Antonio Fogazzaro

“ Luke, as rustic, simple, and religious as he, from its pavement to the black beams of its roof. His heart was heavy, poor priest, thus to leave his nest without honor; to carry humiliation and bitterness to his father and his sister, whose only hope and pride he was! He had every reason to frown as he looked at his breviary.
When he had finished reading, he took his seat on a bench. It was painful to him to take leave of his church. It was his last evening! He stood there with fixed eyes, his eyelids moving regularly, discouraged, cast down, like a stricken beast awaiting the axe. ”

“ There, between the old cypresses, stood the little country church of St. Luke, attached to a small convent which had had no inmates for a hundred years. The little hillock garlanded with vines had no other structures. From the convent, and from the grassy knoll, on which stood the little cypress-overhung church, the main road could not be seen, but only other knolls gay with vineyards, villas, and country houses, islands on an immense plain, extending from the hills further away as far as the Alps and blending eastward in the mists of the invisible sea. ”

“ At this blow Don Rocco shook himself a little, and with his eyes still lowered spoke up eagerly in his own defence.
"I answered according to my convictions, and now I cannot change."
He was humble-hearted, but here was a question of justice and truth. To speak according to truth, according to what one believes to be the truth, is a duty; therefore, why did they persecute him?
"You cannot change?" said the professor, bending over him and fixing on his face two squinting eyes. "You cannot change?"
Don Rocco kept silent.
The professor straightened up and started on his walk again. ”

“ Hardly was he alone with the priest when he hastened to tell him that some other person was on the point of committing a homicide, which he had himself instigated. Hardly had he said these words when he lost voice and consciousness. The priest doubted whether Sigismondo had spoken in confession or not; and he could not prevent the crime, could not save this human life in peril, unless he made use of what he had heard in confidence. Should he do this or should he let a man be killed?"
"It is Don Rocco's opinion," concluded the professor, "that the priest should act as a policeman." ”

“ It is nothing," he continued, taking the snuff. "These are things that can be remedied. The Countess Carlotta has made so much wine that, as I say, for her a few casks more, a few casks less . . . You understand me! She is a good woman, my son, the Countess Carlotta; a good woman."
"Yes, good, good," mumbled Don Rocco, looking into his snuff-box.
"You are a lucky man, my dear," continued Marin, slapping him on the shoulder. "You are as well off here as the Pope."
"I am satisfied, I am satisfied," said Don Rocco, smiling and smoothing out his brows for a moment. ”

“ The man thanked him and left, accompanied by the priest, who carried the lamp as far as the middle of the courtyard and waited there until the Moro called to him from outside the gateway that no one was there. Then Don Rocco went to close the gate, and re-entered the house.
He could not go to bed at once. He was too agitated. Body of Bacchus! he kept repeating to himself. Body of Bacchus! One could hardly have imagined so extraordinary a case, and for it to happen to him, of all men! ”

“ To go against the whole country, to go against those who give you your living, to go against your own good, against Providence, for that creature? Really, if I did not know you, my dear Don Rocco, I would not know what to think. ”

“ Luke. At once Don Rocco showed great fervor in protesting that the man was certainly innocent, and, somewhat pressed by questions, brought forth his great reason: it was precisely the Moro who had visited him at that hour, on his own business. "Perhaps it was not on the business that you think," said the policeman. "If you knew what I think!" Don Rocco did not know, and in his humble placidity did not wish to know. He never bothered himself with the thoughts of others. It was sufficiently difficult for him to get a little lucidity into his own. ”

“ Don Rocco did not want it in the least, but kept on repeating: "Thanks, thanks, I am getting over it," and drank it obsequiously.
"Well, then?" continued the professor.
"You are right," answered Don Rocco.
"About what?"
"About the woman."
"Lucia? Right! And by the way, where is Lucia? Not here? Run away?"
Don Rocco nodded. Marin looked at him stupefied and repeating, "Run away? Run away?" The other four came back into the room echoing, "Run away? Run away?"
"But listen!" said the professor. "Are you staying in bed for this reason? Are you humiliating yourself in this way? ”

