IN DON CRESCENZIO'S LOTTERY-SHOP
Donna Bianca Maria Cavalcanti read that letter over eight or ten
times before putting it in her pocket. She was working at her lace
alone in the bare large room, thinking over what was in it, for she
knew the words by heart already. She saw it before her eyes, going
over its meaning in her mind. So the slender bobbins slipped from her
hands while she dreamt.
The letter was honest and frank. It said that, as a doctor and
friend, he once more advised her to leave that lonely old house where
she just vegetated. He begged she would deign to accept a humble,
plain offer of hospitality in the country, in the village and home he
was born in, where his mother lived alone piously. Donna Bianca Maria
Cavalcanti should not despise this offer so frankly made. She could
go down there with Margherita. The air was good, the country around
fresh and green; it was an agreeable solitude. Dr. Amati could not go
because of his work; but his mother would be sure to be very fond of
her. She would be quite cured down there in that lifegiving, bright
air. He implored her tenderly not to say 'No,' to believe in his
devotion. He could not hide the real state of her health from her.
Travel and country air were necessaries of life to her.
So the great doctor wrote in that short, precise style of his,
honest, like his face and voice; a deep, sincere vein of feeling ran
through each phrase. Feeling this, Bianca Maria shut her eyes to keep
down her emotion. When Margherita brought her the letter, she guessed
at once who it came from on seeing the clear, straight, precise
writing. She opened it quickly, without hesitation or false modesty.
After reading it, a country landscape, poor and humble, but bright
and perfumed with green, rose before her eyes with the sweetness of
an idyll; a flow of heat enlivened the slow blood in her veins; a
desire for life and happiness gnawed at her heart; a first rush of
youthful eagerness came. Antonio Amati's letter, read so often, was
fixed in her mind. As she thought it over that fresh Friday evening
in March, the blood rushed to her heart and her eyes filled with
tears.
The Marquis di Formosa came in that evening, about eight o'clock.
He also was more excited than usual, with a quiver in his limbs and
features, which he got every week on Friday evening, as if he shortly
expected a great sorrow or a great joy. But his daughter took no heed
at first. She was distrait; though she went on working mechanically,
the good, decided words of the letter that begged her to save herself
buzzed in her mind, delightfully disturbing.
'Well, is there nothing yet?' asked the Marquis.
'What are you asking about? I do not understand,' she said, coming
back to herself.
'What am I asking about? Why, the revelation the spirit is to make to
you. Perhaps you don't wish to tell it? Why not? You must tell me; I
expect to hear it from you.'
'Dear father, I know nothing about it,' she answered, growing pale,
but trying to keep her voice steady. 'I will never know anything of
what you imagine.'
'I don't imagine!' he cried out. 'They are truths and religious
mysteries. Don Pasqualino is a pious soul. He _sees_. You could see,
too, if you liked, but you don't want to. Tell the truth: you sup
before going to bed?'
'No, I do not,' she said, keeping down her head, resigned to the
torture of the inquiry, touching Amati's letter in her pocket.
'A full body is impure; it cannot have heavenly inspirations,' he
said in a mystical way. 'What do you do before sleeping?'
'I pray.'
'Do you not ask for this favour with all your strength? Do you ask
for it?'
She looked at her father, and opened her mouth to say 'No.' She did
not utter it; but he understood her.
'It is natural the vision does not come--quite natural. Faith is
needed,' said he, with deep disdain. 'But what do you pray for? What
do you ask for, unloving heart?'
'I ask for peace,' she said gravely, waving her hand.
He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
'I will make Don Pasqualino pray,' he added. 'You will get the
vision, whether you like or not; the spirits will insist on it. They
command, you understand. They are masters in this world and the next.
You will have the spirit by you when you least expect it; you will
see it....'
'God help me!' said she, crossing herself with an uncontrollable
shiver.
'Are you afraid?' he asked sneeringly, no longer, in his mad
excitement, seeing how she suffered.
'Oh yes, I am,' she said feebly, as if she were fainting.
She clutched Antonio Amati's honest, affectionate letter
convulsively, as if to get strength from it. But the Marquis paid
no more heed to his daughter. He had rung the bell, and Giovanni
came in in his old livery. He looked undecidedly at his master as he
handed him his hat and stick, as if he were alarmed to see him go
out earlier on that than on other Fridays. But what he dreaded was
unavoidable, because the Marquis said to him, 'Come with me,' going
towards his bedroom, a poor, bare room like the rest of the house.
