'Don Pasqualino, have you the strength to get up? I want to take you away.'
The four looked at each other, grown pale suddenly. It was natural that, the thing being discovered, the medium should go away; but the idea that he would be taken away to the open air, free to come and go, and to tell what had happened—this escape from persecution made them very frightened.
'I have no strength to move, sir,' said Don Pasqualino complainingly. 'If they wanted to kill me, they could not have found a better way. God will punish them;' and he sighed deeply.
There were two knocks at the door, and two other couples came in—Ninetto Costa and Marzano, Gaetano the glover and Michele the shoeblack. Not content with coming every day, every two hours, in turn, to ask for lottery numbers, with the monotonous perseverance of the Trappist monk who says to his fellow, 'We must all die,' on Friday there was always a full meeting. Then it was a case of torture in the mass; it was the reckless conduct of those fallen to the bottom of the abyss, who still hope to get up out of it—of those hardened by passion, who see light no longer. Indeed, their cruel obstinacy had increased, because of the evil action they were doing and the persecution they had carried out against Don Pasqualino. Instead of feeling remorse, they were in a frightful rage, because even their violence had had no effect, since not one of the lottery numbers, whether given by symbol or straight out by the medium during his imprisonment, had come from the urn. The first cold douche on their wrongheadedness came when Don Gennaro Parascandolo arrived. It was only then they noticed the wretchedness and dirt of the prison where they had kept the man shut up, the cruelty of Trifari the gaoler's face, and the suffering look on the prisoner's—then only they understood that they might be prosecuted for such a crime, and that they were at Don Pasqualino's and Don Gennaro's mercy. Dumb, frozen, amazed, they did not even ask how the prison had been discovered. They now felt the heavy weight on the heart that is the first moral personal punishment of sin. The Marquis di Formosa was the most humiliated of all; he remembered he had brought the medium there, and he already saw his name dragged from the police-court to prison, then to the assizes. Now the Cabalists turned imploring looks on the two arbiters of their fate. Don Gennaro Parascandolo methodically went on smoking.
'Above all, doctor,' he said, throwing the smoke in the air, 'put out the light and open the window.'
'I won't take orders from you!' Trifari shouted. He was the only one unsubdued; he was wild at his prey escaping.
'Do you really want to go to San Francesco,' Parascandolo asked quietly, meaning the largest prison in Naples.
'They ought to put you there!' yelled the liverish Cabalist, who had got half mad from having to watch Don Pasqualino.
'I will wait till you pay me the lot of money you owe me,' remarked Parascandolo.
'Don't you wish you may get it!' said Trifari impudently.