“ The large cypresses, the splendid view of the plain and of the other hillsides, inspired him with not a single dream; his peasant's heart grew tender toward the beautiful vines, the fertile furrows. Though blushing and ashamed of it, he had taken a sprig of a vine and an ear of corn to carry away as mementos. This was his poetry. Of the church he could carry away nothing. ”

“ He had not seen Lucia. He had come to get the keys of the church, had found the gate of the courtyard open, as well as the door of the house; no one in the kitchen, no one in the sitting-room. Not rinding the keys, he had entered the church by the inner entry. Don Rocco sent him to the sitting-room to get his clothes, as it was there that Lucia usually worked in the evening. The boy returned to say that there were no clothes there. "How? There are no clothes?" Don Rocco ordered him to stand on guard before the entrance of the house and went down to look for them himself, in his shirt. ”

“ Now it happened for only the third or fourth time in the whole life of Don Rocco that the famous frown entirely disappeared for a few moments. Even the eyelids stopped winking.
"You look surprised, Don Rocco," said the Moro complacently, "because I am at home in your house. But just keep on writing. You will understand later. We must also keep the fire going," he added, when the priest, having slowly recovered from his amazement, passed into the sitting-room. ”

“ He remembered the pereat mundus, and the arguments of that well of science, that extraordinary man, the professor. It would be impossible now to send away Lucia. And finally the dark words of Countess Carlotta were quite clear to him. He himself must leave: pereat Rochus.
The hour was striking in the clock tower. The voice of the clock was dear to him by night. His rugged heart softened somewhat, and Satan saw his chance to show him the peaceful little church surrounded by the cypresses, his own, all his own, and a certain fig tree that was dear to him under the bell-tower ”

“ Come, like a good fellow, and we will pray the Lord and the Virgin to keep you in so good a state of mind that you may have the fortune to make a good confession. Come, like a good, devout fellow!"
Having said this, Don Rocco began to recite Paters and Aves often devoutly raising his knitted brows. The Moro answered him from his seat on the sofa. He seemed to be the confessor and the priest the penitent. ”

“ I can, I can," muttered Don Rocco, knitting his brows still more and raising a little his good-natured countryman's face. "We all make mistakes, all of us. Even he, over there, not to mention yourself, sometimes."
His voice had the tone of a peaceful animal badgered beyond all patience. The professor was laughing with his eyes. "You are quite right," said he.
The game was over, the players got up.
"Yes," said the professor with quizzical seriousness, "the case of Sigismondo is more complicated." ”

“ It is nothing but the maliciousness of people. Why, the man does not even see her!"
"Oh! Don Rocco," said the lady. "You are good, good, good. But as the world is not made that way, and as there is a scandal, if you don't make up your mind to send the creature away, I must decide on something myself."
"You will do what you like," answered the priest dryly. "Have I not got to consider what is right?"
The countess looked at him, and said, with a sudden solemnity, "Very well. ”

“ You go and write." He left the hearth, lighted another lamp and carried it into the neighboring sitting-room, which had windows facing the south on the courtyard, while the kitchen windows were at the back of the old convent on the north side, where the cellar and the well were placed. Then he came back quickly, and under the eyes of the astonished priest took down a key that was hanging in the darkest corner of the kitchen, opened a closet against the wall, put up his hand without hesitating and took down a cheese of goats' milk, the existence of which Don Rocco had not even suspected ”

“ Would it not have been better for him to give the same amount in alms?
"There is this good thing about it," he thought, "that it is a terrible bore, and that they all badger me. I certainly do not play for pleasure." ”

“ That he knows where the money is?" He kept it in a box in his bed-chamber, but there were only two ten-franc pieces, and Don Rocco reflected with satisfaction that the new wine was not yet sold, and that that money at least was safe from the clutches of the Moro. ”

“ Some time between eleven and one o'clock. One of the police smiled knowingly, but Don Rocco, innocent as a child, did not notice it. The other one asked if he did not suspect a certain Moro, knowing, as they did, that shortly before eleven o'clock he had been seen going up to St. ”