The Patriot Part 15

"Be quiet!" said his uncle. "I call him Francesco. He is a well-behaved boy, I must say; a very well-behaved boy. Now tell us, Francesco, what are you going to do when you are a man?"

Rat rattled off his answer as if he were reciting his catechism.

"When I am a man I shall always comport myself as behooves a faithful and devoted subject of His Majesty our Emperor, and a good Christian; and I hope, with the help of the Lord, to become some day, an Imperial and Royal Receiver of Customs like my uncle, that I may, at last, enter Paradise, and be duly rewarded for my virtuous actions."

"Well done, well done, well done!" said Zerboli, caressing Rat. "Always walk in the path of virtue."

"You be quiet, _Sur Commissari_," Peppina once more burst out. "This morning the little villain ate half the sugar out of the sugar-basin!"

"What, what, what?" Carlascia exclaimed, forgetting his part in his astonishment. He remembered himself at once however, and declared: "It was your own fault. Things should be put away. Is not that true, Francesco?"

"Perfectly," Rat answered; and the Commissary vexed at this wrangle, and at the twist his paternal admonition had received, took himself off without ceremony.

Hardly had he disappeared when Carlascia scolded angrily: "You take the sugar again if you dare, you!" and hit Francis Joseph a formidable knock on the side of the head. This worthy had expected quite different treatment, and ran off to hide among the beans. Then Bianconi had it out with his wife, scolding her roundly, and swearing that in the future he would look after the sugar himself; and upon her daring retort: "What business is it of yours, after all?" he flung out: "Everything is my business, everything is my business!" and turning his back upon her, strode off, puffing and tingling, to the spot where his attentive wife had prepared the fis.h.i.+ng-rod and the _polenta_, and began to bait the two great hooks he used in catching tench. In the olden days that little world was even more completely isolated from the great world than at present, and was, even more than at present, a world of silence and of peace, in which the functionaries of both State and Church, and, following their venerable example, many faithful subjects as well, dedicated several hours a day to edifying contemplation. Seated first on the West, the Receiver cast two hooks attached to a single line, two tempting mouthfuls of _polenta_, as far out from the sh.o.r.e as possible; when the line was stretched tight, when the float seemed firmly anch.o.r.ed in quiet expectation, the Imperial and Royal personage placed the short rod delicately upon the low wall, and sat down to contemplate. To the east of him the _sedentario_, as the customs-guard was then called, crouching on the humble landing-stage in front of another float, smoked his pipe and contemplated. A few steps beyond old, half-starved Custant, a retired white-washer, sacristan and churchwarden, one of the patricians of the village of Oria, sat in contemplation, on the prow of his boat, a lofty, prehistoric, tall hat on his head, the magic wand in his hand, his legs dangling above the water, and his soul concentrated on his own particular float. Seated on the edge of a small field, in the shade of a mulberry-tree and a large, black, straw hat, the puny, thin, be-spectacled Don Brazzova, parish-priest of Albogasio, was lost in contemplation, his image reflected in the clear water. In a kitchen-garden of Albogasio Inferiore, between the banks of the Ceron and that of Mandroeugn, another patrician in a jacket and high boots, the churchwarden Bignetta, called _el Signoron_, the _fine gentleman_, sitting stiff and solemn, upon an eighteenth century chair, with the famous rod in his hand, watched and contemplated. Under the fig-tree at Cadate, Don Giuseppe Costabarbieri sat in contemplation. At S. Mamette the doctor, the grocer, and the shoemaker were hanging over the water and contemplating most diligently. At Cressogno the Marchesa's florid cook was contemplating. Opposite Oria, on the shady deserted sh.o.r.e of Bisgnago, a dignified arch-priest from lower Lombardy was in the habit of leading a life of contemplation for forty days every year. All alone he sat, with three rods resting at his feet, while with the air of a bishop, he contemplated the three floats belonging to these rods--two with his eyes, one with his nose. If some one, pa.s.sing far out on the lake could have seen all these brooding figures without perceiving the rods, the lines, and the floats, he would have thought himself in a country inhabited by hermits and ascetics, who, weary of the earth, were contemplating the sky in this liquid mirror, simply for the sake of greater convenience.

