"Oh! Curatone!" Pasotti exclaimed. "Well done! Are you invited to the dinner also? Are you coming to Cressogno with us?"
"If you will take me," the curate of Puria answered, going down towards the boat. "Well, I never! The Signora Barborin is here also."
The expression of his big face became supremely amiable, his great voice became supremely sweet.
"She is devilish frightened, poor creature!" Pasotti grinned, while the curate was making a series of little bows, and smiling sweetly upon the lady, who was more terrified than ever at the prospect of this added weight. She began to gesticulate silently, as if the others had been more deaf than she herself. She pointed to the lake, to the sail, to the bulk of the enormous curate, raising her eyes to heaven, hiding her face in her hands, or pressing them to her heart.
"I don't weigh so very much," said the curate laughing. "Hold your tongue, will you?" he added, turning to Pin, who had murmured disrespectfully: "A good, big fish!"
"I'll tell you how we can cure her of her fright!" Pasotti exclaimed. "Pin, have you a little table, and a pack of tarocchi [B] cards?"
"I have a pack," Pin replied. "But they are rather greasy."
They had great difficulty in making Signora Barbara—generally called Barborin—understand the matter in hand. She would not understand, not even when her husband forced the pack of filthy cards into her hands.
For the present, however, playing was out of the question. The boat was being laboriously rowed forward towards the mouth of the river of San Mamette, where they would be able to hoist the sail. The surf, flung back from the shore, clashed with the in-coming waves, and the little boat was tossing about among the seething, foaming crests. The lady was weeping and Pasotti was swearing at Pin, who had not stood out into the lake far enough. At last the fat curate seized a couple of oars, and planting his big person firmly in the middle of the boat, bent to his work with such good will that a few strokes sufficed to send them forward and out of difficulty. Then the sail was hoisted, and the boat glided quietly and smoothly onward, rocking slowly and gently, while the water gurgled softly under its keel. Then the smiling priest sat down beside Signora Barborin, who had closed her eyes and was muttering. But Pasotti drummed impatiently on the table with the cards, and play they must.
Meanwhile the grey rain was creeping slowly towards them, veiling the mountains, and stifling the breva.