PASQUALINO DE FEO'S WILL

Don Gennaro Parascandolo, the money-lender, had for some time past been coming very often to the big gateway in Nardones Road. He went up the big stairs to the second floor, where he enjoyed real love with a poor good girl, a flower of delicacy and innocence he had found on a doorstep one evening. The wretched girl was just going to ruin. He, with his usual money-lender's prudence, had made her believe he was a poor clerk, a widower with no children, who would certainly marry her if she proved good and faithful.

The unlucky Felicetta, whose name was a mockery, lived like a recluse, served by a rough girl, her only companion. She spent her time longing for her lord and master's presence, though she did not even know his real name; and, in spite of a physical distaste, she was full of gratitude to this good Don Gennaro, who had freed her from the danger of a dreadful fall by promising to marry her when, later on, she had ended her probation of virtue and faithfulness. She was a tiny, neat little woman, with rather fine features, and a quantity of fair hair, too great a weight for her small head. Cast out on the world by a curious fate, she would certainly have fallen into an abyss if she had not met at a decisive moment Don Gennaro, who spoke to her kindly, gave her something to eat, took her to an inn, and finally hired a little flat for her in Nardones Road, where she spent her time crocheting and getting her humble marriage outfit ready, expecting Don Gennaro's visits daily, and smiling to him with lips and eyes, like the good girl she was! Besides, the money-lender, who took off his diamond rings and gold studs when he went to see her, was quite paternal with her. Every little gift—for he kept her in decent comfort only—was made so pleasantly that it brought tears to Felicetta's eyes. Though he was her lover, Don Gennaro treated her so respectfully that she went pondering in her innocent, grateful heart how she could show her gratitude and affection.

Don Gennaro, the hard money-lender, who had seen so much weeping and despair without troubling himself, was very tender with her. He often spoke sadly to her of his two handsome sons who had gone to the dark world of spirits. He got sentimental, and brought flowers like a timid young lover, asking her to pray for him; also for his dead little ones, he added, wishing to join these two loves that were so curiously different.

'For them it is no use,' replied Felicetta humbly; 'they are angels.'

Little by little Don Gennaro had gone deeper into this love-affair, more than he would have desired, still using all precautions, so that Felicetta should find out nothing about him, and no one should know about his love-affair with the poor girl. He could not restrain himself. His man's heart of ripe years, familiar with life, flamed with youthful passion. He came every day now to Nardones Road, changing the time, but spending long hours in Felicetta's simple, loving company. At the end of that stormy summer he had given up his usual autumn trip, and was forgetting his precautions, bringing gifts to the girl, who took them rather astonished; but he explained he had just succeeded to a little money.

'Then, we will get married,' the young woman said timidly, for she felt her bad position.

'I am getting my papers sent from my village,' Don Gennaro answered, sighing, regretting to the bottom of his heart he had a wife.

But one holiday, after taking a few turns in Toledo Street, when he had gone down by Sant' Anna di Palazzo to Nardones Road, carrying a bag of sweets in his hand for his lady-love, as he was going up the stairs, he heard a sort of call or whistle behind him, evidently to make him turn his head. He did turn, though he could not quite make out if it was a whistle or a loud signal that had called his attention. It had been a mysterious call, that was all, one of those voices that come from the soul. However much he looked round, above and beneath, going close to the railing, he saw nothing, could find out nothing. Annoyed at being detained on that stair, where he was always afraid of being discovered, he hurried into Felicetta's rooms. Still, all the time of the visit he was put out; he thought, secrecy being the foundation of his happiness, it had crumbled away with that voice calling to him. Indeed, next day, right under the entrance, he met the Marquis di Formosa coming down the small stair, looking as if he were in a dream. Really, they were not on speaking terms now, though they knew each other; but that day, both feeling put out, they stopped in front of each other, watching one another.

'Busy as usual,' the Marquis di Formosa muttered, in a hoarse voice that gave an idea of emotion, for it looked as if rage had made him lose his voice.

'Yes, like yourself,' Don Gennaro replied darkly.

'I have no business to do,' Formosa replied, in a still more undecided and shy manner. 'Is Signora Parascandolo well?'

'She is quite well,' Parascandolo said, at once suspecting something under the question. 'How is Lady Bianca Maria?'

'She is rather in poor health,' the old man said, hanging his head.

'Good-morning, my lord,' Parascandolo answered at once, taking the opportunity to go off.

'Good-morning, sir,' Formosa said, touching his hat, and looking after the usurer mechanically.