As a matter of fact, all these ascetics were fis.h.i.+ng for tench, and no mystery the future of humanity might contain could be of more importance to them than those mysteries at which the little float secretly hinted, when, as if possessed by a spirit, it showed signs of growing unrest, and, at last, even of mental derangement; for, after dipping and jerking, now forward, now backward, it would at last, in the utter confusion of its ideas, choose the desperate course of plunging head foremost into the depths. These phenomena, however, occurred only at rare intervals, and some of the contemplators would pa.s.s whole half-days without noticing the slightest movement in their floats. Then each one, removing his eyes from the bit of cork, would follow a line of thought running parallel with the line attached to the rod. Thus it sometimes happened that the arch-priest would land an episcopal see, the "fine gentleman," a wood that had once belonged to his ancestors, the cook, a tench from the hills, rosy and fair, and Custant, an order from government to whitewash the peak of Cressogno. As to Carlascia, his second line was usually of a political nature, and the reason of this will be more readily grasped if we reflect that the main line, the one attached to the rod, often awoke in his big, dull head certain political considerations which the Commissary Zerboli had suggested to him. "You see, my dear Receiver," Zerboli had once said, when discoursing weakly about the events which had taken place on the sixth of February in Milan, "you who fish for tench, can easily understand this matter. Our great monarchy is fis.h.i.+ng with a line. The twin baits are Lombardy and the Venetian provinces; two round and tempting morsels, with iron inside. Our monarchy has cast them there at its feet, opposite the lurking-place of that foolish little fish, Piedmont. In 1848 it grabbed at the bait Lombardy, but eventually succeeded in spitting it out and making off. Milan is our float. When Milan moves, it means that the little fish is just beneath. Last year the float moved a wee bit, but the dear little fish had only sniffed at the bait. But wait, some day there will be a violent movement, and we shall give a jerk; there will be some struggling, some floundering, but we shall land our little fish, and never let it escape again, the little white, red, and green pig!"

Bianconi had laughed heartily at this, and often when he sat down to fish, he would amuse himself by ruminating on this graceful simile, from which would generally arise other subtle and profound political musings.

That morning the lake was quiet and most favourable to contemplation.

The tallest gra.s.s of the precipitous bottom could be seen standing erect, a sign that there was no under-current. The baited hook cast far out, sunk straight and slowly, the line stretched evenly and smoothly below the float which sailed behind it a little way, surrounded by a series of tiny rings, that told of the ticklings of small carp, and then sunk into repose, a sign that the bait was resting on the bottom, and that the carp no longer worried it. The fisherman placed the short rod on the low wall, and fell to thinking of Engineer Ribera.

Though he was not aware of it Bianconi had a large dose of meekness in one corner of his heart which G.o.d, without informing him of it, had made with a false bottom. The world had proof of this in 1859, when the dear little fish, having swallowed the bait Lombardy, with the hook, the line, the rod, the Commissary, and everything else, Bianconi took to planting national and const.i.tutional cabbages at Precotto. In spite of this hidden meekness, as he now laid down his rod and reflected that poor, old Engineer Ribera was to be fished for, he experienced a singular satisfaction, neither in his heart, nor his head, nor in any of the usual senses, but in a particular sense of his own, purely Imperial and Royal! Indeed he had no consciousness of himself as distinct from the Austrian governing organism. Receiver at a small frontier customs-house, he considered himself the point of the nail on a finger of the state; then, as a police-agent, he considered himself a microscopic eye under that nail. His life was that of the monarchy. If the Russians tickled the skin of Galicia, he felt the itching at Oria.

The greatness, the power, the glory of Austria inflated him with unbounded pride. He would not admit that Brazil was vaster than the Austrian Empire, or that China was more thickly populated, or that the Archangel Michael could take Peschiera, or the Almighty Himself take Verona. His real Almighty was the Emperor; he respected the One in Heaven as an ally of the one at Vienna.

