, I was deeply saddened by it.
My aversion to mathematics did not extend to other branches of learning,
in which I had made quite a respectable show; and besides, I loved the
school. I loved those sacred cloisters which we boys filled with life
and noise,—I loved the benches carved with our names,—even the
blackboard which had been the witness of my irreparable defeat.

I blamed Pythagoras’ theorem for it all. With some other question—who
knows?—I might just have scraped through, by the skin of my teeth, as I
had done in past years. But, as Fate would have it, it was just that
one!

I dreamt about it all night. I saw it before me—the fatal square with
its triangle atop, and the two smaller squares, one sloping to the
right, and the other to the left, and a tangle of lines, and a great
confusion of letters; and heard beating through my head like the strokes
of a hammer—BAC = NAF; RNAB = DEAB.

It was some time before I was free from that nightmare and could forget
Pythagoras and his three squares. In the long run, however, Time, who
with his sponge wipes out so many things from the book of memory, had
nearly effaced this; when, a few weeks ago, the ill-omened figure
appeared to me in one of my son’s exercise-books.

“Has this curse been transmitted to my descendants?” I exclaimed. “Poor
boy! What if the theorem of Pythagoras should be as fatal to him as it
has been to me?”

I thought I would question him about it on his return from school.

“So,” I began gravely, “you have already reached the forty-seventh
proposition of Euclid in your geometry?”

“Yes, father,” he replied simply.

“A difficult theorem,” I added, shaking my head.

“Do you think so?” he asked with a smile.

“Oh! you want to boast and make me think you find it easy?”

“But I do find it easy.”

“I should like to see you try it”—the words slipped out almost
involuntarily. “It’s no use—I can’t bear vanity and boasting.”

“At once,” replied the dauntless youth. And action succeeded words. He
took a piece of paper and a pencil, and quickly traced the cabalistic
figure.

“As for demonstrations,” he began, “there are plenty to choose from. Is
it all the same to you which I take?”

“Yes,” I replied mechanically. In fact it _had_ to be all the same to
me. If there had been a hundred demonstrations I should not have known
one from the other.

“Then we’ll take the most usual one,” my mathematician went on; and
proceeded to produce the lines which Professor Roveni, of respected
memory, had made me produce twenty-seven years before, and, with the
accents of the sincerest conviction, prepared to prove to me that the
triangle BAC was equal to the triangle NAF, and so on.

“And now,” said my son, when he had finished, “we can, if you wish,
arrive at the same conclusion in another way.”

“For pity’s sake!” I exclaimed in terror, “since we have reached the
journey’s end, let us rest.”

“But I am not tired.”

Not even tired! Was the boy an embryo Newton? And yet people talk about
the principle of heredity!

“I suppose you are at the top of your class in mathematics,” I said, not
untouched by a certain reverential awe.

“No, no,” he replied. “There are two better than I. Besides, you know
very well that everybody—except downright asses—understands the
forty-seventh proposition.”

“_Except downright asses!_” After twenty-seven years I heard, from the
lips of my own son, almost the very identical words which Professor
Roveni had used on the memorable day of the examination. And this time
they were heightened by the savage irony of the added “_You know very
well!_”

I wished to save appearances, and added in haste—

“Of course I know that. I was only in fun. I hope you would not be such
a fool as to be proud of a small thing like that.”

Meanwhile, however, my Newton had repented of his too sweeping
assertion.

“After all,” he went on, with some embarrassment, “there are some who
never attend to their lesson, and then ... even if they are not
asses....”

It seemed to me that he was offering me a loophole of escape, and with a
sudden impulse of candour—

“That must be the way of it,” I said. “I suppose I never paid
attention.”

“How! You?” exclaimed my boy, reddening to the roots of his hair.
Yet ... I would bet something that, at the bottom of his heart, he was
longing to laugh.

I put my hand over his mouth.

“Hush,” I said; “we will not pursue our inquiries into detail.”