He went slowly up the big stair, frightfully bored by that meeting, thinking at once he must change houses and carry Felicetta off to a far-away part; and he slackened his steps to see if the Marquis were asking the porter where Don Gennaro Parascandolo was going to. But Formosa had gone off. When the usurer got to the second landing, again he heard a whiff; a flash passed before his eyes, as if the mystical warning was being repeated persistently because he had taken no notice the first time. Again holding on to the railings, he thought over where that call could come from, and told himself he must be dreaming, as there was nothing about. That love, carefully hidden, made him as superstitious as a woman.

'There must be spirits in this house,' he said to Felicetta during his call, as he could not get over his absent-mindedness. 'Twice in coming upstairs I felt as if someone was calling me, and I could not make out where the voice came from, or if it really was a voice.'

'Do you believe in spirits, then?'

'Well, who can tell?'

'This house has certainly a queer lot of lodgers,' said the girl. 'Day and night a number of suspicious-looking people come and go. The other evening, as I was watering my flowers on my balcony, I thought I heard cries and complaints coming from the first-floor. Then all was silent; I heard no more.'

'They must have been spirits,' said Don Gennaro, laughing unwillingly. 'Would you like to go to another house?'

'Yes, very much—a small house, with more sun.'

'On the Vittorio Emanuele Corso would you like?'

'It would be too grand for me.'

Don Gennaro was still thoughtful when he went away. As he was on the first-floor landing, he thought he saw two people he knew go down the small stair—the advocate Marzano and Ninetto Costa. They, heated in argument, did not see or pretended not to see him, because they owed him a lot of money, and he held a heap of stamped paper against them. But the money-lender was put out; he felt a mystery growing around him, while a burning curiosity took hold of him to know the truth. So that the next day, after wandering about all morning to find a new house for Felicetta, having found her a nook in that open quarter between Vittorio Emanuele Corso and Piedi Grotta, as he was coming back to tell her so, he stood on the stair on purpose, waiting. And the call, the fluttering, the secret voice, was heard like a suppressed summons. He peered about; this time he saw. He saw two windows of the flat that looked on to the great door, one with closed shutters, the other of obscured glass half open. There, just for a second, through the glass, an emaciated, despairing face showed that cast an imploring look at him, then disappeared, and a thin hand and white handkerchief waved to call him. Then the hand went out of sight. The darkened window was slammed violently, and the shutters were closed as on the other window. Don Gennaro turned round to go down at once to the isolated flat, but then he stood still, confused. What did it matter to him what was going on there? Who was it who showed himself imprisoned inside there? He remembered his features vaguely, though he barely had seen them. He did not know him. It had to do with a stranger; but whether he was a stranger or not, Don Gennaro's mature prudence took the alarm. Perhaps it would be best to go and give the alarm at the police court. He thought better of that, too; for many reasons it was best to have nothing to do with the police. But the idea that someone was shut up, calling for help, for days past, who would perish perhaps without his help, put him in a great state. A mysterious crime was going on; his Southerner's curiosity burned within him, and his coolness as a man who had seen many ugly scenes encouraged him to help the unlucky man. At last he went downstairs, and, crossing the small yard, he went up the damp, broken stairs. After thinking a minute, he knocked and rang. The little bell tinkled mournfully, but no sound came from inside. He knocked again; not a sound. Then time about with ringing the bell, he knocked with his ebony stick. The silence was like that of an empty house. Twice he stooped to the keyhole, and said: 'Open, by Gad! or I will go and call the police.' The second time, when he had shouted louder, he thought he heard a whisper, and he waited again. No one came to open at the loud ring he gave. Then he began to go downstairs, determined to call the police authorities. It was on the last step that he again met the Marquis di Formosa. The latter raised his head and grew pale as he recognised Don Gennaro. Still, he had the courage to ask:

'How come you here?'

'There is something wrong going on up there, my lord,' said the money-lender coldly, lighting a cigarette. 'I am going to a magistrate.'

'Why should you call in a magistrate?' the old man stammered, in a nervous way.

'I tell you that up there a disgraceful thing has happened, or will happen, and, as I am an honest man, I cannot allow it. Will you come with me to the magistrate?' and he looked him straight in the eyes.

'Don Gennaro, don't let us exaggerate. Perhaps it is a joke among friends, or a just punishment,' said Formosa, getting excited.

'I do not wish to know anything about it. I only know that a man asked my help. I know I knocked, and they would not open.'