So, although he had never suspected that Engineer Ribera was an unfaithful subject, the Commissary's words--gospel truth to him--had carried conviction with them, and the idea of getting hold of this untrustworthy servant fired the zeal of the royal eye and the imperial finger nail. He called himself an a.s.s for not having seen through this man before. Oh, but there was still time to catch him and hold him fast, fast, fast! "You just leave it to me! Just leave it to me, Signor Comm----"

He broke off suddenly and seized the rod. Gently, almost without moving, the float had printed a ring on the water, the sign of a tench. Bianconi clutched the rod tight, holding his breath. Another dip of the float, another and larger ring; the float moved slowly, slowly upon the water, and then stopped. Bianconi's heart was beating violently; the float moved still a little further on the surface, and then went under; zag!

Bianconi gave a jerk, and the rod bowed with the tugging on the line of a hidden fish. "Peppina, I've got him!" shouted Carlascia, losing his head. "The _guadell_, the _guadell_!" The customs-guard turned round enviously: "Have you got him, _Scior Recitr_?" Custant, consumed with envy, gave no sign, not even turning his tall hat. Rat and Signora Peppina came rus.h.i.+ng up, the latter bringing the _guadell_, a long pole with a large net at the end of it, used for bagging the tench in the water, for it would be a desperate risk to lift it up by the line.

Bianconi took the line and began drawing it in very slowly. The tench was not yet visible, but must surely be enormous. The line came in smoothly for a few feet, and then was jerked violently back; then it began to come in again, nearer, ever nearer, until, far down below the surface, underneath the very noses of the three personages, something yellow flashed, a monstrous shadow! "Oh, the beauty!" said Signora Peppina under her breath. Rat exclaimed: "_Madone, Madone!_" But Bianconi spoke never a word, and only pulled and pulled cautiously. It was a fine, big fellow, short and fat, with a dark back and a yellow belly, this fish that was coming up from the depths, nearly exhausted and moving crosswise with evident reluctance.

The three faces did not please the fish, for it suddenly turned tail upon them, and once more dived furiously towards the depths. At last, however, completely exhausted, it followed the line, and appeared at the foot of the wall, its gilded belly uppermost. Signora Peppina, almost upside down on the parapet, plunged her rod as far as it would go, seeking in vain to bag the unhappy fish. "By the head!" shouted her husband. "By the tail!" piped Rat. At the noise, at sight of that terrible net, the fish struggled and dived. Peppina worked harder than ever, but could find neither head nor tail. Bianconi pulled and the tench rose to the surface once more, coiled itself up, and with a mighty jerk, snapped the line, and shot off amid the foam. "_Madone!_"

exclaimed Rat, while Peppina continued to hunt about in the water with her rod. "Where is that fish? Where is that fish?" Bianconi, who had sat as one petrified, still grasping the line, now faced about in a rage; he kicked Rat, caught his wife by the shoulder, and shook her like a bag of nuts, loading her with reproaches. "Has it made off, _Scior Recitr_?" asked the customs-guard mellifluously. Custant turned his tall hat just a little, glanced towards the scene of the disaster, and then, returning to the contemplation of his own placid float, mumbled in an indulgent tone: "_Minga pratich!_ Not skillful!"

Meanwhile the tench had returned to its native gra.s.s-grown depths, melancholy but free, like Piedmont after Novara. It is, however, doubtful if the poor Engineer-in-Chief will be equally fortunate.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] A short, pointed beard, called _la mosca_, and worn by patriots in those days. [_Translator's note._]

[J] Box, red; leaves, green; flower, white. The Italian colours, so the worthy Receiver scents sedition. [_Translator's note._]

[K] Kufstein was one of the Austrian fortresses where "politicals" were imprisoned. [_Translator's note._]

