'Holy Virgin! who has blinded me?' the lottery-keeper said, crying.
'You want to kill me before the time,' Ninetto Costa muttered.
'What are you saying?'
'Nothing. But keep calm. Everything may come right gradually.'
'Wednesday is the last day I have got—Wednesday.'
'Perhaps Government will give you time. Find out some way; write to the Minister, write to the King. I must start off.'
He pointed to a small bag, not half full, with a feeble smile.
'But, really, can you not give me anything?'
'I would do it, Don Crescenzio, but I swear to you that I have not got a farthing. I am off to Rome; then I will see....'
Disappointed and excited, Don Crescenzio got up to go away, half angry and half sorry for Costa. He wanted to rush off in search of his other clients; he wanted to find money, to leave that sad house, the sad company of a man more desperate than himself. He wanted to go away. Ninetto Costa looked at him in a dull way, keeping up that pallid smile on his white lips, the absent-minded smile of a man quite indifferent to earthly affairs. Still, the other once more insisted in a vague way, as if in justice to himself, thinking he had not done enough to get his money. But the stock-broker gave him such a suffering look he said no more.