He was not yet entirely awake when the clock of St. Luke struck
half-past seven. Immediately after the bells also rang, because Don
Rocco had the day before notified the boy accustomed to serve him at
Mass that he would meet him at about eight o'clock. He jumped out of
bed, and went to get the clothes that Lucia was to have placed outside
the door. Nothing there. He called once, twice, three times. No answer.
Perplexed, he returned to his room and called out of the window:
"Lucia! Lucia!" Perfect silence. Finally the little sacristan appeared.
He had not seen Lucia. He had come to get the keys of the church, had
found the gate of the courtyard open, as well as the door of the house;
no one in the kitchen, no one in the sitting-room. Not finding the
keys, he had entered the church by the inner entry. Don Rocco sent him
to the sitting-room to get his clothes, as it was there that Lucia
usually worked in the evening. The boy returned to say that there were
no clothes there. "How? There are no clothes?" Don Rocco ordered him to
stand on guard before the entrance of the house and went down to look
for them himself, in his shirt. Half-way down the stairs he stopped and
sniffed. What an abominable odor of pipe was this? Don Rocco, with
darkened brow, went on. He went directly to the sitting-room, looked,
searched; there was nothing. He returned to the kitchen, his heart
beating. A horrid smell, but no clothes. Yes, under the table there was
a little pile of soiled things; a jacket, a pair of drawers, a
peasant's hat. Don Rocco gathered up, unfolded, and examined them with
portentous frowns. It seemed to him that he had seen these things
somewhere before. His brain did not yet understand anything, but his
heart began to understand and to beat more strongly than before. He
took hold of his chin and his cheeks with his left hand, squeezed them
hard, trying to squeeze from them the where, the how, and the when. And
lo! his eyes rested on the wall, and he finally perceived something
there which was not there the day before. There was written in charcoal
on the right: "Many salutations." And on the left:
"The wine is good."
"The servant is good."
"The cloak is good."
"Don Rocco is good."
He read, raised his hand to his head, read again--read again, seemed to
lose his eyesight, felt a sensation of cold, of torpidity spreading
from his breast throughout his body. Some one called out in the
courtyard, "Where is that Don Rocco?" With difficulty he went up to his
room again, cast himself on his bed, almost without knowing what he was
doing, almost without thought or sensation.
Below they were looking and calling for him. Professor Marin was there,
and some few other persons who had come to attend the Mass. No one
could understand how the door of the church was still closed. The
professor went into the house, called Lucia, called Don Rocco, without
receiving any answer. He finally reached the room of the priest and
stood still on the doorsill, amazed to see him in bed. "Well," said he,
"Don Rocco! in bed? And what about Mass?"
"I cannot," answered Don Rocco in a low voice, immovable on his back
like a mummy.
"But what is it?" replied the other, approaching the bed with sincere
alarm. "What is the matter with you?"
This troubled face, this affectionate tone, softened poor Don Rocco's
heart, petrified by pain and surprise. This time two real tears fell
from his palpitating eyelids. His mouth, closed tight, was twisting and
trembling, but still resisted. Seeing then that he answered not a word,
the professor ran to the stairs and called down that the physician
should be sent for.
"No, no," Don Rocco forced himself to say without moving. His voice was
filled with sobs. The professor heard him only as he was returning to
the bed.
"No?" said he. "But what, then, is the matter? Speak."
Meanwhile three poor women and a beggar, who had come to listen to
Mass, entered quite frightened into the room, surrounding the two, and
in their turn questioning Don Rocco. He kept silent like a Job, seeking
to master himself. Perhaps his annoyance at all these curious faces
hanging over his own helped him. "Go away," said he finally to the last
comers. "There is no need of the doctor, no need of anything, go away!"
The four faces withdrew somewhat, but continued looking at him fixedly
with an expression, perhaps, of increased alarm.
"Go away, I tell you!" continued Don Rocco.
They went out silently and stopped outside to listen and spy.
"Well, then," said the professor, "what are your feelings?"
"Nothing."
"But, then, why are you in bed?"
Don Rocco turned with his face to the wall. The tears were coming back
again now. He was unable to speak.
"But in the name of heaven," insisted the professor, "what is it?"
"I am getting over it, I am getting over it," sobbed Don Rocco.
The professor did not know what to do nor what to think. He asked him
whether he wanted water, and the old beggar went down at once to get a
glassful and gave it to Marin. Don Rocco did not want it in the least,
but kept on repeating: "Thanks, thanks, I am getting over it," and
drank it obsequiously.
"Well, then?" continued the professor.
"You are right," answered Don Rocco.
"About what?"
"About the woman."
"Lucia? Right! And by the way, where is Lucia? Not here? Run away?"
Don Rocco nodded. Marin looked at him stupefied and repeating, "Run
away? Run away?" The other four came back into the room echoing, "Run
away? Run away?"
"But listen!" said the professor. "Are you staying in bed for this
reason? Are you humiliating yourself in this way? Come on and get
dressed."
Don Rocco looked at him, reddened up to the top of his head, narrowed
his tear-wet eyes in a smile, which meant: "Now it will be your turn to
laugh."
"I have no clothes," he said.
"What?"
The professor added to this word a gesture which meant, "Did she carry
them away?" Don Rocco responded also by a mere nod; and seeing that his
friend with difficulty restrained a burst of laughter, he also tried to
laugh.
"Poor Don Rocco," said the professor, and added, still with a laugh in
his throat, heartfelt words of sympathy, of comfort, and asked for
every detail of what had happened. "Oh, if you had only listened to
me!" he concluded. "If you had only sent her away!"
"Yes," said Don Rocco, accepting even this with humiliation. "You are
right. And now what will the countess say?"
The professor sighed.
"What can I say, my son? She will say nothing. This also has happened,
that your successor wrote yesterday that he had definitively gotten rid
of his present engagements and was at the disposal of the countess."
Don Rocco was silent, heart-broken. "I must look at the time," said he,
after a moment's silence, "because at half-past nine they will come
here with a horse to take me away. It will be necessary to ask the
archpriest or the chaplain to lend me a suit of clothes."
"Let me, let me!" exclaimed the professor, full of zeal. "I will go
home and send it to you immediately. You will give it back to me at
your leisure, when you are able." A lively gratitude cleared the face
and moved the eyelids of Don Rocco.
"Thanks!" said he, fixing his eyes humbly on the end of his nose.
"Thank you very much!"
"Body of Bacchus!" he added to himself, as the professor was going down
the stairs. "He is a span higher than I am, that just occurs to me!"
But it certainly did not occur to him to call him back.