CHAPTER II

THE MOONs.h.i.+NE AND CLOUD SONATA

The sun was sinking behind the brow of Monte Bre and darkness was rapidly covering the precipitous sh.o.r.es and the houses of Oria, stamping the purple and gloomy profile of the hill on the luminous green of the waves, which were running obliquely towards the west, still high, but foamless in the tired _breva_. The lights in Casa Ribera had been the last to go out. Standing against the steep vineyards of the mountainside dotted with olives, it spanned the narrow road that follows the coast-line, its modest facade rising from the clear water, and flanked on the west, towards the village, by a little hanging-garden, divided into two tiers, on the east, towards the church, by a small terrace raised on pillars, which framed a square of church ground. In this facade there was a small boathouse where at that time the boat belonging to Franco and Luisa lay rocking on the jostling waves. Above the boathouse a slender gallery united the hanging-garden on the west and the terrace on the east, and looked out upon the lake by means of three windows. They called it a loggia, perhaps because it really had been one in olden times. The old house bore incrusted here and there several of these venerable, fossil names, which had survived through tradition, and represented, in their apparent absurdity, the mysteries of the religion of domestic walls. Behind the loggia was a s.p.a.cious hall, and there were two rooms more behind that. On the west was the small dining-room, its walls covered with little, ill.u.s.trious, paper men, each under his own gla.s.s and in his own frame, each in a dignified att.i.tude, like the ill.u.s.trious in flesh and blood, looking as if his colleagues did not exist at all, and the world was gazing at him alone. On the east was the alcove-room, where next to her parents, in her own little bed, slept Signorina Maria Maironi, born in August, 1852.

From the great rococo chests to the bed-rooms, the kitchen cupboard, the black clock in the little dining-room, the sofa in the loggia, with its brown cover, sprinkled with red and yellow Turks; from the straw-bottomed chairs to the armchairs with disproportionately high arms, the furniture of the house all belonged to the epoch of the ill.u.s.trious men, most of whom wore the wig and pigtail. Even though it did appear to have just descended from the garret, it seemed, nevertheless, to have regained in the light and air of its new surroundings certain lost habits of cleanliness, a decided interest in life, and the dignity of old age. Thus a collection of disused words might to-day be composed by the breath of some aged and conservative poet, and reflect his serene and graceful senility. Under the mathematical and bureaucratic rule of Uncle Piero, chairs and armchairs, tables large and small, had lived in perfect symmetry, and the privilege of immobility had been extended to the very mats themselves. The only piece of furniture which might have been called _movable_, was a grey and blue cus.h.i.+on, an abortive mattress, which the engineer, during his short visits at Oria, carried with him when he moved from one easy-chair to another. When he was absent the caretaker respected all relics of him to such an extent as never to dare touch them familiarly, or dust the less visible parts. This caused the housekeeper to fly into a rage, regularly, every time they returned to Valsolda. The master, vexed that a little dust should cause so much scolding of a poor peasant, would reprimand her, and suggest that she do the dusting herself; and when the woman--by way of a scornful retort--would demand, wrathfully, if she was to kill herself with dusting the house every time they came, he would answer good-naturedly: "If you kill yourself once, that will be sufficient."

The cultivation of the little garden as well as of a kitchen-garden he owned to the east of the church grounds, he left entirely to the caprice of the caretaker. Only once, two years before Luisa's marriage, arriving at Oria at the beginning of September, and finding six stalks of maize growing on the second terrace of the little garden, did he allow himself to say to the man: "Look here, my friend. Couldn't you really get along without those six stalks of Indian corn?"

Those liberal poets, Franco and Luisa, had breathed upon things and changed their aspect. Franco's poetry was more ardent, fervid and pa.s.sionate; Luisa's more prudent. Thus Franco's sentiments always flamed out in his eyes, his face, his words, while Luisa's seldom burst into flames, and only tinged the depths of her penetrating glance, and her soft voice. Franco was conservative only in matters of religion and art; he was an ardent radical as far as the domestic walls were concerned, always planning transformations of ceilings, walls, floors, and drapery.

