DON GENNARO PARASCANDOLO'S BUSINESS

With the odorous smoke of a Tocos cigarette filling the little room, Don Gennaro Parascandolo was deeply wrapped up in the study of his little pocket-book, turning over the pages of a ledger, and comparing the long rows of figures in it with the dark, enigmatic ciphers in the note-book; then he took the pen and wrote something occasionally—one word or a figure—on the full side of the ledger.

He was working very placidly in that little room of his flat in San Giacomo Street, opposite the door of the Exchange. He had rented it from time immemorial, and he called it the study; there he began, unravelled, and finished all his business, with a discretion and secrecy he kept up even with his wife. She was far off, isolated for whole days in that sad, solemn, splendid suite of rooms in the Rossi Palace. When it was said Don Gennaro Parascandolo was at his study, all was said. Those who said it and those who heard it felt respectful terror; a fearful vision of riches always increasing, a magical flow of money running to money by enchantment, rose before them. The study was the place where Don Gennaro Parascandolo, strong, wise, audacious, and cold in his audacity, made his fortune grow by leaps and bounds. It was composed of two rooms: one big one, with two balconies, was quite full of valuable things gathered in a queer way—pictures by good artists, foreign furniture, gilt-bronze candelabra, curious antique pendulums, rolls of carpet and of linen-cloth, terra-cotta statuettes, even a trophy of antique and modern arms.

It was quite a museum, that room. Salvatore, Don Gennaro's confidential servant, spent half the day trying to keep it clean, and it required the greatest care not to spoil or break anything. Occasionally, some rarity left the museum, either sold advantageously, exchanged for another, or given away in a fit of calculated generosity. But the empty place was soon filled by a new article, or by some of the things heaped on each other in the strange museum.

When Don Gennaro was alone, he sometimes opened his writing-room door and stood on the threshold, smoking his everlasting cigarette, to give a look over what he called his omnibus. But he did not venture to go in, the accumulation was so great. The other room was prettily enough furnished with the respectable pleasant luxury of easy-chairs, sofas, small tables with smoking accessories, and a writing-desk that seemed placed there purposely to make the name 'study' appropriate. The hangings were bright, but not gaudy; on the desk were dainty knickknacks that Don Gennaro Parascandolo often played with. Whoever came in there felt calmed; even if he had an incurable sorrow in his mind, he was reconciled to existence for a time. Don Gennaro Parascandolo's own genial face, clouded sometimes by melancholy, his lively, frank manner, managed to give a benignant look to the surroundings that overcame all fears, difficulties, and prejudices, and gave a weak, morally defenceless guest into the host's hands, vanquished beforehand. The whole round of Don Gennaro Parascandolo's business was regulated by the minute hieroglyphics in his pocket-book, and a ledger thickly written in also with names, ciphers, and remarks.

Whenever a caller was announced, Don Gennaro, without hurrying, shut up the ledger in the safe, and put the note-book back in his pocket; every trace of business disappeared. An inkstand of gilt bronze and rock crystal, shaped like a jockey's cap, with racing accessories, made a good show on the desk, as well as a silver paper-weight like a book, with five seals made of old guineas, an ash-tray shaped like a woman's shoe, and a long, carved ivory Japanese wand that Don Gennaro trifled with.

So that Friday in March, after breakfast, he went on smoking his Tocos cigarette, gazing at the smoke; but when the faithful Salvatore, clean-shaven and in black, like a high-class servant, a discreet, silent fellow, came to say Signor Cesare FragalÀ wished to come in, Don Gennaro quickly shut up the ledger and put the note-book in his pocket.

'With your permission,' said Cesare FragalÀ, coming in smiling.

'My honoured patron, how are the wife and child?'

'Very well indeed, Don Gennaro. They are FragalÀs, a strong house, with no bad luck. You keep well, do you not?'

'Quite well; but Naples bores me. Cesare, this is a beggarly country. In a week I go off to Nice and Monte Carlo; after that I go to Paris.'

'Do you play at Monte Carlo?' FragalÀ asked, with a scrutinizing look.

'Yes, a little. I often win; I have luck; I am learning to play.'

'How will that serve you?'

'It is good to know everything,' Parascandolo answered modestly. 'Have you never been there?'

