'Don't let us jest,' Trifari said, in a severely reproving tone; 'we are occupied about serious matters here.'
'No one wants to make jokes!' Ninetto Costa said chidingly. 'We all know what we are doing.'
'There is no Judas here, is there?' said the doctor, looking round at everyone.
There was a protesting murmur, but it was feeble. No, none of them was Judas, nor was there a Christ among them; but all felt vaguely at the bottom of their hearts that they were going to carry out a betrayal.
'No one is Judas—no one,' cried out the doctor impetuously. 'Swear before God that if there is he must make a bad end.'
'Don't swear, don't swear,' said old Marzano, quite frightened.
Again the bell rang; they all caught each other's eye suddenly, pale and shivering; their fault rose before them. No one moved to open the door, just as if there was a serious peril behind it.
'It will be him,' Colaneri dared to say, not raising his eyes.
'Perhaps it is,' Costa muttered, twisting his pocket-book absently in his hand.
At once all of them regretted that the medium was outside the door. The same shadow of furious disappointment disfigured their faces, hardening them, from the cruelty of a wicked man who sees his prey escaping. The furious instinct that sleeps at the bottom of all human hearts, urged by long unsatisfied passion, burst forth in that delirious form that vice produces in young and old, gentleman and working man. The faces were reserved and hard, strong in their ferocity. Dr. Trifari went forward in an energetic way to open the door. To let the company know for certain that the medium was there, he greeted him and the Marquis di Formosa at once, aloud.