Franco could have strangled him.
"Didn't I tell you I have been to Lodi? So of course I know!"
Franco, quite beside himself, protested that he was entirely in the dark.
"Of course," Pasotti continued, with greater irony than before. "It is for me to enlighten the gentleman! Then I will inform you that Professor Gilardoni, who is by no means the friend you believe him to be, went to Lodi at the end of December, and presented himself before the Marchesa with a legally worthless copy of a will which he pretends was made by your late grandfather. This will appoints you, Don Franco, residuary legatee, in terms attrociously insulting to both the wife and the son of the testator. So now you know. Indeed, Signor Gilardoni did not betray his trust, but stated that he had come on his own responsibility, and without your knowledge."
Franco listened, as pale as death, feeling darkness creeping over his sight and his soul, mustering all his strength that he might not lose his head, but be able to give a fitting answer.
"You are right," said he. "Grandmother is right also. It is Professor Gilardoni who has done wrong. He showed me that will three years ago, on the night of my marriage. I told him to burn it, and believed he had done so. If he did not, he deceived me. If he really went to Lodi on the charming errand you describe, he has committed an act of outrageous indelicacy and stupidity. You were quite justified in thinking ill of us. But mark this! I despise my grandmother's money as heartily as I despise the money of the government, and as this lady has the good fortune to be the mother of my father, I will never—never, I say—although she resort to the most base, the most perfidious means of ruining me—never make use of a document that dishonours her. I am too much her superior! Go and tell her this in my name, and tell her also to withdraw her offers, for I spurn them! Good-night!!"
He left Pasotti in a state of utter amazement, and went his way, trembling with over-excitement and rage. He forgot his lantern, and went down the hill in the dark, striding along, neither knowing nor caring where he placed his feet, and from time to time uttering an ejaculation, pouring out that which was seething within him —rage against Gilardoni, and accusations against Luisa!
Uncle Piero had gone to bed early, and Luisa was waiting for Franco in the little salon with Maria, whom she had kept up that her father might see something of her this last night. Poor little Signorina Missipipì had very soon grown weary, and had begun to open wide her little mouth, and assume a tearful expression, asking in a small and pitiful voice: "When is papa coming?" But she possessed a mamma who was unrivalled in consoling the afflicted. Now it was some time since Signorina Missipipì had owned a pair of whole little shoes: and little shoes, even in Valsolda, cost money. Not much money, it is true, but what is to be done when you have hardly any? However, this unique mamma was also unrivalled in shoeing those who were shoeless. The very day before, Luisa, in searching for a piece of rope in the attic, had found a boot which had belonged to her grandfather, buried beneath a heap of rubbish, of empty boxes and broken chairs. She had put it in water to soften, and had borrowed a shoemaker's knife, an awl, and shears. She now took the venerable boot, that frightened Maria, and placed it on the table. "Now we will recite its funeral oration," said she, with that liveliness she could assume at will, and of which even mortal anguish could not rob her, if she deemed it necessary to be lively. "But first you must ask your great-grandfather's permission to take his boot." She made Maria clasp her hands, and recite the following jingle, her eyes comically raised to the ceiling.
Great granddad of mine
Who to heav'n did climb,
This boot, to you useless
Pray give to this princess,
Who longs in vain
For slippers twain,
And throws you a kiss,
The pert little Miss,
Which she begs you to put
On the sole of your foot.