'What exaggerated talk are you going on with?'

'Something bad is going on.'

'We will go upstairs. I will induce them to open,' said the Marquis, making up his mind to have as little of a catastrophe as possible, as it had to be.

Silently they went up together. Formosa gave two long rings, the known signal.

'Who is it?' asked a muffled voice, speaking through the keyhole.

'It is I, doctor; open, please.'

'But you are not alone.'

'It doesn't matter—open.'

'If you are not alone I will not open, as you know,' Trifari said angrily from inside.

'Open the door; it will be better for everyone, doctor,' the Marquis di Formosa negotiated. 'If you do not open the ruin will be greater. Don Gennaro Parascandolo here knows all; he wants to go to a magistrate.'

'At any rate, I am not going away,' Parascandolo said from outside. 'I will only go for the purpose of calling the police.'

'Oh dear! oh dear!' Formosa muttered with a senile quiver.

A step was heard going and coming, then a slow rattle of chain-links, and Trifari's face, with long, red hair growing unevenly on it, showed in a slit of the door.

'Open, open!' said the money-lender, grinning, going on, without seeing the bloodthirsty glance Trifari cast on him.

On going in, a smell of smoky oil caught the nostrils, of cooking done in an airless place, of not very clean people, who have lived shut up for a long time. The front-room and the so-called dining-room were dirtier than ever, with dust, lampblack, bread-crumbs, and fruit-skins. The house was like an animals' lair, when they have been shut up in their dens for days and weeks from fear of the huntsman. On a chair, pale, with hollow cheeks, pinched nostrils, bloodless ears, his blue lips half open, as if he could hardly breathe, the medium lay stretched out, his limbs flaccid, his beard long and dirty, his hair hanging in curls on his neck.

Trifari, to make him stand up, gave him two blows, one on the arm, the other on the shoulder. It brought quite a new sort of doleful expression on the unlucky impostor's face.

'What are you doing? Are you not ashamed?' shouted Don Gennaro, quite scandalized.

'He treats me so at all hours of the day,' the medium muttered in a thread of a voice.

'Keep up your courage; you will come away with me,' said the money-lender, handing him a flask of brandy that he always carried.

'I shall not have the strength, sir,' said the other feebly. 'They have killed me, shut up here, with no air nor light, with this stink that makes me sick. I have generally fasted or got poor food, and been worried all the time to give lottery numbers. I was often beaten by this hyena of a doctor, that the Lord has brought into existence, for my sins. It is agonizing, sir; I am in agony.'

'How could you do that to a man—a fellow-Christian?' Parascandolo asked severely, looking at the other two.

'See who is preaching!' shouted Trifari. His impudence was indomitable.

'You, my lord, a gentleman!' said Parascandolo, making out he would not speak to Trifari.

'What would you have? Passion carried me away,' said the old man, quite humiliated, shivering from other remembrances also.

Just then came in at the door, which had been left open, Colaneri, the viperish professor, and Don Crescenzio the lottery-banker. On seeing a stranger, recognising Don Gennaro, they understood all, and looked at each other dismayed, especially Don Crescenzio, who was a Government official, as he said.

The money-lender went on smoking coolly, whilst the medium, getting weaker, let his head fall back on the chair. The house, which had been a prison for a month now, had an ugly, sordid look, and the artificial light of the lamp in full day wrung the heart like the wax tapers round a bier. Really, Don Pasqualino looked like a corpse.

'Have so many of you set on one man?' the money-lender asked, without directly addressing anyone.

'Why did he not give the lottery numbers at once?' yelled Colaneri, pulling at his collar with a priestly gesture. 'No one would have done anything to him then.'

'You could be sent to the galleys for this, you know,' said the usurer rather icily.

'Don't you speak of the galleys; you ought to have been there long ago!' hissed the ex-priest.

The other shrugged his shoulders, then said:

'Don Pasqualino, have you the strength to get up? I want to take you away.'

The four looked at each other, grown pale suddenly. It was natural that, the thing being discovered, the medium should go away; but the idea that he would be taken away to the open air, free to come and go, and to tell what had happened—this escape from persecution made them very frightened.

'I have no strength to move, sir,' said Don Pasqualino complainingly. 'If they wanted to kill me, they could not have found a better way. God will punish them;' and he sighed deeply.