'No,' said Cesare thoughtfully, 'I have a wife and daughter; still, it is a fine thing to gain twenty-five or a hundred thousand francs in an evening!' One could read in his eyes, that filled at once with melancholy avarice, a great passion for heavy, immediate gains, depending on luck, and for the most part unlawful.

'What would you do with it?' asked Don Gennaro, taking another cigarette, and offering Cesare one from an elegant engraved-silver Russian cigar-case.

'What would I do with it? First of all I would let fifty thousand melt away to enjoy life a little with my friends. I am not selfish, and fifty thousand would do to open a shop with in San Ferdinando Square. I will never gain it in the San Spirito shop,' Cesare ended up low-spiritedly.

'Still, in the carnival you must have made great profits,' said Don Gennaro slowly, shaking off his cigar-ash.

'Yes, yes, enough! but Monte Carlo, or something else, is needed; if not, one must vegetate, and Agnesina's dowry won't be ready. Then I am always pushed to it—so many calls.... Why, yesterday I should have given you back those five hundred francs you lent me without security—you know I am always punctual—but I could not.'

'For one day it does not matter,' Don Gennaro said coldly, setting his face like a stone the moment Cesare spoke of the debt, gazing at his cigar-smoke as if not to look his friend in the face.

'But I can't even pay you to-day,' said Cesare quickly, as if he wanted to get rid of his worry all at once. 'I have had to take a lot of sugar out of bond, and then——'

Don Gennaro, quite indifferent to all this chatter, said not a word.

'Be neighbourly, and complete the favour. I have a little bill due to-morrow,' FragalÀ said, passing through a sharp momentary agony; 'it is five hundred francs, and I have not got it. You might lend them to me, and I will give you a thousand francs next Saturday ... it is a great favour ... and you can be sure of my being punctual.'

'I can't,' Don Gennaro said icily.

'Why, you have the money,' Cesare cried out ingenuously.

'Of course; but I can't lend it.'

'Then, you think I am not solvent?'

'Not at all; it is to carry out a rule. With intimate friends and relations, people like you, I always lend five hundred francs; often, nearly always, I get it back again. Then I willingly lend it a second time; but once it has not been paid I never lend any more, so I can only lose five hundred francs.'

'But I am to give you back a thousand,' said the other in alarm.

'He who can't give back five hundred is very unlikely to give back a thousand. A man that fails to keep his word once may do it again,' said Don Gennaro ponderously.

'Still, I did not believe you would refuse such a favour to a friend,' Cesare muttered. 'You put me into great embarrassment.'

'I think I do well not to give you that money,' said Parascandolo, opening a gold matchbox like DellachÀ's paper ones, with figure-painting on it. 'I think you are going a bad road; you frequent very queer company....'

'I have done some idiotic things, I allow,' said Cesare, with his big-boy's honesty; 'but I did it with good intentions. Besides,' he added, as if speaking to himself, 'that Pasqualino De Feo is always needing some hundred francs. He is a poor man, with no profession nor trade. The spirits torment him—beat him at night. I have to have Masses said and prayers to appease them; if not, they drag him to death. If I have thrown away some hundred francs, I had my reasons. This business with spirits is important! You are clever, and have travelled a lot; but if you knew all, you would see it is worth knowing about.'

'It may be,' nodded Don Gennaro assentingly; 'but you are going a bad road.'

'No, no!' cried out Cesare; 'something must be settled. Either in or out. Perhaps we will get it this week—that is to say, to-morrow; or it may be necessary to sacrifice some more, next week, and then win. Really, you should oblige me,' he added, going back to his trouble.

'I can't,' retorted Don Gennaro.

'As a fact, I am an honest trader: anyone would do business with me!' Cesare called out, beginning to get angry.

'If it is business, that is another thing,' said Don Gennaro, giving in suddenly.

'Well, let us treat it as business,' said Cesare, calming down at once.

Then Don Gennaro quietly opened the safe and drew out a blank bill, of a thousand francs' value. Taking a finely-carved wooden pen, with a gold nib, he wrote the sum in figures and words, and asked, without raising his head:

'To fall due in a month?'

'Yes, in a month,' agreed FragalÀ. Don Gennaro handed the promissory note to him. It was headed 'Domenico Mazzocchi.' 'Domenico Mazzocchi—who is that?' asked FragalÀ, astounded.

