“It is prodigious!” said Signor Alessandro Panizzi. He handed me the abstract, adding, “You will perhaps like to show it to the Excellent Lady?” He paused. “It is, of course, a question what course she will adopt. The sum is a large one, I understand.”
The anxiety that showed itself in his voice was natural and creditable to a Venetian patriot—and quite intelligible too in a gentleman who saw himself with the chance of handling an important public trust. There would be kudos to be got out of that! But I did not pay much attention to his anxiety.
“You’re right. It is prodigious,” I said, smiling broadly in spite of myself. How Arsenio must have enjoyed giving those instructions! No wonder he had looked complacent when I met him with Panizzi on the Piazza; and no wonder that Panizzi had been so deferential. A foretaste for Arsenio of the posthumous praise which he was engineering—the talk of him after his death, the speculation about him! Because, of course, he was quite safe with Lucinda—and he knew it. He was obliged, I believe, though I do not profess to know the law, to leave her part of his property. But it was handsome, more gallant and chivalrous, to give it all to her—in the sure and certain knowledge that she would not take the money brought by the winning ticket! And, next to her in his heart came his dear City of Venice! If not beloved Lucinda, then beloved Venice! The two Queens of his heart! What a fine flourish! What an exit for himself he had prepared! The plaudits would sound loud and long after he had left the stage.
“It is, of course, possible,” I found Signor Panizzi saying, “that our lamented friend had discussed the matter with his wife and that they had——”
“Well, that’s not at all unlikely. You’d like me to tell her about this?”
“It would, no doubt, be convenient to have, as soon as possible, an indication of her——”
“Naturally. I’ll speak to her, and let you know her views as soon as possible. It is a large sum, as you say. She may desire to take time for consideration.” I knew that she would not take five minutes.
“I may tell you—without breach of confidence, I think—that our lamented friend was at first disposed to confine his benefaction, in the event of its becoming operative by his wife’s renunciation, to distinctly ecclesiastical charities. I allowed myself the liberty—the honor—of suggesting to him a wider scope. ‘Why be sectional?’ I suggested. ‘The gratitude, the remembrance, of all your fellow citizens—that would be a greater thing, Don Arsenio,’ I permitted myself to say. And the idea appealed to him.”
“Really, then,” I remarked, “Venice is hardly less indebted to you—Venice as a whole, I mean—than to poor Arsenio himself!”