At Mass there was a crowd. Both before and after it there was a great
deal of talk of the theft. Everybody wanted to see the empty cellar,
the broken door, the traces of the wheels.
Two bottles which had escaped the thieves disappeared into the pockets
of one of the faithful. No one understood how the priest could have
avoided noticing something; because he did assert without further
explanation that he had heard nothing. The women were sorry for him,
but the men for the most part admired the deed and laughed at the poor
priest, who had the great fault, in their eyes, of being abstemious and
not knowing how to mingle with people with that easy-going fraternity
which comes only from emptying the wine glass together.
They laughed, especially during the sermon, at the deep frown on the
priest's face, which they attributed to the empty cellar.
No one mentioned the Moro. Neither did he appear at St. Luke, either at
the Mass or afterwards; so that poor Don Rocco was full of scruples and
remorse, fearing that he had not conducted the affair properly. But
quite late the police arrived, examined everything, and questioned the
priest. Had he no suspicions? No, none. Where did he sleep? How did it
happen that he had not heard? Really, he did not know himself; there
had been people in the house. At what time? Some time between eleven
and one o'clock. One of the police smiled knowingly, but Don Rocco,
innocent as a child, did not notice it. The other one asked if he did
not suspect a certain Moro, knowing, as they did, that shortly before
eleven o'clock he had been seen going up to St. Luke. At once Don Rocco
showed great fervor in protesting that the man was certainly innocent,
and, somewhat pressed by questions, brought forth his great reason: it
was precisely the Moro who had visited him at that hour, on his own
business. "Perhaps it was not on the business that you think," said the
policeman. "If you knew what I think!" Don Rocco did not know, and in
his humble placidity did not wish to know. He never bothered himself
with the thoughts of others. It was sufficiently difficult for him to
get a little lucidity into his own. They asked him a few more
questions, and then left, carrying with them the only object that they
found in the cellar, a corkscrew, which the scrupulous Don Rocco was
not willing, through the uncertainty of his memory, to claim as
belonging to him, although he had paid his predecessor twice the value
of it. And now his cellar and his conscience were equally clear.
Towards dusk on the same day Don Rocco was reading the office, walking
up and down for a little exercise without going far from the house. Who
could tell? Perhaps that man might yet come. Every now and then Don
Rocco would stop and listen. He heard nothing but the voices of
wagon-drivers on the plain below, the noise of wheels, the barking of
dogs. Finally there was a step on the little path that led down through
the cypress trees; a step slow but not heavy, a lordly step, with a
certain subdued creak of ecclesiastical shoes; a step which had its
hidden meaning, expressing to the understanding mind a purpose which,
though not urgent, was serious.
The gate opened, and Don Rocco, standing in the middle of the
courtyard, saw the delicate, ironical face of Professor Marin.
The professor, when he perceived Don Rocco, came to a stand, with his
legs well apart, his hands clasped behind his back, silently wagging
his head and his shoulders from right to left, and smiling with an
inexpressible mixture of condolence and banter. Poor Don Rocco on his
side looked at him, also silent, smiling obsequiously, red as a tomato.
"The whole business, eh?" finally said the professor, cutting short his
mimicry and becoming serious.
"Yes, the whole business," answered Don Rocco in sepulchral tones.
"They didn't leave a drop."
"Thunder!" exclaimed the other, stifling a laugh; and he came forward.
"It is nothing, nothing at all, you know, my son," said he with sudden
good nature. "Give me a pinch. It is nothing," he continued, taking the
snuff. "These are things that can be remedied. The Countess Carlotta
has made so much wine that, as I say, for her a few casks more, a few
casks less... You understand me! She is a good woman, my son, the
Countess Carlotta; a good woman."
"Yes, good, good," mumbled Don Rocco, looking into his snuff-box.
"You are a lucky man, my dear," continued Marin, slapping him on the
shoulder. "You are as well off here as the Pope."
"I am satisfied, I am satisfied," said Don Rocco, smiling and smoothing
out his brows for a moment. It pleased him to hear these words from an
intimate friend of the Countess Carlotta.
The professor gazed around admiringly as if he saw the place for the
first time. "It is a paradise!" said he, letting his eyes pass along
the dirty walls of the courtyard and then raising them to the fig tree
picturesquely hidden under the bell-tower in the high corner between
the gateway and the old convent.
"Only for that fig tree!" he added. "Is it not a beauty? Does it not
express the poetry of the southern winter, tepid and quiet? It is like
a word of sweetness, of happy innocence, tempering the severity of the
sacred walls. Beautiful!"
Don Rocco looked at his fig tree as if he saw it for the first time. He
was fond of it, but he had never suspected that it possessed such
wonderful qualities.
"But it gives little figs," said he, in the tone of a father who hears
his son praised in his presence and rejoices, but says something severe
lest he become puffed up, and also to hide his own emotion. Then he
invited the professor to make himself at home in the house.
"No, no, my dear," answered the professor, silently laughing at that
phrase about the little figs. "Let us take a short stroll: it is
better."
Passing slowly across the courtyard, they came out into the vineyard,
whose festoons crowned both declivities of the hill, and they passed
along the easy, grassy ascent between one declivity and the other.
"It is delicious!" said the professor.
Between the immense cold sky and the damp shadows of the plain the last
glimpses of light were softly dying away on the grayish hill, on the
red vines, all at rest. The air was warm and still.
"Is all this yours?" asked the professor.
Don Rocco, perhaps through humility, perhaps through apprehension of
what the immediate future might bring, kept silence.
"Make up your mind to stay here, my son," continued he. "I know very
well, believe me, there is not another place as fortunate as this in
the whole diocese."
"Well, as for me!..." began Don Rocco.
Professor Marin stopped.