'He is the capitalist I work for,' Parascandolo answered icily. Seeing that after FragalÀ signed he was going to put down his dwelling-house, he stopped him warningly. 'Put down the address of the shop.'

'Why so?'

'In business and commercial affairs it is better to take action at the firm's address.'

FragalÀ felt a chill down his back.

'There will be no need,' he thought it necessary to say, to reassure himself. He gave back the promissory note to Don Gennaro Parascandolo, who read it over carefully, twice; then he opened another safe and took out bank-notes, and counted three hundred and eighty francs twice over: he handed them to FragalÀ, saying:

'Three hundred and eighty francs. Count your money over again.'

'Three hundred and eighty only?' asked the other, again astounded.

'Twelve per cent. interest is taken off,' explained Don Gennaro.

'Is that by the year?' asked FragalÀ stupidly.

'No; by the month.'

Then there was silence. While FragalÀ was counting the money mechanically, he thought, but dared not say to Parascandolo, that the interest had been calculated on the first five hundred francs, too, that he, Don Gennaro, had lent him, and not the capitalist Mazzocchi. He said nothing about it, though; indeed, in the innocency of his soul, he remarked, as he got up to go away:

'Thank you!'

'Why thank me? It is business. Only, think of when it falls due. Mazzocchi stands no nonsense—he is an ugly sort.'

'Never fear,' said FragalÀ, with a sickly smile. After taking leave, he went off, with a colourless face and bitter mouth, as if he had been chewing aloes. At once Don Gennaro set himself to his accounts. But it was only for a few minutes, as Salvatore came to say Ambrogio Marzano, the lawyer, was there, with another gentleman, wanting to come in. He expected them, evidently, as he frowned slightly and looked stiff. Marzano came in, with his usual gentle smile—he was a lively, excitable old fellow; the one that looked put out was his companion, a gentleman of about forty, fat but pale, with very clear eyes that rolled vaguely and sadly.

The greetings were short. For a fortnight Marzano and Baron Lamarra had kept coming to San Giacomo Street to see Don Gennaro, on money business. They talked it over, made suggestions, accepted and then refused, then started the arguments over again. Baron Lamarra, son of a sculptor, who had become a contractor by dint of chiselling in the open air, and rich by dint of laying one son on another, had left his son a lot of money, though he was now trying for a loan of three thousand francs. He kept up his beggar-on-horseback airs at first, but as the days went on, and difficulties came in the way, he dropped them, and did nothing but play with the charms on his watch-chain; his conceited blue eyes got to have a despairing expression, which Don Gennaro studied sagaciously—perhaps it was for his benefit that he looked so cold. Only Don Ambrogio Marzano went on smiling, obstinate in his good nature.

'The Baron is rather anxious to finish up the business now we have talked it over for days,' said the little old man, trying to encourage his client.

'Let us finish it, then,' Don Gennaro answered, without lifting his eyes.

'You have not thought out a better arrangement?' Baron Lamarra murmured.

'No, I have not,' said Don Gennaro.

The two looked at each other, hesitating; the Baron made the lawyer an energetic sign to go on.

'How would it be?' Marzano asked.

'Here it is. My capitalist, Ascanio Sogliano, has no funds; but he can dispose of about forty dozen Chiavari chairs at six francs each, seventy-two francs the dozen, over two thousand seven hundred francs in all. He would give these goods, which are easy to dispose of, on a three months' promissory note, with the Baron and the Baroness Lamarra's signatures, each bound for all, with the usual interest, in advance, of three per cent; three times three, nine—that is to say, ninety francs a month; three times ninety, two hundred and seventy francs for three months.'

'And you said there would be a buyer for these Chiavari chairs, did you not?' Marzano replied, keeping up his frank tone.

'Exactly so,' said Don Gennaro, still very cold.

'Buyer at how much?' asked Baron Lamarra rather anxiously, knowing the answer quite well, but almost hoping for a different one.

'I told you: at two thousand francs.'

The lawyer shook his head; the Baron fumed with rage.

'It is too great a loss, far too great!' he cried out; 'and, then, my wife's signature, too!'