Giovanni lighted a wretched candle to hold their conversation by. The
servant respectfully stood right before his master, who kept up his
aristocratic bearing and natural haughtiness, which even vice could
not subdue.
'Giovanni, have you any money?' he asked in a lordly way.
The servant bowed; he did not dare to answer 'No' exactly, so he said
nothing.
'You must have some,' the Marquis went on rather sternly. 'I gave it
to you two weeks ago. Have you spent it all? You waste the little I
have left.'
'My lord, last Friday you took it almost all. We must live. You
would not like her ladyship to die of hunger,' said Giovanni in a
complaining voice.
'Very good, very good; I understand,' the Marquis interrupted,
irritated, but concealing his rage. 'I need at least fifty francs.
I have a debt of honour to pay this evening. Then to-morrow
evening'--emphasizing the words--'I will give it to you back. I will
give you other money, too, a lot of money, so that you will not
accuse me of letting my daughter die of hunger.'
'You are master, my lord; but if you knew what money it is----' And
he took a torn note-book from his pocket.
'What is it you refer to?' said the Marquis, casting devouring eyes
on the pocket-book.
'Nothing, my lord;' and he respectfully handed his master a
fifty-franc note.
He did it in such a way as to try and prevent the Marquis seeing a
second one he had; but the old gentleman dared not ask for it just
then.
'You can go,' he said to the servant, who went off.
He walked up and down the room impatiently; then he rang the bell
twice. Margherita came forward in the same trembling, almost
hesitating way as her husband. The old nobleman, descended from Guido
Cavalcanti and ten generations of gentlemen, now stooped to cheat
like a rogue.
'Margherita, do you know if Bianca Maria has money?' he asked
absently.
'Who would give it to her? The few francs she gets from Sister Maria
degli Angioli and her godfather at Christmas she gives to the poor.'
'I thought she had some,' he said, putting on his great coat. 'I am
much embarrassed; I have to pay a debt this evening, and I supposed
Bianca Maria would help her father. I am very much annoyed. Perhaps
you have some money, Margherita?'
'I have money,' said she, not daring to deny it, out of respect and
fear of her master.
'Can you give me some? I'll give it you back to-morrow evening.'
'Really,' she replied, 'I have some money, but I wished to buy a
dress for her ladyship. Your lordship does not notice it; but at
twenty, and as lovely as a queen, my mistress has only had two
dresses in two years--one for summer, the other for winter. She does
not even notice it herself, poor soul!... I had thought of buying one
for her. Your lordship could have given me back the money at your
leisure.'
'Sister Margherita, give me that money now, and _to-morrow evening_,
I promise you before God, Bianca Maria will have money for ten
dresses.'
'Amen,' said Margherita sadly and resignedly.
She could not resist the emotion in her master's voice. Pulling out
a silk purse from her bodice, she detached a hundred-franc note from
a roll of notes. He took it and hid it at once in his purse, and
went out, saying with wild joy, in a queer tone of certainty, 'Till
to-morrow evening.' And he said 'Till to-morrow evening' again as he
passed through the drawing-room, standing by his daughter at a window
which she had opened to get fresh air to try and recover from her
moral and physical weakness.
The Marquis di Formosa went down the steps quickly, lively as a lad
going to a love-tryst. Someone, in fact, was waiting for him, walking
up and down before the door. It was Don Pasqualino De Feo, the
medium. His sickly, mean look was not changed at all; he still wore
his torn, dirty clothes, but that evening his eyes were sparkling
in his thin face. He put his hand on the Marquis di Formosa's arm.
Formosa, who had not noticed him, greeted him with a smile.
'Have you the money?' asked Don Pasqualino, lowering his eyelids as
if to hide the flame alight in his eyes.
'Yes; how much is needed?'
'Four Masses must be paid for in four parishes to-morrow morning. We
will make it five francs each Mass. I must spend the night in prayer.
The _spirit_ told me to shut myself up in San Pasquale at midnight.
I have promised a gift of ten francs to the sacristan; otherwise it
would not be allowed. We agreed to light four candles before San
Benedetto's altar; it is his day to-morrow. Ten francs--forty; yes,
forty francs would be enough.'
He made his calculation coldly, keeping his eyes cast down, but his
queer, mysterious talk was unusually clear. The Marquis di Formosa
agreed with a nod to every new expense that the medium enumerated,
thinking it reasonable.
'And how much for yourself?' he asked, after counting forty francs
into Don Pasqualino's hands.
'You know I need nothing,' said the other, waving it off.
'When do we meet?'