Well, the Theorem of Pythagoras has, as you see, cost me a new and very
serious humiliation. In spite of this, I no longer keep up the old
grudge. There will never be any confidence between us, but I consider it
as a family friend whom we must not treat with rudeness, though he may
not be personally congenial to ourselves.

                                                   _Enrico Castelnuovo._

                        _AN ECCENTRIC ORDERLY._

Of originals there is a great variety under the canopy of heaven; and I
have enjoyed the acquaintance of several, but among them all I never met
his match.

He was a Sardinian peasant, twenty years old, unable to read or write,
and a private in an infantry regiment.

The first time I saw him, at Florence, in the office of a military
journal, he inspired me with a certain sympathy. I soon understood,
however, from his looks and some of his answers, that he was a
character. His very appearance was paradoxical: seen in front, he was
one man; looked at in profile, he was another. Of the full face there
was nothing particular to remark; it was a countenance like any other;
but it seemed as though in the act of turning his head he became a
different man, and the profile had something irresistibly ludicrous
about it. The point of his chin and the tip of his nose seemed to be
trying to meet, and to be hindered by an enormous thick-lipped mouth
which was always open, and showed two rows of teeth, uneven as a file of
national guards. His eyes were scarcely larger than pin-heads, and
disappeared altogether among the wrinkles into which his face was
puckered when he laughed. His eyebrows were shaped like two circumflex
accents, and his forehead was scarcely high enough to keep his hair out
of his eyes. A friend of mine remarked to me that he seemed to be one of
Nature’s practical jokes. And yet his face expressed intelligence and
good-nature; but an intelligence which was, so to speak, sporadic, and a
good-nature entirely _sui generis_. He spoke, in a harsh, hoarse voice,
an Italian for which he had every right to claim the inventor’s patent.

“How do you like Florence?” I asked, seeing that he had arrived in that
city the day before.

“It’s not bad,” he replied.

Coming from a man who had previously only seen Cagliari, and one or two
small towns in Northern Italy, the answer seemed to savour of a certain
austerity.

“Do you like Florence or Bergamo best?”

“I arrived yesterday—I couldn’t say yet.”

The following day he made his entry into my quarters.

During the first week I was more than once within an ace of losing all
patience, and sending him back to the regiment. If he had contented
himself with understanding nothing, I could have let that pass, but the
misfortune was, that partly through the difficulty he had in
understanding my Italian, partly through the unaccustomed nature of his
tasks, he understood about half, and did everything the wrong way. Were
I to relate how he carried my razors to the publisher, and my
manuscripts ready for the press to the razor grinder; how he left a
French novel with the shoemaker, and a pair of boots to be mended at a
lady’s house, no one who had not seen him would believe me. But I cannot
refrain from relating one or two of his most marvellous exploits.

At eleven in the forenoon—which was the time when the morning papers
were cried about the streets—it was my custom to send him out for some
ham for my breakfast. One morning, knowing that there was an item in the
paper that I wished to see, I said to him hurriedly, “Quick! the ham,
and the _Corriere Italiano_.” He could never take in two distinct ideas
at once. He went out, and returned shortly afterwards with the ham
wrapped up in the _Corriere_.

One morning he was present when I was showing one of my friends a
splendid military atlas, which I had borrowed from the library; and he
heard me remark to the latter: “The mischief is that one cannot see all
these maps at a glance, and has to examine each one separately. To
follow the whole course of a battle I should like to have them nailed up
on the wall in their proper order, so as to form a single diagram.” On
coming in that evening—I shudder still when I think of it—all the maps
in that atlas were neatly nailed to the wall; and, to add to my
sufferings, he appeared before me next morning, with the modestly
complacent smile of the man who expects a compliment.

