'Open, open!' said the money-lender, grinning, going on, without seeing the bloodthirsty glance Trifari cast on him.
On going in, a smell of smoky oil caught the nostrils, of cooking done in an airless place, of not very clean people, who have lived shut up for a long time. The front-room and the so-called dining-room were dirtier than ever, with dust, lampblack, bread-crumbs, and fruit-skins. The house was like an animals' lair, when they have been shut up in their dens for days and weeks from fear of the huntsman. On a chair, pale, with hollow cheeks, pinched nostrils, bloodless ears, his blue lips half open, as if he could hardly breathe, the medium lay stretched out, his limbs flaccid, his beard long and dirty, his hair hanging in curls on his neck.
Trifari, to make him stand up, gave him two blows, one on the arm, the other on the shoulder. It brought quite a new sort of doleful expression on the unlucky impostor's face.
'What are you doing? Are you not ashamed?' shouted Don Gennaro, quite scandalized.
'He treats me so at all hours of the day,' the medium muttered in a thread of a voice.
'Keep up your courage; you will come away with me,' said the money-lender, handing him a flask of brandy that he always carried.
'I shall not have the strength, sir,' said the other feebly. 'They have killed me, shut up here, with no air nor light, with this stink that makes me sick. I have generally fasted or got poor food, and been worried all the time to give lottery numbers. I was often beaten by this hyena of a doctor, that the Lord has brought into existence, for my sins. It is agonizing, sir; I am in agony.'
'How could you do that to a man—a fellow-Christian?' Parascandolo asked severely, looking at the other two.
'See who is preaching!' shouted Trifari. His impudence was indomitable.