Luisa began by admiring his genius, but as nearly all the funds came from her uncle, and there was little margin for extraordinary undertakings, she persuaded him, very gently and little by little, to leave the walls, the ceilings, and the floors as they were, and to study how best to arrange the furniture without seeking to transform it. And she would make suggestions without appearing to do so, letting him believe the ideas were his own, for Franco was jealous of the paternity of ideas, while Luisa was quite indifferent to this sort of maternity.

Thus, together, they arranged the hall as a music-room, drawing-room, and reading-room; the loggia as a card-room, while the terrace was sacred to coffee and contemplation. This small terrace became in Franco's hands the lyric poem of the house. It was very tiny and Luisa felt that here a concession might be made, and an outlet provided for her husband's enthusiasms. It was then that the king of Valsoldian mulberry-trees fell from his throne, the famous and ancient mulberry of the churchyard, a tyrant that deprived the terrace of the finest view.

Franco freed himself from this tyrant by pecuniary means; then he designed and raised above the terrace an airy context of slim rods and bars of iron which formed three arches surmounted by a tiny cupola, and over this he trained two graceful pa.s.sion-flower vines, that opened their great blue eyes here and there, and fell on all sides in festoons and garlands. A small round table and some iron chairs served for coffee and contemplation. As to the little hanging-garden, Luisa would have been willing to put up even with maize, with that tolerance of the superior mind which loves to humour the ideas, the habits, the affections of inferior minds. She felt a sort of respectful pity for the horticultural ideals of the poor caretaker, for that mixture of roughness and gentleness he had in his heart, a great heart, capable of holding at once, reseda and pumpkins, balsam and carrots. But Franco, generous and religious though he was, would not have tolerated a carrot or a pumpkin in his garden for love of any neighbour. All stupid vulgarity irritated him. When the unfortunate kitchen-gardener heard Don Franco declare that the little garden was a filthy hole, that everything must be torn up, everything thrown away, he was so dazed and humiliated as to excite pity; but when, working under his master's orders, tracing out paths, bordering them with tufa-stones, planting flowers and shrubs, he saw how skilful Franco himself was with his hands, and how many terrible Latin names he knew, and what a surprising talent he possessed for imagining new and beautiful arrangements, he conceived, little by little, an almost fearful admiration for him, which soon--in spite of many scoldings--developed into devoted affection.

The little hanging garden was transformed in Franco's own image and likeness. An _olea fragrans_ in one corner spoke of the power of gentle things over the hot, impetuous spirit of the poet; a tiny cypress, not over-acceptable to Luisa, spoke in another corner of his religiosity; a low, brick parapet, in open-work pattern, ran between the cypress and the _olea_, supporting two parallel rows of tufa-stones, between which blossomed a smiling colony of verbenas, petunias, and wall-flowers, and spoke of the singular ingenuity of its author; the many rose-bushes scattered everywhere spoke of his love of cla.s.sic beauty; the _ficus repens_ which decked the walls towards the lake, the twin orange-trees between the two tiers, and a vigorous carob-tree, revealed a chilly temperament, a fancy turning always towards the south, insensible to the fascination of the north.

Luisa had worked far harder than her husband, and still continued to do so, but whereas he was proud of his labours and glad to speak of them, Luisa, on the contrary, never mentioned hers, nor was she in the least proud of them. She laboured with the needle, the crochet, the iron, the scissors, with a wonderful, calm rapidity; working for her husband, her child, the poor, herself, and for the adornment of her house. Each room contained some creation of hers; dainty curtains, rugs, cus.h.i.+ons, or lamp-shades. It was also her duty to arrange the flowers in the hall and the loggia; no flowers in pots, for Franco did not have many, and did not wish them shut up in rooms; no flowers from the little garden, for to gather one of those was like tearing it out of Franco's heart. But the dahlias, the gladioles, the roses, and the asters of the kitchen-garden were at Luisa's disposal. These, however, were not sufficient, and as the village loved "Sciora Luisa" best after the Almighty, St. Margherita, and St. Sebastian, at a sign from her, its children would bring her wildflowers and ferns, and ivy to festoon between the great bunches, stuck in metal rings on the walls. Even the arms of the harp that hung from the ceiling of the hall, were always entwined with long serpents of ivy and pa.s.sion-flower.