But all this is nothing to what I underwent before I had succeeded in
teaching him to put my rooms in order—I do not say as I wanted them—but
in a manner remotely suggesting the presence of a rational being. For
him, the supreme art of putting things to rights consisted in piling
them one on top of the other, and his great ambition was to build them
up into structures of the greatest possible altitude. During the first
few days of his tenure of office my books formed a semicircle of towers,
which trembled at the lightest breath; the washhand basin, turned upside
down, sustained a daring pyramid of plates, cups, and saucers, at the
top of which my shaving-brush was planted; and my hats, new and old,
rose, in the form of a triumphal pillar, to a dizzy height. As a
consequence there occurred—usually at dead of night—ruinous collapses,
which made a noise like a small earthquake, and scattered my property to
such an extent that, if it had not been for the walls of the room, no
one knows where it would have brought up. To make him understand that my
tooth-brush did not belong to the genus hair-brush, and that the
pomade-jar was not the same as the vessel which contained Liebig’s
extract, required the eloquence of Cicero and the patience of Job.

I have never been able to understand whether my attempts to treat him
kindly met with any response on his part. Once only he showed a certain
solicitude for my personal welfare, and this was exhibited in a manner
quite peculiar to himself. I had been ill in bed for about a fortnight,
and neither got worse nor showed any signs of recovery. One evening he
stopped the doctor—an exceedingly touchy man—on the stairs, and asked
him, abruptly, “But, once for all, are you going to cure him, or are you
not?” The doctor lost his temper, and fairly blew him up. “It’s only
that it’s lasting rather long,” was my orderly’s sole response.

It is difficult to give any idea of the language he spoke—a mixture of
Sardinian, Lombard, and Italian, with idioms all his own; elliptical
sentences, mutilated and contracted words, verbs in the infinitive flung
about haphazard. The whole was like the talk of a man in delirium. At
the end of five or six months, by dint of attending the regimental
schools, he learnt, to my misfortune, to read and write after a fashion.
While I was out of the house he used to practise writing at my table,
and would write the same word a couple of hundred times over. Usually it
was a word he had heard me pronounce when reading, and which, for some
reason or other, had made an impression on him. One day, for instance,
he was struck by the name of Vercingetorix. When I came home in the
evening I found _Vercingetorix_ written on the margins of the
newspapers, on the backs of my proofs, on the wrappers of my books, on
my letters, on the scraps in the waste-paper basket—in every place where
he could find room for the thirteen letters beloved of his heart.
Another day the word _Ostrogoths_ touched his soul, and on the next my
rooms were invaded by the _Ostrogoths_. In like manner, a little later,
the place was full of _rhinoceroses_.

On the other hand, I was so far a gainer by this extension of knowledge
on his part, that I was no longer obliged to mark with crosses, in
differently coloured chalks, the notes I gave him to deliver to various
people. There was no way of making him remember the names; but he got to
know my correspondents as the blue lady, the black journalist, the
yellow Government official, etc.

Speaking of writing, I discovered a habit of his, much more curious than
the one I have mentioned. He had bought himself a note-book, into which
he copied, from every book that fell into his hands, the author’s
dedication to his parents or relations, taking care always to substitute
for the names of the latter those of his father, his mother, and his
brothers, to whom he imagined he was thus giving a brilliant proof of
affection and gratitude. One day I opened this book and read, among
others, the following:—“Pietro Tranci (the Sardinian peasant, his
father), born in poverty, acquired, by study and perseverance, a
distinguished place among men of learning, assisted his parents and
brothers, and worthily educated his children. To the memory of his
excellent father this book is dedicated by the author, Antonio
Tranci”—instead of Michele Lessona.

On another page he had copied the dedication of Giovanni Prati’s poems,
beginning as follows:—“To Pietro Tranci, my father, who, announcing to
the Subalpine Parliament the disaster of Novara, fell fainting to the
ground and died within a few days, I consecrate this song,” etc., etc.

What astonished me most in one who had seen so little was an absolute
lack of the feeling of wonder. During the time he was at Florence he saw
the festivities at Prince Humbert’s marriage, the opera, and the dancing
at the Pergola (he had never been inside a theatre in his life), the
Carnival, and the fantastic illumination of the Celli Avenue. He saw a
hundred other things which were quite new to him, and which ought, one
would think, to have surprised him, amused him, made him talk. Nothing
of the sort. His admiration never went beyond the formula, “Not bad!”
Santa Maria del Fiore—not bad! Giotto’s tower—not bad! the Pitti
Palace—not bad! I really believe that if the Creator in person had asked
what he thought of the universe he would have replied that it was not
bad.

