Well, this would be a terno worth having. My dream, coming as it did straight from the blue, must be infallibility itself, and we felt perfectly sure that the three magical numbers would bring a fortune for every one of us, and we all sent out and bought tickets with all the money we could spare.
This was on Thursday, and we should have to wait two whole days before we became the roaring millionaires we certainly were going to be, and we strutted about thinking what presents we would make, what jewels we would buy; in fact, how we would use our fortunes! We sat up late at night discussing the wisest and best way to invest our money, and I could not sleep for fear of a contre-coup in the shape of another dream. For instance, if I should dream of a cat miauling on a roof, it would mean disappointment. It would never do to give fate a chance like that!
Imagine with what feverish excitement we awoke on that Saturday, and how we watched the numbers, gazing from the carriage-windows, at the tobacco- shop! Well, not one of those numbers came out! We drove home in silence, with our feathers all drooping. However, we had had the sensation of being millionaires for those two days (ecstatic but short!), and felt that we had been defrauded by an unjust and cruel fate.
Unsympathetic Mr. Marshal said, mockingly: "How could you expect anything else, when you go on excursions with the Marquis Maurriti [that was the name of Garibaldi's friend]? You might have known that you would come to grief."
"Unfeeling man! Why should we come to grief?" we cried with impatience.
"Because, did you not know that he has the mal'occhio [the evil eye]? I thought every one knew it," said he, making signs with his fingers to counteract the effect of the devil and all his works. We said indignantly, "If every one knows it, why were we not told?" Our tormentor continued; "There is no doubt about it, and nothing can better prove that people are afraid of him than that when, the other evening, he gave a soirée and invited all Rome, only half a dozen people out of some five hundred ventured to go. The mountains of sandwiches, the cart-loads of cakes, the seas of lemonade, set forth on the supper-table, were attacked only by the courageous few."
"How dreadful to have such a thing said about you! Who can prove that he or any one else has got the evil eye?"
"Sometimes there is no foundation for the report; perhaps some one, out of spite or jealousy, spreads the rumor, and there you are."
"Does it not need more than a rumor?" I asked.
"Not much; but we must not talk about him, or something dreadful will happen to us."