"By the way!" said he, "Countess Carlotta has spoken to me. Look here,
Don Rocco! I really hope that you will not be foolish!"
Don Rocco gazed savagely at his feet.
"Goodness!" continued the professor. "Sometimes the countess is
impossible, but this time, my dear son, she is right. You know that I
speak frankly. You are the only one here who does not know these
things. It is a scandal, my son! The whole village cries out against
it."
"I have never heard, I have not..." mumbled Don Rocco.
"Now I tell you of it myself! and the countess has told you more than
once."
"You know what I answered her last night?"
"They were absurd things that you said to her."
At this blow Don Rocco shook himself a little, and with his eyes still
lowered spoke up eagerly in his own defence.
"I answered according to my convictions, and now I cannot change."
He was humble-hearted, but here was a question of justice and truth. To
speak according to truth, according to what one believes to be the
truth, is a duty; therefore, why did they persecute him?
"You cannot change?" said the professor, bending over him and fixing on
his face two squinting eyes. "You cannot change?"
Don Rocco kept silent.
The professor straightened up and started on his walk again.
"Very well," he said, with ostentatious quiet. "You are at liberty to
do so."
He suddenly turned to Don Rocco, who was following him with heavy steps.
"Gracious!" he exclaimed with annoyance, "do you really think that you
have in your house a regular saint? Do you take no account of the
gossip, of the scandal? To go against the whole country, to go against
those who give you your living, to go against your own good, against
Providence, for that creature? Really, if I did not know you, my dear
Don Rocco, I would not know what to think."
Don Rocco squirmed, winking furiously, as if he were fighting against
secret anguish, and breathless, as if words were trying to break forth
involuntarily.
"I cannot change; it is just that," said he when he got through his
grimaces. "I cannot."
"But why, in the name of heaven?"
"Because I cannot, conscientiously."
Don Rocco finally raised his eyes. "I have already told the countess
that I cannot go against justice."
"What justice! Your justice is blind, my dear. Blind, deaf, and bald.
And if you said a foolish thing yesterday do you wish to repeat it
again to-day? And if you do not believe what is said of Lucia are there
lacking reasons for sending away a servant? Send her away because she
does not take the spots off your coat, because she does not darn your
stockings. Anything! Send her away because she cooks your macaroni
without sauce, and your squash without salt."
"The real reason would always be the other one," answered Don Rocco
gloomily.
Even Professor Marin could not easily answer an argument of this kind.
He could only mumble between his teeth: "Holy Virgin, what a pig-head!"
They reached the few consumptive cypresses along the ridge that led
from the hill to another still higher hill. There they stopped again;
and the professor, who was fond of Don Rocco on account of his simple
goodness, and also because he could make him the butt of amiable
banter, made him sit down by his side on the grass, and attempted a
final argument, seeking in every way to extract from him his reasons
for continuing so long to believe in the innocence of Lucia; but he did
not succeed in getting at any result. Don Rocco kept always referring
to what he had said the evening before to Countess Carlotta, and
repeated that he could not change.
"Then, good-bye St. Luke, my son," said the resigned Marin.
Don Rocco began to wink furiously, but said not a word.
"The Countess Carlotta was expecting you today," said the professor,
"but you did not go to her. She therefore charged me to tell you that
if you did not immediately consent to send away Lucia on the first of
December, you will be free for the new year, and even before if you
wish."
"I cannot leave before Christmas," said Don Rocco timidly. "The parish
priest always needs assistance at that time."
The professor smiled.
"What do you suppose?" said he. "That Countess Carlotta hasn't a priest
ready and waiting? Think it over, for there is still time."
Don Rocco communed with himself. It rarely happened that he went
through so rapid a process of reasoning. Granted, that this woman was a
cause for scandal in the country, and that the countess had another
priest at her disposal, the decision to be taken was obvious.
"Then," he answered, "I will leave as soon as possible. My father and
my sister were to come and visit me one of these days. So that now it
will be I who will visit them instead."
He even had in his heart the idea of taking this woman away from the
village with him. His people had no need of a servant, and he, if he
delayed finding a place, would not be able to keep her. But certain
reasonable ideas, certain necessary things, never reached his heart,
and reached his head very late, and when they did Don Rocco would
either give himself a knock on the forehead, or a scratch behind, as if
it bothered him.
In returning to St. Luke the professor told how the police were in
search of the Moro, who was suspected as an accomplice in a recent
highway murder, certain authors of which had fallen that very morning
into the hands of justice. Don Rocco heard this not without
satisfaction; for he now was able to explain why the man had not come.
"Who knows," he made bold to say, "that he may not have gone away, and
that he may not return? And then all this gossip will come to an end.
Do you not think so?"
"Yes, my dear," answered the professor, who understood the point of his
discourse, "but you know the Countess Carlotta. Henceforth whether the
Moro goes or remains is of no consequence to her. Lucia must be
dismissed."
Don Rocco said no more, neither did the professor. The former
accompanied the latter as far as the church cypresses, stood looking
after him until he disappeared at the end of the lane, and then
returned, sighing, to his house. Later, when, bending under the weight
of his cloak, he was passing, lamp in hand, through the entry leading
to the choir of St. Luke, his doubt of the previous night came up again
violently. "Had it really been a confession?" He stopped in the shadow
of the deserted entry, looking at the lamp, giving vent for a moment to
the sweet, tempting thoughts of the inert spirit. "Were he to take some
pretext to send the woman away, to live and die in peace in his St.
Luke." All at once his heart began to beat fiercely. These were
thoughts from the devil. In the same way as perhaps in ancient times
and in the same place some monk, tormented by heated nocturnal visions
of love and of pleasure, may have done, Don Rocco made hastily the sign
of the cross, hastened to the choir, and became immersed in a devout
reading of the prayer-book.