'I hate to do it.'
'How much will you gain by it?'
'Two hundred francs a month in some village they will send me to.'
'It is hardly enough for bread.'
'To each of my boys that turn Protestant they will give a small sum. I will be able to marry their mother.'
'But to have to leave Christ's religion!' exclaimed Don Crescenzio, with that horror of Protestantism that is in all humble Neapolitan consciences.
'What would you have? It is hunger drives me to it,' Colaneri muttered desperately.
He seemed now altogether changed, even in his character; it was clear to him now how fatal his rage for gambling had been; he saw what he had done against himself and his own gifts, and he felt an unconquerable distaste for that apostasy. He had done wicked things; he had descended to crime, even, of a coarse kind, having got corrupted in that unhealthy atmosphere; but now he found the punishment in front of him, he trembled and lost all his bravery; he trembled at having to deny his faith, his God, for a loaf of bread.
Don Crescenzio looked at him and said nothing, amazed. He had always thought Colaneri a scoundrel, and, if he had given him credit, it was only because he thought he could seize his salary. But now, on this decisive day, he saw him cast down, moved to his inmost soul by an awful fear of the Divinity he had already betrayed and insulted, whom he was again outraging by his apostasy. Don Crescenzio, although small-minded, felt the agony of that conscience that was now fighting in its last outpost, having got to the stage where human endurance ends, the hardest, most wearing hours in life. So he dared not say anything more to him about the money. He stammered: