In fact he saw him enter Signora Cecca's house.
The old lady, who had the goitre, was in her little parlour, holding a small urchin on her left arm, while with her free hand she supported a very long and slender pasteboard tube, which was struck slanting across the window like a wall-gun and pointed down at the sparkling lake, at a white sail, filled with the breva. On the entrance of Pasotti, who came forward with stooping shoulders, his face suffused with a most gentle gaiety, the kindly and hospitable old dame hastened to put down the monstrous pasteboard nose, which she was so fond of poking into the most distant affairs of others, where her own parchment nose, though it was long beyond measure, could not reach. She received the Controller as she might have received a saintly miracle-worker, who had come to remove her goitre.
"Oh, how kind of you! Dear Sior Controlor! Oh, how kind! What a pleasure! What a pleasure!"
And she made him sit down and nearly suffocated him with her offers of hospitality.
"A piece of cake! A bit of nut-candy! Dear Sior Controlor! A little wine! A taste of rosoho!—You must excuse me," she added, for the youngster had begun to whine. "He is my little grandson, you know. My little pet."
Pasotti took a great deal of urging, having not only Don Giovanni's cherries, but also Gilardoni's beer in his stomach, but finally he was obliged to yield, and resign himself to gnawing a piece of that accursed almond cake, while the urchin clung to his grandmother's goitre.
At this the sarcastic rogue said pathetically, laughing in his sleeve the while: "Poor Signora Cecca! Twice a mother!" When he had enquired for her husband and for all her descendants even unto the third generation, he brought forward Signora Teresa Rigey. How was that poor lady? Bad! Really very bad? But since when had she been worse? Had there been any cause? Some trouble, perhaps? The old troubles were well known, but had there been some fresh ones? Perhaps on Luisina's account? About the marriage? And did Don Franco come to Castello? Ah, not in the daytime, but perhaps——?
As the patient who is being questioned and examined by the surgeon searching for the painful, hidden spot, answers ever more briefly, ever more fearfully as the hand draws nearer and nearer to the point, and starts and draws back as soon as the spot is touched, so Signora Cecca answered Pasotti ever more briefly, ever more cautiously, until, at that "but" which touched the painful spot so delicately, she started, exclaiming—
"A little more cake, Sior Controlor! It is a cake light enough for young girls."
Pasotti in his heart cursed the "young girls" and their cake, a concoction of honey, chalk and almond oil, but deemed it prudent to swallow another mouthful before once more touching, or rather pressing the tender spot he had discovered.