The lady's breath returned in proportion as the wind's breath diminished, and she played resignedly, calmly oblivious to her own gross mistakes, and her husband's consequent outbursts of rage. When the rain began to rustle on the boat's awning, on the lifeless waves, which in the now almost breathless atmosphere, were rolling in against the rocks of the Tentiòn; when the boatman, judging it best to lower the sail, took to the oars once more, then, at last, Signora Barborin breathed freely. "Pin, my good fellow!" she said tenderly, and began playing tarocchi with a zeal, an energy and an expression of beatitude, which neither mistakes nor scoldings could trouble.
Many days of breva and of rain, of sunshine and of storm have dawned and faded away over the Lake of Lugano, over the hills of Valsolda since that game of cards was played by Signora Pasotti, her husband, the retired controller of customs, and the big curate of Puria, in the boat which coasted slowly along the rocky shore between San Mamette and Cressogno in the misty rain.
The times were grey and sleepy, in keeping with the aspect of sky and lake, after the breva had subsided, the breeze which had so terrified Signora Pasotti. The great breva [C] of 1848, after bringing a few hours of sunshine, and striving awhile with the heavy clouds, had slumbered for three years, allowing one breathless, gloomy, silent day to follow another in those places where the scene of this humble tale of mine is laid.
The king and queens of tarocchi, the mondo, the matto and the bagatto, were imported personages at that time, and in those parts; minor powers tolerated benevolently by the great, silent Austrian empire; and their antagonisms, their alliances, their wars, were the only political questions which might be freely discussed. Even Pin, as he rowed, eagerly poked his hooked and inquisitive nose into Signora Barborin's cards, withdrawing it reluctantly again. Once he paused in his rowing, and let his nose hover above the cards, to see how the poor woman would extricate herself from a difficult position; what she would do with a certain card it was dangerous to play, and equally dangerous to hold. Her husband thumped impatiently on the little table, the big curate sorted his cards with a blissful smile, while she clasped hers to her bosom, now laughing, now groaning, and rolling her eyes from one to the other of her companions.
"She holds the matto," the curate whispered.
"She always goes on like that when she has the matto," said Pasotti, and called to her, thumping the table one more—
"Out with the matto!"
"I will throw him into the lake!" said she. She cast a glance towards the prow, and, as an excuse, remarked that they were nearing Cressogno, and that it was time to stop playing.
Her husband fumed awhile, but finally resigned himself to putting on his gloves.
"Trout to-day, curate!" he observed, while his meek wife buttoned them for him. "White truffles, grouse, and wine from Ghemme."