It was the servant's curiosity, her insolent disregard for the orders of her superior, which had provoked this outburst of despotic fury in "Sior Zacomo."
"Whew! What a violent man!" she said, lifting the lamp on high. "There is no need to shout in that way! What do you think of it, Scior Parento?"
"Look here!" the engineer exclaimed. "Would it not be better for you to take yourself off, instead of standing there and jabbering?"
Marianna went away grumbling, and Signor Giacomo began to communicate his most secret thoughts to the worshipful engineer, interlarding his sentences with many buts and ifs, that is and reallys. He had promised to be present in the capacity of witness at Luisa's secret marriage, but now, when it was time to start for Castello, he was assailed by an overpowering fear of compromising himself.
He was "first political deputy," as the highest communal authority was then called. If the worshipful Imperial and Royal Commissary of Porlezza should get wind of this affair, how would he look upon it? And the Marchesa? "A terrible woman, most worthy engineer! A vindictive woman!" Besides he had so many other worries! "There is that cursed bull!" This bull, a bone of contention between the town and the alpador, or tenant of the hill-pastures, had, for the last two years, been a moral incubus to poor Signor Giacomo, who, in speaking of his troubles and trials, always began with "that perfidious servant," and ended with "that cursed bull!" In speaking these words he would raise his small face, his eyes full of pained execration, and stretch out accusing hands towards the brow of the hill which overhung his house, towards the home of that fiendish beast. But the engineer, whose fine, honest features betrayed marked disapproval and a growing contempt for this cowardly little man, who stood wriggling there before him, exclaimed several times impatiently: "Oh, dear me!" as if pitying himself for the poor company he was in. Finally, his patience entirely exhausted, he extended his arms with the elbows turned outwards, and shaking them as if he were holding the reins of a lazy old horse, exclaimed: "What is all this? What is all this? It is absurd! This is the language of a fool, my good Signor Giacomo! I would never have believed that a man like you, a man let us say——"
Here the engineer, being really at a loss for a suitable phrase wherewith to describe his companion, simply puffed out his cheeks, emitting a long-drawn-out rumble, a sort of rattling noise, as if he had an epithet in his mouth which was so big that he could not spit it out. Meanwhile Signor Giacomo, who had turned very red, was protesting eagerly: "Enough! Enough! Pray excuse me! I am quite ready! I will come! Don't get excited! I only expressed a doubt, most worshipful engineer. You know the world. So did I, at one time, but I know it no longer."
He withdrew for a moment to reappear again presently carrying an enormously high hat with a broad brim, which had seen Ferdinand enter Verona in 1838, the so-called "emperor's year."
"I feel this sign of respect and satisfaction is fitting," said he.
When the engineer caught sight of the thing, he once more ejaculated his "What is all this?" But the little man, who had a ceremonious spirit, stuck to his point. "It is my duty, my duty!" and he called to Marianna to light them down stairs. When the servant saw her master with that immense "sign of satisfaction" on his head, she gave voice to her astonishment. "Hold your tongue!" puffed the unfortunate Signor Giacomo. "Be quiet!" and as soon as he was out of the door his wrath burst forth. "There is no doubt about it, that cursed servant will be the death of me!"
"Why don't you send her away, then?" the engineer enquired.