There were two knocks at the door, and two other couples came in—Ninetto Costa and Marzano, Gaetano the glover and Michele the shoeblack. Not content with coming every day, every two hours, in turn, to ask for lottery numbers, with the monotonous perseverance of the Trappist monk who says to his fellow, 'We must all die,' on Friday there was always a full meeting. Then it was a case of torture in the mass; it was the reckless conduct of those fallen to the bottom of the abyss, who still hope to get up out of it—of those hardened by passion, who see light no longer. Indeed, their cruel obstinacy had increased, because of the evil action they were doing and the persecution they had carried out against Don Pasqualino. Instead of feeling remorse, they were in a frightful rage, because even their violence had had no effect, since not one of the lottery numbers, whether given by symbol or straight out by the medium during his imprisonment, had come from the urn. The first cold douche on their wrongheadedness came when Don Gennaro Parascandolo arrived. It was only then they noticed the wretchedness and dirt of the prison where they had kept the man shut up, the cruelty of Trifari the gaoler's face, and the suffering look on the prisoner's—then only they understood that they might be prosecuted for such a crime, and that they were at Don Pasqualino's and Don Gennaro's mercy. Dumb, frozen, amazed, they did not even ask how the prison had been discovered. They now felt the heavy weight on the heart that is the first moral personal punishment of sin. The Marquis di Formosa was the most humiliated of all; he remembered he had brought the medium there, and he already saw his name dragged from the police-court to prison, then to the assizes. Now the Cabalists turned imploring looks on the two arbiters of their fate. Don Gennaro Parascandolo methodically went on smoking.

'Above all, doctor,' he said, throwing the smoke in the air, 'put out the light and open the window.'

'I won't take orders from you!' Trifari shouted. He was the only one unsubdued; he was wild at his prey escaping.

'Do you really want to go to San Francesco,' Parascandolo asked quietly, meaning the largest prison in Naples.

'They ought to put you there!' yelled the liverish Cabalist, who had got half mad from having to watch Don Pasqualino.

'I will wait till you pay me the lot of money you owe me,' remarked Parascandolo.

'Don't you wish you may get it!' said Trifari impudently.

'Someone will pay—father or mother—to avoid a trial for cheatery,' the money-lender added without putting himself about at all.

All the men looked at each other, shivering. Each of them owed money to the usurer, even Don Crescenzio. The only two who did not—Gaetano and Michele—were worried as much by Donna Concetta. Even Trifari held his tongue; the idea of being shamed in his village before those old peasants, whose secret plague he was, made him groan already like a wounded beast. Stolidly he went to open the windows and put out the smoking lamp that gave out a horrid smell of blackened wick. The bystanders' eyelids fluttered at that strong light of day; all faces were white, and the medium's was like a dying man's. The usurer gave him another sip of brandy, which he drank drop by drop, being hardly able to get it down.

'Now we will call up a cab,' said Don Gennaro.

'What! are you going to take him away?' asked Ninetto Costa in despair.

'Do you want me to leave him here for you to carry off a corpse?'

'What an exaggeration!' muttered the other vaguely. 'Don Pasqualino is accustomed to living shut up.... You are ruining us, Don Gennaro.'

'Think of your other woes,' said the money-lender gravely.

The other, struck by his words, said no more. All of them trembled, seeing the medium was trying to rise; slowly, leaning on the table, and only by a great effort, taking breath every minute, opening his livid mouth with its blackened teeth, did he succeed. The enchantment was broken altogether; now the medium was escaping for good. He would go to the police-court, and accuse them of keeping him in custody—of cruelty and ill-treatment. But at heart they thought this of less consequence than the medium's getting away, for, to revenge himself, he would never give them lottery numbers again. Would they were sent to gaol, if only they got right lottery numbers, for they would be able to corrupt justice and escape. The dream had fled; the source of riches was going, flying off. Nothing, nothing now would induce the medium to give them lottery numbers—certain, infallible ones. Every step he tried to take on his thin, shaky legs gave them a pang.

'If you don't take heart, Don Pasqualino, we shall stay here till evening,' Don Gennaro remarked.

He was in a hurry to be off. Indeed, his position among them was not very safe. All owed him money. If they had been bold enough to carry out one imprisonment, they might well carry out another more useful and profitable. Don Gennaro, indeed, took the command by his coolness and strength, but were not these men desperate? Yet they were feeling that break-up of moral and bodily strength, that weakness, that comes to the most finished scoundrels when they have carried out some wicked deed, having put all their real and fictitious strength into the enterprise and obtained no result. At any rate, it was better to go out.

'Gentlemen, I wish you good-morning,' he said, taking his hat and cane, seeing the medium was scratching at his coat with skinny hands to clean it.