From the first day of his stay to the last his mood never changed; he
continually preserved a kind of cheerful seriousness: always obedient,
always muddle-headed, always most conscientious in understanding things
the wrong way, always plunged in a kind of apathetic beatitude, always
with the same extravagance of eccentricity. On the day when his term of
service expired he scribbled away for several hours in his note-book
with the same calm as on other days. Before leaving he came to say
good-bye to me. There was not much tenderness in our parting. I asked
him if he was sorry to leave Florence. He answered, “Why not?” I asked
him if he was glad to return home. He replied with a grimace which I did
not understand.

“If you ever want anything, sir,” he said at the last moment, “write to
me, and I shall always be pleased to do anything I can for you.”

“Many thanks,” I replied.

And so he left the house, after being with me over two years, without
the slightest sign either of regret or pleasure.

I looked after him as he went downstairs.

Suddenly he turned round.

“Ah!” thought I, “now we shall see! His heart has been awakened. He is
coming back to take leave in a different sort of way!”

Instead of which—

“Lieutenant,” he said, “your shaving-brush is in the drawer of the
biggest table, sir!”

With that he disappeared.

                                                    _Edmondo de Amicis._

                         _A PROVINCIAL ORACLE._

... The newly-married couple settled in a small country town, where they
were not long in gaining the hearts of all the inhabitants. The more
sensible and influential people in the place thought the advent of such
wealthy residents a great piece of good fortune. “They will be of so
much advantage to the place,” was the remark made in the chemist’s shop
of an evening. It soon began to rain advantages: dinner parties,
picnics, gifts, patronage, entertainments for charitable
objects—hospitalities of all sorts; and then the balls at carnival-tide!
A dash, a gaiety, a profusion that one could neither believe nor
imagine—a splendour, the memory of which, as all the local journals put
it, “would flourish with perennial vigour in the hearts of a grateful
community.” We thought we had returned to the very flower of the golden
age of Arcadia. It was two talents, more especially, which won golden
opinions for Signor Diego among the worthy citizens of our little
borough—his magnificent expenditure and his wit. Of Attic salt he had as
much as sufficed, within a very short space of time, to pickle the whole
place; whereby it became one of the wittiest towns in the world. I do
not say that the inhabitants did not possess a great deal of wit before
he arrived; nor do I wish to hint that the conversation of the educated
persons who visited at the house of Diego was mere insipid triviality
coloured with a little presumption, and that touch of perfidy which is,
so to speak, the _sauce piquante_ of empty gossip. No, indeed! for they,
too, took their share in public life and talked politics, speaking
highly of themselves and of the party in power, and exceedingly ill of
those who were not present to hear them. But what I mean is that Signor
Diego, profiting by all that he had learnt in his travels, showed them a
more excellent—that is to say, a more Parisian way, and taught them the
great mystery of _chic_. He instructed them in all those arts of gilding
and veneering, by means of which the most contemptible trifles may be
made to appear noble and graceful. He taught them to laugh at serious
matters, but to take the most religious care—practising the worship of
themselves with unheard-of austerity and entire self-devotion—of their
hair and their coats, and the dignity of their attitudes and movements;
and to pronounce sentence with the extremest rigour on the unfortunate
who should transgress the least important of the rules established by
social etiquette.

                                                        _Mario Pratesi._

                            _DOCTOR PHŒBUS._

Many years ago a company, with capital to back it, took a lease of the
manganese mines in the province of Valle Amena. Perhaps the “Pleasant
Valley” may at one time have deserved its name; but nowadays there is
nothing pleasant about the monotonous barren hills, of no use to any one
but the goats, and the distant woods, too scanty to lend any tint of
green to the dry and desert landscape. The company’s employés were
scarcely to be blamed for not liking the place; everything was scarce,
even pretty faces—at least such as had had the benefit of soap and
water. But the pay was good, and more than one among them had hopes of
becoming a shareholder, or at least cashier; and so things went on
somehow or other. Two hundred navvies pushed the work rapidly forward,
and enormous trucks full of the grey metal blocked the postal road day
and night.