'To-morrow morning after my vigil, if the spirit leaves me alive.
Friday last I was so beaten I thought I was dying,' the medium said
emphatically, but in a whisper.
'I trust in you,' Formosa murmured.
'Let us trust in _him_,' retorted the other fervently, showing the
whites of his eyes.
'Pray to him--pray to him!' the Marquis implored.
They separated after the Marquis had pressed two soft, wet fingers
that Don Pasqualino held out to him. De Feo went up again towards
Tarsia; Formosa went down towards Toledo. He was going to the
lottery bank, No. 117, at the corner of Nunzio Lane, where the
handsome, chestnut-bearded Don Crescenzio was the banker, and where
Formosa and his friends were in the habit of staking. The shop,
lately white-washed, glittered with light. Three gas-jets were
burning at full cock above the broad wooden counter and high wire
grating that cut off the bottom of the shop from one wall to the
other. Behind this counter, seated on three high stools in front
of openings in the grating, Don Crescenzio and his two clerks were
working, his lads, so called, though one of them--Don Baldassare--was
seventy, and might have been a hundred, he looked so decrepit; though
the other had one of those colourless faces, with indefinite lines
and colouring, that might be any age.
They kept a big register open before them, called '_To mother and
daughter_'--that is to say, with double yellow slips of paper. They
wrote the numbers on them with heavy, sharp-pointed pens, so as to
have a clear, strong hand-writing, putting down each number twice;
one could see their lips move as they repeated it. Then they cut the
ticket with a dry click of the great scissors held in the right hand,
passed it quickly through a wooden saucer of black sand to dry it,
and, after taking the money, handed it to the gambler. Don Crescenzio
had the fine contented look of a good macaroni-eater, smiling in his
dark beard; whilst Don Baldassare, so bent he seemed hunchbacked,
his crooked nose drooping into his toothless mouth, worked very
phlegmatically. Don Checchino, the pale clerk, wrote hurriedly, so as
to finish and go away.
When the Marquis di Formosa came in about half-past nine, the shop
was full of people putting down their stakes. The game began feebly
on Friday morning, increasing at mid-day, and in the evening it got
to the flood. The Marquis di Formosa beckoned, and Don Crescenzio
opened his little door and attentively handed him a chair. The
Marquis always spent Friday evenings there, seated in a corner,
watching all the people gambling. He tried to get up an excitement
by the sight, and succeeded to a great extent. He had the lottery
numbers and the money in his pocket; but he never played when he
first came in. He tasted the joy a long time, from seeing others do
it.
The shop was full of people. They came in by two wide-open doors,
one in Toledo Street, the other in Nunzio Lane. The flood rolled
in and out, beating against the wooden counter, which was shiny
from human contact. The crowd was of all ranks and ages, with every
variety of the human face: good-looking and ugly, healthy and sickly,
gay, sorrowing, stupefied, and dull. The crowd came from all the
streets around, from Chianche della Carità and Corsea, San Tommaso
di Aquino cloister and Consiglio ward, Toledo and San Liborio Lane.
Certainly there was another lottery bank a short distance off, one
in Magnocavallo Street, and another in Pignasecca Road. In a few
hundred steps' radius there were several, all flaming with gas and
overflowing with people. But if a lottery bank was opened for every
three other shops in Naples, from Friday to Saturday, each would have
its crowd. Besides, lottery banks go by favour, like other things;
some are popular, others are not. The one in Nunzio Lane, like the
Plebiscito Square and the Monte Oliveto Road ones, had a great name
for luck. Large sums had been gained there. Many people, therefore,
came from a distance to stake a franc, five francs, or a hundred, at
the bank.
The three groups in front of the wickets in Don Crescenzio's lottery
bank melted into one, for ever flowing and ebbing; and the Marquis di
Formosa, his hat a little back on his head, showing his fine forehead
with some drops of sweat on it, looked on this sight with enchanted
eyes, holding his ebony stick between his legs. Sometimes, on
recognising a friend or acquaintance before one of the openings, his
eyes shone with delight, much flattered that so many distinguished
worthy people shared his passion. He opened his eyes wide to see it
all, to take in the ever-changing picture, stretching his ears to
hear the conversations and soliloquys--for lottery gamblers speak
to themselves out loud, even in public--to find out which number
among so many mentioned came oftenest into people's mouths, so as to
play it that night or next morning. It was warm, and the light was
strong in that crowded little shop. But the Marquis di Formosa felt
a curious pleasure, a full wide sensation of vitality; he felt young
again, and in the pride of health and strength.