'Excuse me, Baron,' Don Gennaro remarked, 'you seem to be under a wrong impression. I am doing you a favour, finding a tradesman and a buyer. I am not taken up about this business. I often have as good aristocratic names as yours on bills, I can tell you. This is to clear up the position. You come here shouting as if you were in brigands' hands and your ears were being cut off. Here we don't cut off ears. If the affair does not suit you, let it go. It is indifferent to me, I repeat.'

As a sign of the greatest indifference, he lighted a Tocos cigarette, and began smoking, looking up to the ceiling. Baron Lamarra, whose face got flabbier and more unhealthy-looking in that annoying struggle, was disturbed. Silence followed. Marzano shook his head gently, as if he was lamenting over human weakness; he gazed at the silver top of his cane, without saying a word. The Baron ran his fingers through his black locks flecked with white; then he made up his mind, and drew out a thick black pocket-book, took out a paper, and put it on the table opposite Don Gennaro.

'It is settled,' he said, in a choked voice. 'Here is the promissory note.'

Don Gennaro only fluttered his eyelids in assent. He opened the note and looked at it a long time, the figures, dates, and signatures, reading in a low voice, 'Maddalena Lamarra—Annibale Lamarra. All right,' he ended up aloud, casting a scrutinizing glance at the Baron, whose face got livid from suppressed rage or some other feeling. 'Do you want to see the goods?' he then remarked punctiliously.

'What does it matter to me?' the Baron said sulkily, shrugging his shoulders. 'Give me the money to use.'

Don Gennaro nodded assent. As usual, he opened the middle drawer, shut up the promissory note in it, opened the side drawer, took out bank-notes, and counted them methodically.

'Count your money over,' he said, handing the bundle to the Baron, who had watched the appearance of bank-notes with a flashing eye.

But he did not count; he put the notes into his pocket-book, and, without saying a word, rose to go away.

Marzano vaguely stammered some words of thanks and farewell, but the Baron was already on the stairs, and the old man ran after him, not to let him elude him. When he was alone, Don Gennaro Parascandolo opened the drawer again and took out the Lamarra promissory note; he studied the signatures a long time, saying over the syllables ironically: 'Maddalena Lamarra ... bound for whole amount ...; Annibale Lamarra for himself and the conjugal authorization.' He ended up with a smile, and pushed it into the drawer again.

Ninetto Costa had come in without being announced, and the dark, lively, elegant stock-broker, in a suit of English check, a flower in his buttonhole, ebony stick in hand, and big iron ring on his little finger as a seal, seemed the pattern of happy youth. He stretched himself in an arm-chair, threw his leg over, and lit a cigarette, humming.

'Good settling-day Monday was, eh?' Don Gennaro asked.

'It was bad—bad!' sang out Ninetto Costa.

'You don't seem much put out. It will be bad for your clients then, and not for you,' said Parascandolo.

'It is bad for me; I have thirty to forty thousand francs at stake,' said the stock-broker, beating his trouser-leg with his stick in an elegant way.

'And how are you to pay?'

'I will pay,' the other ended up by saying, in a vague way.

'You have had several bad settling-days, it seems to me.'

'So, so. It is Lillina that takes away everything,' he muttered, with a not perfectly sincere gesture of regret.

'Lillina? She says "No," 'remarked Don Gennaro.

'Did she tell you so? She is the greatest liar among women! You can't think what a liar she is, Gennaro!' and he cried out more against her, rather in a sham rage. 'Have you got these jewels?' he added anxiously, though he tried to seem indifferent.

'Yes. Are they for Lillina?'

'Yes—that is to say, I am not certain; she is too great a liar! Besides, I have someone else in my eye.'

'You are a devil, Ninetto!' Don Gennaro said laughingly.

From the same drawer from which he had previously taken the money, Parascandolo took out a leather case and opened it. The jewels twinkled on the white velvet: there were a pair of solitaire earrings, a row of diamonds, a bracelet, and an ornament for the hair. Ninetto Costa looked at them, beating his lips with the knob of his stick. He went further off, to judge them better. He did this very gracefully; but a twitching of the muscles now and then made his smile unpleasant.

'They are fine, eh?' he asked Parascandolo.

'I think so,' said the other modestly.

'You would give them? You are a man of taste.'

'I would give them—according to the woman. Not to Lillina.'