But all that glitters is not gold; and one day the report spread that
the flourishing company had failed, as though prosperity had undermined
its foundations like stagnant water. It made a great talk in the
neighbourhood, and every one concluded his or her comments by long
exclamations of astonishment.

“_Mah!_” ejaculated the old, dried-up chaplain of the
_Misericordia_,[18] with his hands in the pockets of the threadbare
shooting-coat which he always wore except when he put on his surplice to
go and fetch the dead. “In my opinion it was just like when a set of
people leave the gaming-table, where low cards have been dealt; but they
do not all leave with the same advantages.”

“There is no getting at the exact truth,” remarked the landlord of the
village inn, who did not repent nearly so much of his sins as he did of
having given credit; “but in this business I too believe that the rogues
have done the honest men who trust their neighbours, and never suspect
any cheating.”

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Signor Vincenzino; and perhaps he would have
said more, only that, being syndic, and very rich, he thought it
possible he might be risking the chance of a decoration. He rose from
his seat in the Caffé del Giappone. “In any case,” he continued, keeping
his back turned to the host, “there is the law.”

“I’d like to see it!” replied mine host. “But it’s very seldom that
rogues who have grown rich do not find some one to help them, in one way
or another, in keeping what they have stolen.”

“Precisely!” retorted the chaplain, holding up his finger like Dante
under the Uffizi. “There are certain experts and certain lawyers who
show a most extraordinary ability in this respect, and acquire enormous
credit, so that sometimes the Government is even forced to raise them to
the rank of _Commendatore_. You alone, poor Phœbus...”

And so on, and so on.... It would be tedious to repeat all the
conversation that took place at the Caffé del Giappone. As to Phœbus,
however, I should not be altogether disposed to agree with the chaplain.
If Phœbus found no one to make the best of the arguments on his side
when—having been blinded by the effects of an explosion at the works—he
asked for a miserable little pension, which the Company refused, saying
that his misfortune was due to his own carelessness, and not to the
necessities of his work,—if, I say, he had no one to plead his cause,
this must be regarded merely as an accident, which happened to him, as
it may happen to hundreds of others in a like condition. Then came the
crash; and if a company were going to give every man what he wants, what
motive could it have for declaring itself insolvent. In this case, to
recommend the fulfilment of any humane duties is like running after a
mist-wreath, or asking a routed army, in full retreat, to think of the
dead and wounded they are leaving behind.

I do not deny that the consequences were certainly unpleasant for
Phœbus, who had now eaten nothing for three days, and sat in the
chimney-corner, yawning and stretching his arms to such an amazing
extent, first in one direction, and then in another, that he looked like
the castle of St. Angelo when the fireworks are being let off on Easter
Day. A miserable hen, which sat motionless, not daring to attract
attention to itself, and a cat which seemed to have nothing more to wish
for in this life, having now reached the very utmost degree of leanness,
and lay curled up, with half-closed eyes, on the dead ashes of the
hearth, were the only creatures not audibly complaining in the
melancholy darkness of the hut, which covered so much misery. It seemed
as though they were meditating on the infinite vanity of things. But not
so Phœbus’s wife, nor Vittorino, his little son; for the one, by
continual whimpering, and the other with her reproaches, added notes of
sickening despair to the symphony of those sonorous, expansive, and
well-nourished yawns of the blind man. Yet the wife had not the
slightest reason for envying the cat; she was dry and thin as though she
had nothing left for hunger and grief to gnaw at;—she was near her
confinement, poor soul, and, with her face the colour of sodden dead
leaves, and her black eyes, greedy, feverishly bright, and sunken in
their sockets, she was a very different person from the comely young
Rosalinda whom Phœbus had married when he returned from serving in the
_Bersaglieri_. That was six months before the accident at the quarries;
and now she was more like one of the thirsty, dropsical wretches in
Dante’s “Malebolge.”