'I would like to say a word to each of these gentlemen,' the medium requested.

There was a whispering. All crowded round him who spoke with the spirits, while Parascandolo was already in the lobby and held the door open as a precaution.

'One at a time,' said the medium. 'It is a kind of will I am making. I want to leave a remembrance to every one.'

He took them aside one by one in the window recess. He looked them in the face and touched their hands with his feeble, cold fingers. The first was Ninetto Costa.

'Look here, Ninetto: don't give up hope; remember, there is always a revolver for a finish up.'

'That is true,' he said, trying to find a number in the words.

The second was Colaneri, the ex-priest.

'There is the gospel for you; it opens its arms,' whispered the medium.

'Thank you for reminding me,' said the other, half cheerfully, half sadly, taking the double meaning of the advice.

The third was Gaetano, the glover.

'Why are you a married man? I would have advised you to marry Donna Concetta, who has so much money.'

'Has she a lot?'

'Yes, a great deal.'

'You are right, it is hard luck.'

The fourth was Michele, the shoeblack, the hunchbacked dwarf.

'If you were not so crooked and old, I would advise you to marry Donna Caterina, she that has the small lottery.'

'But I am crooked,' said the shoeblack sadly.

'Well, work hard.'

The fifth was Marzano, the lawyer, his head shaking, but still burning with the frenzy.

'You know, thousands of sheets of stamped paper are sold in Naples: why do you not try for a license?'

He whispered rather than said it, and the old man looked wonderingly, suspiciously at him, and went off hanging his head.

The sixth that came up was Dr. Trifari. He hesitated, for he had ill-treated the medium too much in the prison days. Still, he was treated with great civility.

'To get rid of your worries, why do you not sell all in your village and bring your parents here?'

'I never thought of it. I will consider it.'

The seventh was Don Crescenzio, the lottery-banker at Nunzio Lane, whom Don Pasqualino had had a long intimacy with. They spoke in a whisper. No one could hear what was said.

'How foolish Government is!' said the medium.

'What is that you are saying?' cried out the other, alarmed.

'I say, how stupid Government is.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'You do perfectly.'

The eighth to come up was the Marquis di Formosa. He was rather timid, too, feeling that he had done most wrong to Don Pasqualino.

'The spirit spoke to me again, my lord.'

'What did he say?'

'He told me that Donna Bianca Maria Cavalcanti was a perfectly lucid soul, but that, as I said, man's touch would defile her; it would make her obtuse and unlucky, unable to have further visions.'

'Donna Bianca shall die a virgin. Tell the spirit so,' the old man said proudly.

'Well, Don Pasqualino, are we to stay here till evening?' said the money-lender, coming in. 'Have you finished with these gentlemen?'

'Yes, I have done,' said the other in a strange voice, as if he had got back his strength in some queer way.

While the medium looked in his pockets to see if he had a torn handkerchief and a dirty pack of cards he always carried with him, and then put on his shabby hat, the Cabalists had gathered in a group, but they were not speaking. What he had said in its true and symbolical sense as a hint, a suggestion, had deeply moved them.

'Gentlemen, may God forgive you!' the medium cried out in a queer way, with a slight smile, as he went off.

They hardly greeted him, but glanced at him remorsefully. None of them dared make an excuse for the ill they had done him; each of them felt the nail riveted that the medium had driven in. The two went down the small stair very slowly, for the medium often threatened to fall. The usurer did not go so far as to offer him his arm; the medium was much too dirty. When he came to the doorway and looked around, drinking in the free air, tears came to his eyes.

'I thought I would never get out alive,' he said as he got to the carriage.

'Where do you wish to go?' asked Parascandolo.

'To the police-court,' said the other in a feeble voice again.

He was spread out in the carriage like a serious invalid. Don Gennaro frowned rather, and, not to make people stare, he had the carriage hood put up. They went on to Concezione Street.

'Do you intend to denounce them?' Parascandolo asked.

'You do not know how they have tortured me,' muttered the other, knocking his head against the carriage hood whenever there was a jostle, as if he could not keep his head straight on his shoulders.

'So you will take them up, will you?'

'For thirty days I, an unhappy man, in bad health, was shut up with no air nor light and a stinking oil-lamp, whilst they who behaved so badly to me took their exercise.'

'Why did you not give them the lottery numbers?'

'Just because——' said the medium mysteriously.

'Don Pasqualino, you don't know the lottery numbers,' said Don Gennaro, laughing.