If they wrote to Uncle Piero of these innovations he would answer little or nothing. At most he would caution them not to keep the kitchen-gardener too busy, but to leave him time for his own work. The first time he came to Oria after the transformation of the little garden he paused and contemplated it as he had contemplated the six stocks of maize, and murmured under his breath: "Oh dear me!" He went out to the terrace, looked at the little cupola, touched the iron bars, and p.r.o.nounced an "Enough!" that was resigned, but full of disapproval of so much elegance, which he considered above the position of his family and himself. But when he had examined in silence all the nosegays and bunches of flowers, the pots and the festoons of the hall and the loggia, he said, with his good-natured smile: "Look here, Luisa! Don't you think it would be better to keep a couple of sheep with all this fodder?"

But the housekeeper was delighted that she no longer need kill herself for dust and cobwebs, and the kitchen-gardener was for ever praising the wonderful works of "Signor Don Franco," so that Uncle Piero himself soon began to grow accustomed to the new aspect his house had a.s.sumed, and to look without disapproval upon the little cupola, which, indeed, afforded a most grateful shade. At the end of two or three days he asked who had made it, and he would sometimes pause to examine the flowers in the garden, to inquire the name of one or another. At the end of eight or ten days, standing with little Maria at the door leading from the hall to the garden, he would ask her: "Who planted all those beautiful flowers?" and teach her to answer: "Papa!" He exhibited his nephew's creations to an employe of his who one day came to visit him, and listened to his expressions of approval with a fine a.s.sumption of indifference, but with the greatest satisfaction. "Yes, yes, he is clever enough." Indeed he ended by becoming one of Franco's admirers, and would even listen, in the course of conversation, to other projects of his. And in Franco, admiration and grat.i.tude were growing for that great and generous bounty that had vanquished conservative nature, and the old aversion for elegance of every description; for that same bounty that at all such opposition rose silently and even higher behind the uncle's resistance, until it surmounted all, covered all in a broad wave of acquiescence, or at least with the sacramental phrase: "However, _fate vobis_; do as you like." One innovation only Uncle Piero had not been willing to accept--the disappearance of his old cus.h.i.+on. "Luisa,"

said he, gingerly lifting the new, embroidered cus.h.i.+on from the easy-chair, "Luisa, take this away." And he would not be persuaded.

"Will you take it away?" When Luisa, smiling, brought him the little abortive mattress he sat down upon it with a satisfied, "That's it!" as if he were solemnly taking possession of a lost throne.

At the present moment, while the violet dusk was invading the green of the waves and running along the coast from village to village, eclipsing, one after another, the s.h.i.+ning white houses, the engineer was seated upon his throne holding little Maria on his knees, while out on the terrace Franco was watering the pots of pelargonia, his heart and his face as full of affectionate satisfaction as if he had been slaking the thirst of Ishmael in the desert. Luisa was patiently untangling a fis.h.i.+ng-line belonging to her husband, a frightful snarl of string, lead, silk, and hooks. She was talking, meanwhile, with Professor Gilardoni, who always had some philosophical snarl to untangle, but who greatly preferred a discussion with Franco, who always contradicted him, right or wrong, believing him to possess an excellent heart, but a confused head. Uncle Piero, his right knee resting on his left, held the child on this elevation, and for the hundredth time at least, was repeating a little sc.r.a.p of verse to her, with affected slowness, and a slight distortion of the foreign name--

Proud shade of the river, Of Missipip----

As far as the seventh word the child would listen, motionless and serious, with earnest eyes; but when he reached "Missipip," she would burst out laughing, pound hard with her little legs, and clap her tiny hands over the uncle's mouth, who would also laugh merrily, and after a short pause he would begin again, speaking slowly, slowly, in the same approved tone:

Proud shade of the river----

The child did not resemble either father or mother; she had the eyes, the delicate features of Grandmother Teresa. She exhibited a strange impetuous tenderness for the old uncle, whom she so seldom saw. Uncle Piero did not use sweet words to her; indeed, when necessary, he would even chide her gently, but he always brought her toys, often took her out to walk, danced her upon his knee, laughed with her, and repeated comic verses to her--the one beginning with the "Missipip," and that other, ending with the words:

Answered so promptly young Barucaba!

