She came in hastily, her fair head enveloped in a great black hood, looking like Spring out on the spree disguised as December. December was close behind her, his neck shrouded in a great scarf, above which rose the red and shining professorial nose, irritated by the snow. As it was already late they immediately took leave of Uncle Piero, who was left alone with his milk and his lamp before the dying embers of the juniper-bush.
A slight shadow of disapproval still rested on his face. Franco was playing the poet too much. Nowadays life was hard at Casa Maironi. Breakfast consisted of a cup of milk and chicory-coffee, and they used a sort of reddish sugar that tasted of the chemist's shop. They indulged in meat only on Thursdays and Sundays. A bottle of Grimelli wine appeared on the table regularly every day for Uncle Piero, who rebelled against being the privileged one. Every day clouds gathered around this bottle and a little storm burst forth, which, however, always ended as Uncle Piero wished, in a short shower of the decoction into each of the five glasses. The servant had been dismissed, and only Veronica remained to do the heavy work, stir the polenta, and sometimes look after Maria. But in spite of these and other economies Luisa could not make both ends meet, though Cia had refused to accept any wages, and gifts of curds, of mascherpa, of goats'-cheeses, of chestnuts and walnuts were always pouring in upon them from the townspeople. She had obtained some copying from a notary at Porlezza, but it was hard work for miserable pay. Franco had also begun to copy diligently, but he accomplished less than his wife and, moreover, there was not work enough for two. He should have bestirred himself, have sought some private employment, but Uncle Piero saw no signs of this, and so——?
And so this thinking about poetic expeditions seemed to him more out of place than ever. After having pondered a long time upon their sad plight, and upon the slender probability that Franco would ever be able to extricate them from it, he reflected that, for him, the first thing to do was to drink his milk, and the second, to go to bed. But another thought came to him. He opened the hall-door, and seeing the room was quite dark, went into the kitchen, lighted a lantern, and carried it to the loggia, where he opened one of the windows. Although it was snowing there was no wind, so he placed the lantern on the window-sill, that its light might help those poetic people to steer their homeward course over the dark lake.
Then he went to bed.
Ismaele brought his freight safely to S. Mamette in the covered boat. The snow was still falling placidly in big flakes. The church was already quite full, and even the ladies were obliged to stand, behind the first row of benches. Ester volunteered to look after Maria, and lifted her to a seat on top of the bench in front of them, while the sacristan was busy lighting the candles on the high-altar. Cia was tormenting the Professor, whom she believed to be a pious man, with a thousand questions concerning the difference between the Roman and Ambrosian rites, and Maria was keeping Ester busy with still more puzzling questions.
"Who are they lighting those candles for?"
"For our Lord."
"Is our Lord going to bed now?"
"No, hush!"