'What does it matter to you?'

'Nothing at all; but you must be frank with me.'

'Yes, sir, yes, sir,' said the medium humbly; 'but why did they endanger my life? What harm had I done them?'

'Don Pasqualino, you ate up several thousand francs belonging to these gentlemen, to my knowledge,' Parascandolo went on in the same laughing tone.

'It was all charity, sir—charity.'

'Really, was it all charity?' Don Gennaro sneered wickedly.

'There was some little thing for myself, sir,' Don Pasqualino sighed out, with a flash of malicious amusement in his eyes.

'Then, there is no use in going to the police-court?'

'We had better go there, all the same; you will be satisfied with me.'

They got down at the big gateway in Concezione Street, where the guardians of the public safety were going and coming. It was a tremendous effort to the medium to go up the stairs; he lost his breath at every step.

'Rather an effort, eh?' the usurer said more than once.

'Don't leave me, don't desert me!' the medium sighed out.

At last they got to the first-floor, where Don Gennaro, respectfully saluted by the ushers, asked if there was a magistrate present. There was not. The head-clerk was there; he had them shown in at once, and was most ceremonious.

'Here is Signor Pasqualino De Feo; he wants to make a statement,' said the money-lender, setting to smoking a cigarette, after offering the head-clerk one, looking the medium straight in the eyes.

'I wished to know,' said he feebly, 'if anyone has come to say I had disappeared.'

The inspector took a thick ledger, and turned it over as he smoked.

'Yes, sir,' he said. 'Chiarastella De Feo, living in Centograde Lane, wife of Pasqualino De Feo, stated that her husband was unaccountably absent. She feared imprisonment or misfortune.'

'What misfortune, what imprisonment, could there be?' the medium called out, smiling ironically. 'Women always talk nonsense.'

'She said it had happened to you before, though she could not state under what circumstances.'

'Why should they have shut me up?'

'To drag lottery numbers from you.'

'Did my wife say that I knew lottery numbers?' said the medium with a little laugh.

'Do not believe it, inspector; it is nonsense,' Parascandolo added laughingly.

'I wish to state, to avoid mistakes, that, being at Palma Campania, at Don Gennaro Parascandolo's villa there, I was so ill I had to stay there a month without being able to write to my wife. Then I thought every day I would soon be able to return.'

'You witness that this is true, do you, sir?' said the inspector carelessly, not giving it any importance.

'Yes, I do, sir.'

'Then it is all right. He would have given you lottery numbers during this month's illness of his, I suppose?' asked the police official, still grinning.

'Of course he did,' said Parascandolo, in high good-humour.

'But what use are they to you? With a poor employÉ like me it would be different.'

'Don Pasqualino, if you are strong enough, give the inspector lottery numbers.'

'You are making a fool of me,' muttered the medium.

They said good-bye, and the inspector advised De Feo to go to his wife's house at once, as she would be anxious.

'Did you not see that I did as you wished, sir? I forgave those who had offended me,' said Don Pasqualino as they went downstairs.

'You are too good,' the other answered, rather ironically.

'I do not intend to make a merit of it, for there is none. I would never have accused these gentlemen.'

'Ah!' said the other, standing still for a moment. 'Why is that?'

'It would not suit me to do it.'

'I see. But why did we come here, then?'

'It was necessary to make a statement, for the police were looking for me.'

'Is your wife such a simpleton?'

'What! my wife? She is very fond of me; she is nervous for me, and says we must retire from the profession.'

'What profession is it?'

'Don't you know? She is the famous witch of Centograde, Chiarastella.'

'Ah, I remember. Her witchcraft is like your knowing lottery numbers, is it?'

'Her magic is true,' said Don Pasqualino thoughtfully and sincerely.

'And does she believe in your being a medium?'

'Yes, she does,' said the other, hanging his head. 'My wife is in love with me.'

'In love with you?'

'Yes, with me.'

'You are a queer lot,' said the money-lender philosophically. 'And, meanwhile, you have saved the eight scoundrels.'

'How have I saved them? Did you understand the advice I gave them all?'

'No, I did not,' Don Gennaro answered, surprised at the malicious tone of his voice.

'I left them each a remembrance,' the medium replied, in a shrill voice.

'Will they obey you, do you think?'

'As sure as death,' said the medium dolefully.

He bowed to Don Gennaro, and, with renewed strength, went off quickly towards Municipio Square. Parascandolo looked at him as he went off, and felt for the first time a shudder at cold malignity.