'What a scoundrel of a husband she has got!'
'We are not masters of ourselves,' the porter's wife prosed solemnly; 'we are all flesh.'
She was sorry, very, that the Fragalàs were going off to who knew where. She would never see them again. Most of all, she was sorry for little Agnesina; she was so good, placid, and obedient. She already went to the infants' school, tiny little body! Her mother went with her and brought her back carefully every day. They were a good sort, and it had to be seen who would come in their place.
The Cavalcantis' going away was a thing that had been foreseen for some time. The Marquis had paid no rent for several months, and Signor Rossi had stood it. He had allowed something to be paid on account now and then, partly because the Marquis di Formosa had been the old owner of the house and sold it to him, and he did not want to turn him out forcibly. How patient he had been! Now he could stand it no longer. In the Cavalcanti household they were often short of five francs for food. The Marquis had carried off the most necessary furniture piece by piece, selling it to a dealer in Baracchi Square. Donna Bianca Maria, poor soul! often dined off a hot dish that her aunt, Sister Maria degli Angioli, sent her from the Sacramentiste convent. The two old servants, Giovanni and Margherita, tried for outside work. The woman darned stockings and silk-knitted goods; the man copied papers for a magistrate's clerk. They were in such wretchedness that but for feeling shame the door-keeper would often carry up a dish of her macaroni or hot vegetable soup; but she dared not. They were gentlefolk, and bore their wretchedness silently. Besides, for want of a dower, Donna Bianca Maria Cavalcanti had been rejected as a sister of charity. By the new laws it was not allowable to go into other monasteries or orders; the new Government would not even let one be a nun.
'Then are they going away in May?' asked the inquirer rather pityingly. 'Where are they going?'
'Who can say? But I can tell you that her ladyship will not see that day. She is so ill; she wastes away like a taper; she says nothing, but when she has the strength to show at the window, she looks like a shadow. She does not go out now; indeed, she has no clothes to go out with, and if she had them she would not have the strength to go a step. Poor lady! to think her father could have got her married if he had chosen.'
'To whom? Why would he not allow it?'
Here began the woman's third sorrowful recital, the departure of the third tenant, Dr. Amati, that she earned such a lot of money by, from his sudden summonses to sick people. Alas! he was going away; indeed, he had gone, putting her on the street, poor woman, for she would never earn another farthing. Just fancy that Dr. Amati, who was so rich now, and earned as much as he liked, just out of charity, he was such a good man, had wanted to marry the Marchesina, she was so sweet and lovely; and she had been in love with the doctor, too, from her soul, because he had helped her in her illness—because she had known no other man—in short, because he only could get her out of that beggary. Well, it was not to be believed, but the Marquis di Formosa had said 'No,' and had persisted in saying 'No,' always making his daughter lose that bit of good luck she would never have again.
'What do you say?' her questioner cried out. 'It seems impossible.'
'Indeed, yes, it looks like a lie, but the Marquis di Formosa said "No." He felt quite honoured and pleased that Dr. Amati had asked for his daughter's hand, but some forbears of his long ago had left a written paper, in which it was said the last woman child of the family was not to marry—she must die a maid; and if this command was not carried out, a great punishment from God would come on her. No one knew what tears the Marchesina had shed, but her father had been firm. So that Dr. Amati—one evening they had had a great dispute—to avoid further occasions for anger, and to get the idea out of his head, had taken a month's leave from the hospital, left all his patients, and gone off to his native village to see his mother. Then he came back to Naples, but he would not even put his foot in Rossi Palazzo; he had gone to live in a furnished house in Chiaia Road. At Rossi Palazzo his flat was closed with all his furniture and books which the doctor no longer read; sometimes the housekeeper came to dust, and went away again. In a short time now the furniture and books would be carried away, too, and in May the flat would be empty. Poor Donna Bianca Maria, how often she had seen her come to the window of the inner court and gaze on Dr. Amati's closely-shut balcony! She made one's heart sore, that poor child of the Virgin, wasting away with sickness, melancholy, and wretchedness. Really it looked as if there was no more oil in the lamp. Margherita, her maid, when she spoke about her, cast down her eyes not to show she was weeping. But the Marquis was not wrong to obey his grandsire's wishes; there is no trifling with God's vengeance.'