“Go to Sor Vincenzino,” said Phœbus.

His wife did not reply.

“Go to the doctor.”

“Don’t you know that a hundred poor sinners might die before either of
_them_ would stir a finger? Don’t you know that the doctor keeps on
asking me for a franc for that tooth he pulled out last year?”

Phœbus moved his jaws for a little while, like an animal chewing the
cud; then he gave seven or eight more yawns, and rubbed his hands as if
he had just concluded a good stroke of business.

“Go to Nannone—go to the chaplain, to the archdeacon, to Lisetta—only go
to some one!”

“I went to Nannone this morning—he was not at home. I went to the
chaplain yesterday, and he gave me that bread. I went to Lisetta the day
before yesterday, and she gave me that _polenta_. And who’s going to the
archdeacon’s, with that vixen of a Modesta there? Not I!”

“Then, you ugly slug, you cannot be hungry, and must just eat your own
talk!”

The wife rose, sobbing and muttering curses, and went out, dragging the
water-jar with her as usual, as an excuse for knocking at people’s
doors. When they opened, however, it was something more than permission
to draw water at the well that she wanted—her errand was more serious
than that.

To-day she did not find them disposed to listen to tales of misery, for
it was the last day of the carnival, and the weather was bright and
clear. A cold wind kept the sky cloudless, and the sun, going down in
the west, seemed to embrace the whole sky and earth with its rays, and
smiled among the shadows and on the peaks of the snowy Apennines, which
gradually faded away into the distance on the last clear rim of the
horizon. But the village, all but the great ruined tower on the little
piazza, the upper part of which was still in light, began to grow dark;
and it was already dusk in the ancient, narrow streets, black as if
after a conflagration, filled with crowds of country folk, among which
the red shawls of the jolly peasant women made bright points here and
there, and noisy with cymbals and other instruments, laughter, and
shouting.

This, then, was not a propitious moment. In fact, Rosalinda was not long
in returning, with her pitcher and her hands both empty. The people,
nearly all poor, were tired of her continual requests, and by this time
the pitcher trick was becoming stale.

“Eh!” said her husband, rubbing his hands as usual. “I suppose they
would not open their doors to you, because it is winter, and they are
afraid of the cold coming in?”

“Be quiet!” screamed Rosalinda to the child. “Be quiet, or I’ll make an
end of you!”

“Be quiet, Vittorino,” repeated Phœbus. “This evening we shall have
twenty loaves and some roast meat! Wife! you be quiet too, and give me
those things that ought to be in the box!”

The things were a heap of rags, on the top of which lay a worn-out tall
hat, very old, but seeming still to remember its former owner; for to
those who had never seen him in any other hat for years and years it was
impossible not to be instantly reminded of that wrinkled, benevolent,
patient face, whose serious sadness was rather added to than diminished
by the somewhat long chin and Dantesque nose. The other things—a
waistcoat, knee-breeches, and a very long black overcoat—had very
evidently belonged to an extremely poor and unfortunate priest.

But Vittorino began to laugh and dance when he saw his father put on not
only this Court suit, as it seemed to him, which his wife handed him,
grumbling and crying at the same time, but a pair of huge horse-hair
whiskers and an enormous paper collar, the points of which reached
nearly to the tip of his nose.

Not only this, but a wave of merriment ran through the whole village,
like the ripple which a puff of wind makes in the surface of the lagoon,
when Phœbus issued from his door thus dressed, with a huge book
containing the whole series of ancient medical prescriptions under his
arm. Some people insisted on recognising in his icy smile, in those
remedies so learnedly prescribed in his slow, pompous manner, in that
awkward, straddling walk, Doctor Ambrogio, the village physician for
forty years, who was also surgeon, veterinary surgeon, and dentist. As