'I don't know if I will give them to her—I don't know,' Costa burst out again hurriedly. 'You think,' he added timidly—'you think they are worth twenty thousand francs?'

'It is not what I believe; Don Domenico Mazzocchi, who sold them to you, thinks they are. I don't know about them. Besides, you can get them valued. Remember, they will ask two per cent. for the valuation.'

He said all this in such a cold, disdainful way that Ninetto Costa tried to interrupt him more than once, without managing it.

'Are you mad? What valuation? I would not do such a thing, with you and your friend Mazzocchi. To take so much trouble! I would not dream of it. It would be offensive to a friend—two friends.'

'Have you noted the terms of payment?'

'Yes, yes! at three, four, five, and six months—five thousand francs at a time, with a consignment on my mother's revenues, and all the necessary papers. All is going right. Do you wish nothing on the Exchange? I'll buy for you.'

'I don't do business; I have retired,' said Parascandolo, smiling and bowing, as Costa went off, carrying the jewel-case.

When he had gone, the other, being now alone, looked at the clock. It was getting late. San Giacomo Street is dark naturally, and already, at four o'clock, it looked as if the day was failing. Don Gennaro was thinking whether he had given an appointment to anyone else, and if he could go away, having finished his day's work, one of those hard-working Fridays for all that provide money—bankers, money-lenders, pawnbrokers. No, he thought, he had not given an appointment to anyone, and he could go away. He felt sure his coachman had brought round his carriage to take him to Carracciolo Street. But once more the faithful Salvatore came in to say three gentlemen wished to come in.

'Are there three?' asked Don Gennaro, pondering.

'Yes, three....'

'Let them in,' his master said, recollecting.

Dr. Trifari came in, fat, thick, red of beard and face, embarrassed and suspicious, taking off the high hat he always wore, like all provincials settled in Naples. Professor Colaneri was with him; he had a false look behind his gold spectacles, and bowed in the ecclesiastical style. A student, a fellow-countryman of Trifari's, and Colaneri's pupil, was the third one—a youth of twenty-two, with sticking-out teeth, a tartan necktie, and a decidedly silly look. The two, while keeping an eye on each other, glanced now at Don Gennaro, then at the embarrassed provincial lad, who seemed not to know what to do with his teeth, quite unhappy at not being able to shut his mouth. There was a curbed ferocity in Trifari's suspiciousness—it was palpable in him morally and physically; while Colaneri's was oblique, sly, cold, and hypocritical. The student looked like a fly between them—a stupid little fly held between two spiders, one cruel, the other treacherous.

Don Gennaro looked at them with a smile, guessing all that. Only to look at the wicked intentness of Dr. Trifari's eyes on the shut desk, Professor Colaneri's humble but dishonest look, the student's silliness—for he seemed to see nothing, or saw and heard without understanding—explained Salvatore's hesitation. But Don Gennaro Parascandolo, who loved artistic things, had taken up a long Japanese carved-ivory scabbard, and half drew out, as if by accident, a knife's shining blade. It was a book-cutter, though there was not a shadow of a book on the desk. With a click he sheathed it and laid it on the desk, but his fingers trifled with it. He smiled, smoking his everlasting cigarette, without offering one, however, to his three visitors.

'So we have come on that business, Signor Parascandolo. What has been done?' Dr. Trifari questioned, with a sham politeness that ill-covered his roughness.

'Yes. What do you refer to?' Parascandolo said.

'The money—the bank bill,' the plethoric doctor burst out.

'It is an ordinary affair enough,' remarked Parascandolo with an easy air.

'What do you say? With three signatures—mine, Professor Colaneri's, and Signor Rocco Galasso's—you call it an ordinary affair? Whose signature do you want—Rothschild's?'

'Certainly I would prefer Rothschild's to all signatures,' was said, with a mocking little smile. 'Business is business,' he added in his solemn way.

'We are honest men, it seems to me,' Professor Colaneri yelped out.

'I have the highest respect for you,' said Parascandolo with exaggerated politeness. 'But signatories must be solvent; that is all. I have made inquiries on account of my principal, Ascanio Sogliano. You will understand, I must prevent him making any loss, as I make use of his money. Now, Dr. Trifari, here is an excellent young fellow—he will become a light in the scientific world—but his signature is not good for a thousand francs, nor is Professor Colaneri's....'