In the meanwhile the crowd was not getting smaller; it increased.
While in front of white-faced Don Checchino's wicket a lot of
students made a row, calling out their own numbers, laughing, and
pushing each other, at old Don Baldassare's, in front of the humble
crowd were two or three great gamblers, who gave a whole string of
numbers, staking tens and hundreds of francs on them. The old clerk
wrote slowly, phlegmatically, and read them out before handing
the tickets. At Don Crescenzio's, where the work was got through
quicker, the scene changed every minute: the clerk came after the
soldier-servant sent to stake for his Colonel, a sulky workman gave
place to a stupid-looking country nurse, the old lay Sister stuck
herself behind the retired magistrate--all were chattering, looking
ecstatic, or deeply, sadly engrossed. That was how Don Domenico Mayer
looked, the misanthropic Under-Secretary of Finance. He was now
standing before Don Crescenzio, his eyes cast down, his cavernous
voice dictating ten _terni_, _terni secchi_, on which he boldly
played two francs each, to win ten thousand francs, less the tax on
personal estate. At the third _terno_, he asked fiercely:
'How much is the tax?'
'Thirteen and twenty per cent,' Don Crescenzio replied playfully,
waving his fat white hand in a graceful style.
'Cheat of a Government!' a shrill voice called out behind Don
Domenico.
It was Michele the shoeblack, waiting to play his small Friday
evening game. He was to play higher stakes next day, when he got the
money from Donna Concetta. In the meanwhile he tasted the delight of
being there as he waited his turn. At the third _terno secco_ Don
Domenico explained his game.
'I don't care about taking the _ambo_; fifteen francs are nothing to
me.'
'Indeed!' said complacent Don Crescenzio.
He took the twenty francs, folded the coupons neatly, and handed them
to him. Getting on tiptoe to reach the wicket, the lame hunchback was
already dictating his numbers. He gave the explanation of each.
'This I have played for twenty years ... this is Father Giuseppe
d'Avellino's _terno_ ... this is the _ambo_ of the day ... this is
the _terno_ of the man killed in Piazza degli Orefici.'
But they were small stakes, seven or eight francs in all, and
those waiting behind him got impatient. By a curious attraction,
big gamblers went to Don Baldassare, the old man. Ninetto Costa,
in evening dress, just showing under his overcoat, his _gibus_
hat rather askew on his curly, scented hair, his very white
teeth uncovered by smiling red lips, handed his list over to the
accountant, while he smoked a Havana calmly, cheerful as usual. He
satisfied Don Baldassare's inquiries pleasantly. The sum staked had
to be repeated to him as a precaution, not because he wondered at the
largeness of it.
'On the first ticket seventy on the _terno_, twenty on the
_quaterna_?'
'Yes, that is it;' and he puffed out odorous smoke.
'On the second _terno secco_ a hundred and fifty is it?'
'Yes, a hundred and fifty.'
'On the third the whole ticket, two hundred and forty francs. Is that
right?'
'Two hundred and forty--that is right.'
The Marquis di Formosa, who had exchanged a smile with Ninetto Costa,
strained his ears to hear the ciphers. He quivered, touched with a
little envy, regretting he had not so much money to stake. When he
heard the whole amount, six hundred and fifty francs, and saw Ninetto
Costa pull out this sum lightly to hand to Don Baldassare, he grew
pale, thinking how much he could win with so high a risk. He went
out, almost choking, to get air at the door. There Ninetto Costa
joined him. Both gazed down Toledo, on its crowd and lights, without
seeing them.
'You are lucky,' stammered the old nobleman; 'you have money.'
'If you knew all!' said the other, grown grave suddenly. 'I pawned
jewels I paid twenty thousand francs for, and I only got five
thousand. The pawnshops keep down the loans on Friday and Saturday;
they get such a lot of things.'
'What does it matter?--you will win,' said the old man, rolling his
eyes, excited by the vision of success.
'On Monday I have a settlement on the Exchange--twenty thousand
francs' loss, and not a penny in my pocket. If I don't take
something, where will I put my head?'
'You have good numbers?' Formosa asked anxiously.
'I have staked everything. Pasqualino De Feo wanted fifty francs
to soothe the spirit. He gave me three _ternos_, two _ambos_, and
a _situato_. Then that common girl I pay court to, I gave her a
watch. She gave me some numbers, but under a symbol. You understand?