Who may this Barucaba have been, and what had they been asking him?

"_Toa Ba! Toa Ba!_ Barucaba again! Barucaba again!" and once more the uncle would recite the poetic tale to the child, but there is no one now to repeat it to me.

This is what Professor Gilardoni was discussing in his timid, gentle voice with Luisa; the Professor, grown just a little older, just a little more bald, just a little more sallow. "Who knows," Luisa had said, "if Maria will resemble her grandmother in soul as she does in face." The Professor replied that it would indeed be a miracle to find two such souls in the same family, and separated by so short an interval of time. Then wis.h.i.+ng to explain to how rare a species he conceived the grandmother's soul to have belonged, he gave voice to the following tangle: "There are souls," said he, "that openly deny a future life, and live according to their opinions, solely for the present life. Such are few in number. Then there are souls that pretend to believe in a future life, and live entirely for the present. These are far more numerous.

There are souls that do not think about the future life, but live so that they may not run too great a risk of losing it if, after all, it should be found to exist. These are more numerous still. Then there are souls that really do believe in the future life, and divide their thoughts and actions into two categories, which are generally at war with each other; one is for heaven, the other for earth. There are very many such. And then there are souls that live entirely for the future life, in which they believe. These are very few, and Signora Teresa was one of them."

Franco, who hated psychological disquisitions, pa.s.sed frowning, with his empty watering-pot, on his way to the little garden, and thought: "Then there are those souls that are bores!" Uncle Piero who, by the way, was slightly deaf, was laughing with Maria. When her husband had pa.s.sed, Luisa said softly: "Then there are souls that live as if there were only the future life, in which they do not believe. And of such there is one." The Professor started, and looked at her in silence. She was hunting in the tangle of the line for a double thread with a ring that must be drawn through, and though she did not see his glance, still she felt it, and quickly nodded towards her uncle. Had she really been thinking of him when speaking those words? Or had there been in her some occult complication? Had she alluded to her uncle without conviction, simply because she dare not name, even in thought, another person to whom her words might more justly apply? The Professor's silence, his searching glance which she had felt without meeting, revealed to her that he suspected her. It was for that reason she had hastily nodded towards Uncle Piero.

"Does he not believe in a future life?" the Professor asked.

"I should say not," Luisa answered, and then at once her heart was filled with remorse, for she felt that her reasons for affirming this were not sufficient, that she had no right to answer thus. In fact her uncle had never taken the trouble to meditate on religion. In his conception of honesty were included the continuation of the ancient, family practices and the profession of the inherited faith, accepted carelessly, as it stood. His was a good-natured G.o.d like himself, who, again like himself, cared little for genuflections and rosaries; a G.o.d well pleased to have honest, hearty men for His ministers, as Uncle Piero was well pleased to have such for his friends, even though they might be merry eaters and drinkers, life-long devotees of _tarocchi_, open tellers of spicy but not filthy stories, as a lawful outlet for that prurient hilarity which is in all of us. Certain joking remarks of his, certain aphorisms uttered thoughtlessly upon the relative importance of religious practices and the absolute importance of honest living, had struck her, even as a child, especially as they greatly vexed Signora Teresa, who would entreat her brother not to "talk nonsense." She suspected that he went to church simply because it was fitting to do so. Perhaps this was not true; one must overlook the aphorisms of a man who had grown old in self-sacrifice and self-abnegation, and who was wont to say: _Charitas incipit a me._ Besides, even if her uncle did hold religious practices in slight esteem, there was a vast difference between that and denying a future life. Indeed, as soon as Luisa had uttered her opinion and had heard how it sounded, she felt it was false, saw more clearly within herself and realised that she had been seeking in her uncle's example, a prop and a comfort for herself.

The Professor was greatly moved by this unexpected revelation.