"It is a fine case, Don Rocco," said Professor Marin, gathering up the
cards and smiling beatifically, while his neighbor on the right raved
furiously against poor Don Rocco. The professor continued to look at
him with a little laugh on his closed mouth, and with a glance
sparkling with benevolent hilarity; then he turned to the lady of the
house, who was napping in a corner of the sofa.
"It is a fine case, Countess Carlotta!"
"I understand that well enough," said she, "and it seems to me time to
end it; isn't that so, Don Rocco?"
"No, Don Rocco," said the professor seriously, "on reflection it
certainly is a case for the ecclesiastical court."
"I should say it was at least that," said his neighbor on the right.
Don Rocco, red as a poppy, with his two fingers in his snuff-box, kept
silence, his head bent forward and his brows knit in a certain contrite
way peculiar to him, facing the tempest with his bald spot, and looking
slyly between one wink and another at the unfortunate cards. When he
heard the words "ecclesiastical court" repeated by his companion, whom
he held in considerable fear, it seemed to him that matters were
becoming quite amusing, so he forced a little smile and took a pinch of
snuff between his fingers.
"Oh, you laugh!" returned the implacable professor. "I hardly know
whether, having played at terziglio and having brought such ill luck on
your partner, you can say Mass in peace to-morrow morning."
"Oh! I can, I can," muttered Don Rocco, knitting his brows still more
and raising a little his good-natured countryman's face. "We all make
mistakes, all of us. Even he, over there, not to mention yourself,
sometimes."
His voice had the tone of a peaceful animal badgered beyond all
patience. The professor was laughing with his eyes. "You are quite
right," said he.
The game was over, the players got up.
"Yes," said the professor with quizzical seriousness, "the case of
Sigismondo is more complicated."
Don Rocco closed his beady little eyes in a smile, bending his head
with a peculiar mixture of modesty, complacency, and confusion, and
mumbled:
"Even that case can be unravelled."
"You see," added the professor, "I am well informed. It is a case,
Countess, which Don Rocco must unravel at the next meeting of the
ecclesiastical court."
"There is no such meeting going on here," said the countess. "Let it
alone."
But it was not so easy to wrest a victim from the clutches of the
professor.
"Let us then say no more about it," said he quietly. "But listen, Don
Rocco; I am not of your opinion on that point. As for me, pereat
mundus."
Don Rocco frowned furiously.
"I haven't spoken with any one," said he.
"Don Rocco, you have gossiped, and I know it," answered the professor.
"Have patience, Countess, and give us your opinion."
Countess Carlotta did not care to enter upon the question, but the
professor continued imperturbably to set forth the case of Sigismondo
as it had been promulgated by the Episcopal tribunal.
A certain Sigismondo, fallen suddenly ill, asked for a confessor.
Hardly was he alone with the priest when he hastened to tell him that
some other person was on the point of committing a homicide, which he
had himself instigated.
Hardly had he said these words when he lost voice and consciousness.
The priest doubted whether Sigismondo had spoken in confession or not;
and he could not prevent the crime, could not save this human life in
peril, unless he made use of what he had heard in confidence. Should he
do this or should he let a man be killed?"
"It is Don Rocco's opinion," concluded the professor, "that the priest
should act as a policeman."
Poor Don Rocco, tortured in his conscience between the feeling that he
ought not to discuss the question in a secular conversation and a
feeling of reverence for his bantering friend who was an ecclesiastic
of mature age and a professor in the Episcopal seminary of P---, was
twisting himself about and mumbling excuses.
"No...the fact is...I say...it seems to me..."
"I am surprised, Don Rocco, that you should think it worth while to
make excuses," said the lady. "It amazes me that you should take
seriously the jests of the professor."
But the professor protested, and with subtle questions pushed Don Rocco
to the wall and began to squeeze out of him, little by little, the
peculiar combination of right instincts and crooked arguments which he
had in his head, showing him with the greatest charm of manner the
fallacy of all his bad reasons and of all his good sense, and leaving
him in a stupor of contrite humility. But the game lasted only a short
while, because the countess dismissed the company with the excuse that
it was after eleven o'clock. However, she asked Don Rocco to remain.
It was the Countess Carlotta who had chosen him, a few years before, as
rector of the Church of St. Luke, which was her property. She took with
him a sort of Episcopal air which was peacefully accepted by the
thankful priest, as simple in spirit as he was humble-hearted.
"You would do better, my dear Don Rocco," said she when they were
alone, "to bother yourself less with such affairs as that of
Sigismondo, and a little more with your own."
"But why?" asked Don Rocco, surprised. "I do not know what you mean."
"Of course; the whole village knows it, but you are in complete
ignorance."
Her eyes added quite clearly, "Poor simpleton." Don Rocco remained
silent.
"When does Lucia return?" asked she. This Lucia was the servant of Don
Rocco, to whom he had given permission to go home for five days.
"On Sunday," he answered. "To-morrow evening. Oh!" he suddenly
exclaimed, smiling with satisfaction at his own keenness. "Now I
understand, now I see what you mean. But it is not so, it is not so at
all."
He had at last understood that it was a question of certain rumors
current in the village on a love affair of his servant with a certain
Moro, a bad specimen, well known at the police court, who combined
craft with malevolence and strength in a most diabolical manner. Some
believed that he was not entirely bad, but that necessity and the
ill-treatment of an unjust master had led him to wrongdoing; but every
one feared him.
"It is not true at all, is it?" answered she. "Then I don't know what
the village will say when certain novelties will happen to the servant
of the priest."
Don Rocco became red as fire and frowned most portentously.
"But it is not true at all," said he, brusquely and shortly. "I
questioned her myself as soon as I heard the gossip. It is nothing but
the maliciousness of people. Why, the man does not even see her!"
"Oh! Don Rocco," said the lady. "You are good, good, good. But as the
world is not made that way, and as there is a scandal, if you don't
make up your mind to send the creature away, I must decide on something
myself."
"You will do what you like," answered the priest dryly. "Have I not got
to consider what is right?"
The countess looked at him, and said, with a sudden solemnity, "Very
well. You will reflect on this to-night, and to-morrow you will give me
your final answer."
She rang the bell to have a lantern brought for Don Rocco, as the night
was very dark. But, to her great surprise, Don Rocco carefully
extracted one from the back pocket of his cloak.
"What made you do that?" exclaimed she. "You have probably got a spot
on my chair!"
She got up, notwithstanding the assurances of Don Rocco, and taking one
of the candles which still burned on the card table, she stooped down
to look at the chair.
"There!" she said, "put your nose over that! It is spotted and ruined!"
Don Rocco came also, and, knitting his brows, bent down over a large
spot of oil, a black island on the gray cloth, muttering most
seriously, "Oh, yes!" and remaining absorbed in his gaze.
"Now, go!" said the lady. "What is done is done."
It seemed in fact, as if he were awaiting her permission to raise his
nose from the repentant stool.
"Yes, I'll go now," he answered, lighting his lantern, "because I am
alone at home at present, and I am even afraid that I left the door
open."
Very suddenly he said "Good-night," and disappeared without even
looking at the countess.
She was astonished. "Dear me, what a boor!" she said.