Then there are the Cabal numbers we play together, and Marzano's
cobbler's ones, and so on. I know if I don't win, Marquis, and a big
sum, I must go bankrupt;' and the thoughtless stock-broker's voice
trembled tragically. 'I am going to a dance--good-evening,' he said
then, lighting his cigar again; and he went off with his nimble step.
Excited by this talk, the Marquis di Formosa went into the
lottery-shop again. Now, before the pale, flabby Don Checchino's
grill, leaning her elbow on the counter, Carmela, the cigar-girl,
using the ten francs Donna Concetta gave her for her earrings, was
saying her numbers, faintly, with pauses, playing three or four
popular tickets.
'Six and twenty-two--put half a franc on that; eight, thirteen,
and eighty-four--two sous for the _ambo_ of it, eight sous for the
_terno_; then eight and ninety, on the _ambo_ another four sous.'
She stopped now and then, as if other sad thoughts distracted her; a
flush coloured her delicate cheeks. When Don Checchino made up the
account, four francs forty centimes, she took out a roll of copper
money and began to count slowly.
'Hurry up! hurry up!' an impatient woman's voice cried out.
She turned round and recognised the woman, an old servant, Donna
Rosa, she that served in the house where her unfortunate sister
lived. They spoke in a whisper.
'Oh, Donna Rosa, and how is Filomena?'
'She is well; but she is in distress. She sent me to play this
number--three girls are playing it, rather, as there has been a wound
given, unluckily.'
'Oh, Jesus! God bless her, poor sister! And you--where do you come
from?'
'I live in Chianche Road, and I am going home.'
'Greet her for me,' Carmela whispered eagerly.
Pulling her shawl round her, she went away, with her head down, as if
overpowered by tiredness. Next to Rosa, the unfortunates' servant,
came Baron Annibale Lamarra, fat, pale, panting with his hurried walk
from one lottery bank to another. He played many tickets of twenty,
fifty, a hundred francs each; but, fearing to be spied on by his
miserly wife, whose dower he wasted, in spite of terrible scenes,
afraid of being caught by his father, a self-made man, he had got up
the fraud of playing a ticket at each place. He ran panting from one
lottery to another, trying to believe he would win on Saturday and
take back the promissory note from Don Gennaro Parascandolo, the one
that had his wife's signature. The thought of it made him shiver with
fright. When he got out of Don Crescenzio's lottery-shop he breathed
again, and reckoned up mentally. Of the two thousand francs, he had
given two hundred to Ambrogio Marzano, the cheerful old lawyer, for
arranging with Parascandolo; then he had staked one thousand six
hundred francs in different banks. He had two hundred francs left.
He would stake them next day, for perhaps he would dream of some
good number at night. It was no use risking it all at once. In the
meanwhile, from the other door, just as he got out, Don Ambrogio
Marzano came in. He stopped to talk with the Marquis di Formosa.
'Have you some good lottery numbers?' Formosa asked anxiously. He
clung to the pleasant old man as a bearer of luck.
'I have a forty-nine _secondo_ that is a love, my lord!' whispered
the enthusiast, so as not to be heard.
'Ah! and what else?'
'Twenty-seven, you know, is the sympathetic number at the end of the
month.'
'I have it, too. What do you say of the fourteenth?'
'It is _very good_, my lord; but do you wish really to know the
lightning, the dazzling number?'
'Tell me--tell me!'
'I tell you in brotherly love, because when I have a treasure I can't
be selfish with it, and keep it to myself. You may have it as a proof
of affection--it is thirty-five!'
'Ah!' said the Marquis in a stupor of admiration.
In the meanwhile, still quite serene, Don Ambrogio Marzano went to
place his stakes with Don Crescenzio. It is true he had had to give
the usual fifteen francs to his Cabalist cobbler. He had given ten to
Don Pasqualino, though he did not believe in him much, and a journey
to Marano, to take Father Illuminato a tortoise-shell snuff-box, had
cost him thirty francs; but he had taken them from a prepayment of
law expenses he got from a client, so that the two hundred francs was
intact, and he paid it all. Gaetano the glove-cutter, Annarella's
husband, whose child was dying, was waiting his turn to stake; but
it was a hard week, he had not got the loan of a sou, and had had
difficulty in getting an advance of five francs from his master. He
staked four of them, keeping back one for the numbers he might think
of on Saturday morning.
Now, as night came on, Don Crescenzio and his tired, stupefied clerks
had a sort of confused look, like those that have sat too long at
musical and dancing entertainments, with dazzled eye and deafened
ears; but they went on working. It was the grand weekly harvest,
a gathering in of thousands, hundreds, and tens of francs for the
Government. Don Crescenzio got a percentage of it, and on good
weeks he gave his 'lads' a little extra. Even the people coming in
constantly to stake had a queer look. Some were uneasy, some were
looking round them suspiciously; others dragged along in a tired way,
or their eyes were distracted, as if they were out of their senses.
