“You suffer,” he said kindly. “Are you very poor?”
“I do not suffer much,” the old man replied in a cheerful tone. “But my joints are stiff. And I am not poor. I have a son who earns good wages, thank God!”
A sweet smile lighted for an instant the stranger’s face. “Addio, brother!” he said, and went on, out through the piazzetta, and down the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Near a rio along which stretched a garden, several boys were engaged with some object around which they were crouched on the pavement. It proved to be a little green lizard which they had caught on the garden wall. They were trying to harness it to a bunch of leaves. The little thing lay on its back, gasping.
The stranger, with a quick, fiery movement, pushed the boys aside, and released their captive. He took the nearly dead creature in his hand, and carried it to the garden wall, then returned to the boys, who had been surprised into a temporary quiescence.
“Boys,” he said, “when some strong, cruel person shall make you suffer for his amusement, remember that lizard. If you should some day be helpless and terrified and parched with thirst, remember it.”
He left them speechlessly staring at him, called a gondola, and gave the direction of the railway station. As he passed Ca’ Mora, he looked earnestly at the window over the balcony. Elena stepped out and saw him. He raised his hand above his face in salutation, and she replied, raising her hand in the same way.
When he reached the railway landing, two gondoliers were standing on the steps, confronting each other in loud and angry dispute. They gesticulated, and flung profane and furious epithets at each other.
The stranger paused near them, and looked at one of the disputants with a steady gaze that seemed presently to check his volubility. The man grew uneasy, his attention was divided, he faltered in some retort, then turned abruptly away from his still menacing antagonist, and began to fumble with the oars and felse of his gondola.
The stranger went into the station and bought his ticket. As he stood waiting, the gondolier he had observed came in and accosted him respectfully, and with some embarrassment.