“What is it?” exclaimed Mattina, “how is it you are dressed in your fine things in the morning? What is happening?”
“It is happening that I am going! That old screaming mistress of mine has sent me off!”
“But what did you do?”
“I only told her I was not a dog to be spoken to as she speaks to me, and she told me to go now at once! Well, it matters little to me; there is no lack of houses, and better than hers a thousand times! I am a poor girl without learning, but I should be ashamed to scream as she does when anger takes her. Why, you can hear her as far off as the square! Well, if she thinks I shall regret her and her screams, she deceives herself! See, I leave you the key of my trunk. I will send my brother for it this evening, if he can come so far; he lives at the Plaka[20] you know. And I will tell him to ask you for the key: I will have no pryings in my things. And Mattina ….”
“Yes?”
“Do me a favor and may you enjoy your life!”
“What shall I do?”
“Who knows when the old woman in there will get another girl to serve, and there is that poor Madmazella who is ill, and in bed again to-day, and not a soul to get her a glass of water! Go in you, once or twice, will you not? Her room is over there; it opens on the courtyard by a separate door, so you need not go near the rest of the house at all.”
“I will go,” said Mattina.
“I shall owe it you as a favor. Well, Addio—good-by—perhaps I shall see you again.”