There were those who had just found out numbers, or got money to
stake; servants, their day's work over, had run off to the lottery
before going to bed; shop-lads, that had just shut up shop, and
youths who had run out between two acts at the Fiorentino Theatre,
were coming in; and Cabalists from the Diodati Café, or the wine-room
of the Testa d'Oro Café, who were all Don Crescenzio's customers, and
after long discussion now ended by risking all they had that evening;
then a magistrate, weighed down by children and poverty, on his way
back from a game of _scopa_, at a sou, ventured the twenty francs
that was to feed them for four days; and the pale, sickly painter
of saints, having insisted on getting the money for a Santa Candida
beforehand, came in just then to stake it, and he was certain to play
next morning what Donna Concetta had promised him for the statue of
the Immaculate Conception.
Even a very elegant little street carriage stopped, and a hand in
pearl-gray gloves, studded with diamonds at the wrist, handed a
paper and money to a gallooned footman. The Marquis di Formosa, who
had left his seat out of nervousness, and was wandering among the
gamblers who came out and in, recognised the profile of a lady of his
own set, the Spanish Princess, Ines di Miradois.
'It is true, then, that Francesco Althan takes everything from her,'
the old lord thought to himself.
He joined Dr. Trifari and Professor Colaneri as they now came in,
still quivering with rage. They quarrelled by the hour about dividing
poor Rocco Galasso's seven hundred and sixty francs. Trifari made
out he had induced his fellow-villager, Rocco Galasso, to sign, and
he wanted five hundred francs. Colaneri made out that Rocco Galasso
had signed the promissory note so as to get the examination papers
from him beforehand, and by giving them he had gravely compromised
himself; he might lose his post through it; therefore the five
hundred francs were his. The struggle had been tremendous. They
nearly came to blows twice; but Trifari very unwillingly, choking
with rage, gave in, because he knew Colaneri had revelations at
night--a thing he, a full-blooded heretical blasphemer, did not have.
And Colaneri gave in because Trifari brought him many students to do
business with for the examinations--a most dangerous thing to do, and
he himself was afraid of the risk, but he yielded to temptation to
satisfy his vices. In short, they divided the seven hundred and sixty
francs. They had met the medium, who asked them in an inspired tone
if they wished to do alms of five francs to St. Joseph. They gave it,
thinking the question meant numbers, and that they ought to play five
for the money and nineteen for St. Joseph's number. All the medium
says on Friday evening and Saturday morning means lottery numbers.
So that Trifari and Colaneri, after making their game on their
favourite numbers, came down at once to play these less probable
ones, according to them; then they played the popular numbers, which
were three and four, just in case; and at last, leaning on the great
wooden counter, they looked in each other's faces with an idiotic
grin, still thinking out if they had forgotten anything.
In spite of the late hour, people went on crowding up Don
Crescenzio's lottery bank. He would get a large profit this last
Friday in March, owing to a flowing back of malignant fever, one
of those wild, gathered-up rushes of the slow disease that eats up
Naples' fortunes. There were people coming out of theatres who had
thought all evening about what ticket to play; they did not wish to
put off doing so till Saturday, for fear of forgetting it in the few
morning hours left. There were night-cabmen who stopped before the
shop, came down from the box, and waited their turn to play, the
inseparable whip in hand, with the patient eyes of those accustomed
to long waiting; there were those ragged, wretched, wandering
night-hawkers, shadowy figures, who shivered with fright in the
bright warm gaslight--vendors of newspapers, fritters, pickers-up
of cigar-ends, sellers of _pizze_, of beans, of grass for the horses
of night-cabs passing from time to time, calling out their wares;
and they, too, stopped at the lottery-stand, and went in, not able
to resist playing a franc, half a franc, a few sous. The driver and
two porters of the omnibus that takes travellers by the last train to
the Allegria Hotel came in; whilst the bus-conductors and drivers in
Carità Square, as soon as their day's run was over, which must have
made them dead-tired, had come to stake on the lottery before going
home.
Formosa had not made up his mind to play yet, with that sort of
dallying with time all lovers and excitable people go in for. In a
corner of the entrance, so as to let people pass, he conversed with
Trifari and Colaneri, who did not want to leave either, though they
had nothing left to stake. They stood to enjoy that light, warmth,
and crowd, the money flowing in, the lottery-tickets going out,
pledges of fortune and riches, and to muse over which of them was the
right one. Which? which? Here was the tremendous, delightful doubt,
the immense, burning unknown, the mystery that smiled through the
veil that cannot be lifted.