'This is infamous!' Dr. Trifari cried out. 'I did not come here to be insulted, by Jove!'

'These are slanderous statements!' shrieked Colaneri the hypocrite.

'Where did you make inquiries?' Trifari asked, yelling.

'In your own neighbourhood,' answered Parascandolo coldly.

'Of course, in my own neighbourhood.... It is political hatreds ... election struggles!' Colaneri and Trifari shouted in chorus.

'That may be,' said Parascandolo; 'I cannot know about that, and it does not matter to Sogliano. So there remains this worthy youth here, Rocco Galasso; he is solvent. So, instead of three thousand francs, Sogliano will give a thousand, with your three signatures as a precaution.'

'It is impossible for us to agree to that!' Trifari thundered, purple with rage.

'Impossible!' shrieked Colaneri, quite livid.

'As you like,' said Parascandolo, getting up to go out.

But the most dumfounded of the three was poor Rocco Galasso, the student. He turned his stupefied eyes from Colaneri to Trifari and gasped, as if his saliva choked him. The two left the office in confusion, without saying 'Good-bye,' talking to each other, and shoving the student before them like a silly sheep. Parascandolo quietly called Salvatore to brush his great-coat. It was done silently, while he filled his case with cigarettes.

All at once, without being announced, the three burst again into the room, looking queer: Colaneri and Trifari as if forcibly restraining their rage, and Rocco Galasso, pale and humiliated, behind them, like a beaten dog.

'We are to do the business,' Trifari muttered, as if he was swallowing the wrong way. 'One thousand francs, as you said.'

Professor Colaneri agreed. Then the usual scene was repeated: The money-lender pulled out a blank promissory note for a thousand francs from the drawer and put it before Rocco Galasso, who dared not take it, but went looking Colaneri and Trifari in the eyes one after the other. The two, as if they were putting him to the torture, made him sit at a corner of the desk, and bent over, one at each side, to give him directions, and they dictated the formula word by word. He put his nose down on the paper, being short-sighted and knowing nothing about the business, never having signed a promissory note before. Then, crushed down by the two leaning on his shoulders, he got confused and frightened, and held his pen up hesitatingly. The work took a long time. The poor fellow was just going to mis-state the time of its falling due, when Trifori was down on him with a shout: 'At two months!'

At last the work was ended, and the student's forehead dropped sweat as he raised it that cool March day. Don Gennaro in the meanwhile pulled money out of his drawer and counted it.

'Seven hundred and sixty francs,' he said, holding out the bundle of notes to Rocco Galasso. 'Count your money.'

But the latter dared not take it. He looked again at his tutors. Colaneri put out his fat, cold hand and pocketed the money quickly, while Trifori glared at him.

'You take the interest in advance?' asked Trifori with a sneer.

'Yes, in advance.'

'Could you not add it to the promissory note?' Colaneri retorted, putting his hand in his pocket over the money.

'No, I cannot,' said Parascandolo dryly, getting up again.

The three went out silently. Colaneri rushed on in front; Trifori followed precipitately, forgetting Rocco Galasso, who was now of no use, while his greatest torment was that Parascandolo had made him write his address at Tito di Basilicata; and the thought that his father would know about it one day or other brought tears to his eyes.

In spite of Don Gennaro's wish to go out, he had to wait five minutes more. A little old woman, neatly dressed in black, a lady's-maid, had arrived, bringing an introductory note from Signora Parascandolo. Looking around her, she spoke to Don Gennaro in a whisper, and he listened with a fatherly, amiable smile. Then she timidly showed him something in a case, wrapped first in black cloth and then paper, which he would not even look at. He pushed it away, but not contemptuously. Then, after a few words to the old woman, he signed to her to keep silence, as she wished to begin her speech again, and he went to the desk, took out money, counted it, and handed it in an envelope to her. She waited to thank him, but he, to cut her short, asked:

'How is Lady Bianca Maria?'

'Not very well,' the old woman said, with a sigh.

In a few minutes the victoria bore easy, contented Don Gennaro Parascandolo to the Carracciolo promenade, where all his debtors, past, present, and future, greeted him with smiles and raised hats; and he smiled and bowed in return.