Tessa was reaching out her two quattrini with trembling hesitation, when Bratti said abruptly, “Stop a bit! Where do you live?”
“Oh, a long way off,” she answered, almost automatically, being preoccupied with her quattrini; “beyond San Ambrogio, in the Via Piccola, at the top of the house where the wood is stacked below.”
“Very good,” said Bratti, in a patronising tone; “then I’ll let you have the cross on trust, and call for the money. So you live inside the gates? Well, well, I shall be passing.”
“No, no!” said Tessa, frightened lest Naldo should be angry at this revival of an old acquaintance. “I can spare the money. Take it now.”
“No,” said Bratti, resolutely; “I’m not a hard-hearted pedlar. I’ll call and see if you’ve got any rags, and you shall make a bargain. See, here’s the cross: and there’s Pippo’s shop not far behind you: you can go and fill your basket, and I must go and get mine empty. Addio, piccina.”
Bratti went on his way, and Tessa, stimulated to change her money into confetti before further accident, went into Pippo’s shop, a little fluttered by the thought that she had let Bratti know more about her than her husband would approve. There were certainly more dangers in coming to see the Carnival than in staying at home; and she would have felt this more strongly if she had known that the wicked old man, who had wanted to kill her husband on the hill, was still keeping her in sight. But she had not noticed the man with the burden on his back.
The consciousness of having a small basketful of things to make the children glad dispersed her anxiety, and as she entered the Via de’ Libraj her face had its visual expression of childlike content. And now she thought there was really a procession coming, for she saw white robes and a banner, and her heart began to palpitate with expectation. She stood a little aside, but in that narrow street there was the pleasure of being obliged to look very close. The banner was pretty: it was the Holy Mother with the Babe, whose love for her Tessa had believed in more and more since she had had her babies; and the figures in white had not only green wreaths on their heads, but little red crosses by their side, which caused her some satisfaction that she also had her red cross. Certainly, they looked as beautiful as the angels on the clouds, and to Tessa’s mind they too had a background of cloud, like everything else that came to her in life. How and whence did they come? She did not mind much about knowing. But one thing surprised her as newer than wreaths and crosses; it was that some of the white figures carried baskets between them. What could the baskets be for?
But now they were very near, and, to her astonishment, they wheeled aside and came straight up to her. She trembled as she would have done if Saint Michael in the picture had shaken his head at her, and was conscious of nothing but terrified wonder till she saw close to her a round boyish face, lower than her own, and heard a treble voice saying, “Sister, you carry the Anathema about you. Yield it up to the blessed Gesu, and He will adorn you with the gems of His grace.”
Tessa was only more frightened, understanding nothing. Her first conjecture settled on her basket of sweets. They wanted that, these alarming angels. Oh dear, dear! She looked down at it.
“No, sister,” said a taller youth, pointing to her necklace and the clasp of her belt, “it is those vanities that are the Anathema. Take off that necklace and unclasp that belt, that they may be burned in the holy Bonfire of Vanities, and save you from burning.”