After taking a little walk through Toledo, being unable to resist the
attraction, Ambrogio Marzano, the lawyer, had come back, too, and
joined his little group of Cabalist friends, conversing with them
by fits and starts. Quite incapable of not mentioning his number,
his crowning stroke, he told them of thirty-five, so that Colaneri
and Trifari went in to play it, and he, Marzano, went in to play
seventy-three, which Colaneri had given him. No, Formosa was not
going to stake yet. But the end of his enjoyment was drawing near; he
felt the great moment coming on, and in one of his fervent, mystic
bursts he prayed silently to the Lord, the Casa Cavalcanti Madonna,
the Ecce Homo he worshipped in his family chapel, to enlighten and
inspire him, to do him the one great favour he had asked for years.
His friends, after tasting this other drop of pleasure, came out
again, and chatted vivaciously about numbers, getting excited with
the big shadows that now filled Toledo, broken by that square of
light the lottery lamp cast on the pavement. Just then they saw
Cesare Fragalà go in. After shutting his shop, the gay confectioner
always spent a couple of hours at his club to play dominoes with
other tradesmen--grocers, drapers, oilmen, fishmongers--putting down
a sou a game. On Friday evening he played these long games, too, but
rather distractedly, nervous, in spite of his youthful gaiety, and he
made off rather early to go to his dear Don Crescenzio's to make his
weekly large stake.
Really, there was a little crabbedness in his gambling ardour,
something like a feeling of remorse, of shame at throwing away his
money in that way, so he came late to the lottery bank, when there
were fewer people about to see and know him. He was put out that
evening on Formosa greeting him; it annoyed him to be seen by his
neighbour. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and stood by his dearest
friend Don Crescenzio, who went on writing, stroking his fine beard,
making a lot of fine flourishes with his pen. He began to dictate his
numbers to him on and on, showing his white teeth in a smile. Don
Crescenzio wrote on quite unmoved. For the six months that Cesare
Fragalà played at his bank the stakes had gone on increasing. In that
flood of numbers dictated, Don Crescenzio, with his peculiar memory,
recognised the medium's numbers--that is to say, his symbols, that
everyone had interpreted differently, so that Formosa, Colaneri,
Trifari, Marzano, Ninetto Costa, Cesare Fragalà, and all who took
their luck on Don Pasqualino's words, played different numbers, and
a great many of them, and thus they all managed now and then to make
some small hazardous gain--fifteen or twenty crowns over a _situato_,
six hundred francs over an _ambo_--very seldom, it is true, but
often enough to fan their passion and make them all slaves to Don
Pasqualino's cloudy phrases. So with a slight smile, while he was
adding up the sum, Don Crescenzio said:
'You, too, are one of Pasqualino De Feo's clients?'
'You know him?' asked Fragalà anxiously.
'Eh, we are friends,' Crescenzio muttered.
'He knows the numbers, does he not?' Fragalà asked, with a quiver in
his throat.
'Often he gets them right.'
'How often?'
'When his client is in God's favour,' the agent answered
enigmatically. Wishing to end the conversation, he politely handed
over the tickets, saying: 'Five hundred and forty francs.'
Fragalà paid stolidly with a tradesman's calm, without changing
expression. But when he got out of the lottery-shop, at the door,
his smile faded; he remembered he had made his first debt to a
money-lender that day, and that he had given security on the shop
funds, having also taken out the whole balance to make up the big
sum he had staked. It was to get away from these sad thoughts that
he joined the group of Cabalists. At one in the morning, standing in
front of the gambling place, they neither felt the hours passing,
the lateness, nor the penetrating damp; for they burned with that
constant inward fire that flamed up from Friday to Saturday. They
began the same stories again, at great length, for the thousandth
time, interrupting each other, getting heated and excited, staring at
each other with wild, humid eyes, as if they were possessed. Cesare
Fragalà listened, trying to get the same fever, but not succeeding;
for he was only a weak soul, not mad, nor subject to nerves. When
they all went over the reasons that made them gamble, such and such
material and moral needs, urgent and impelling, that the lottery
alone could satisfy, he listened in a melancholy way. At one point he
said:
'I--I need sixty thousand francs to open a shop towards San
Ferdinando, and make a marriage portion for Agnesina.'
A deep sadness overpowered him. Good, honest, incapable of lying
about anything to his wife, he had deceived her for months, like a
cheat; he took the ledgers she often stopped to turn over out of her
hands, and with hourly caution he tried to hide his vice from her,
thus destroying his good temper and ease.
'If it were not for this shop, if it were not for Agnesina----' he
muttered, a prey to inconsolable bitterness.
Now, about half-past one, the time came to shut the lottery bank,
as the customers became fewer and fewer; and at last the Marquis di
Formosa made up his mind to go and stake. Notes in hand, he said the
lottery numbers slowly over to Don Crescenzio. There was a slight
tremor in his voice, and his eyes stared at the string of figures
on the paper, as if he was enjoying himself. The gambling-shop was
deserted now. His Cabalist friends, Colaneri, Trifari, Marzano,
bringing Fragalà with them, who was in very low spirits, got behind
the Marquis di Formosa to listen to his numbers, and either winked
approval or shook their heads unbelievingly--in short, they served
at Formosa's by no means short gambling operations with the gravity
of priests taking part in a Bishop's service. Don Baldassare, the
decrepit old man, and pale-faced Don Checchino, stood motionless
behind the counter, their eyes half shut, dead-tired with that ten
hours' gabbling, thinking of having to go through the same thing next
day, from seven till noon, with great heat the last hour. Only Don
Crescenzio kept up his calm, placid, Neapolitan felicity, that has
its plate of macaroni secure, and serenely watches others' excitement
from behind a phantom plate of macaroni, many plates of it in the
great imaginative country of Cockayne. The Marquis di Formosa,
greatly excited, played high. He put down what Giovanni got from
Concetta the money-lender, what the lady's-maid got from Don Gennaro
Parascandolo, and seventy francs he got from the pawn-shop for two
artistic antique gilt-bronze candle-sticks, found in a lumber-room in
his house--two hundred and twenty francs in all. He was still pallid,
discontented, and melancholy, suddenly mistrustful of the value of
some numbers, sorry not to be able to risk more on others, in despair
at the end at not being able to stake on all the others, all that
were in his calculations.
So the lover, after a long-wished-for interview with his lady, having
got it, sees the moments fly past with frightful rapidity, and is
afterwards deeply grieved at not having said to the lady a word of
what he felt. This old man, whose ruling passion was not dulled by
age, bent his head, crushed suddenly, as if he had lived ten years
in a minute. He went out slowly and silently with the others, slow
and silent, too, through the dark street leading to his house. They
were all cold at that late hour. They shivered, and pulled their
great-coats round them, holding their heads down, not speaking to
each other. Thus they got as far as Dante Piazza, under the Rossi
Palace, where the cabalistic talk began again. They went two or
three times up and down the piazza, while the poet's stern white
statue seemed to scorn them with its blank eyeballs. They took poor
Fragalà with them, eaten up now by overpowering remorse for having
thrown away so much money that belonged to his family. But it was no
use. He gambled because he was a weak, cheerful creature, pricked on
by commercial ambition. He would never be a Cabalist. The others'
madness sadly surprised him, and they never could have infected him
with it. Still, he stayed with them, feeling that he had not the
strength to go home and lie by his wife's side with this remorse on
him for having thrown away five hundred francs. He began to look
distractedly and fixedly at the shadows, as if he saw some frightful
vision. At one point Marzano bowed and went off towards Porta Medina
archway, for he lived in Tribunale Road. But the others continued
to walk up and down, raving, in the darkness and cold, which they
no longer felt. The Marquis di Formosa was the most fervent of all.
His eyes sparkled, his figure stood out in the gloom, strong and
vigorous, like a man of thirty. Then Colaneri and Trifari took leave.
They both lived in a poor house in Cavone Street. Then Formosa went
on, with a monologue, speaking to Fragalà, the shadows, or himself.
They were going down very slowly towards Toledo once more, when a
quiet voice greeted them:
'Good-night, gentlemen!'
'Good-night, Don Crescenzio,' said the Marquis. 'Have you shut up,
eh? Was it a good day?'
'Thirty-two thousand five hundred and twenty-seven francs was the sum
staked,' said the banker, all in one breath.
Silence followed.
'Do you not play, Don Crescenzio?' Fragalà asked.
'No, never. Good-night.'
'Good night.'
He went off smartly, and they, seeing the lottery bank was shut now,
turned back heavily. It was with a sigh that they knocked gently at
the palace gate. They were sorry to go home. They parted on the first
landing with a hand-shake and a smile.