Mariuccia shook her fist at it. "I knew this was coming," she muttered. "You want to marry Giannella, so that she shall cook and wash and patch for you gratis, and be starved to death into the bargain. And I, who have served you twenty years and have saved you hundreds of scudi, besides nursing you when you were ill and telling everybody, for the honor of the house, fine Christian lies about your being such a good master—I am to be turned out on the pavement to go and beg for new service in my old age. No, Professore mio bello, that is not going to happen. Rest easy, my son, you will not marry a new cook and you will not get rid of the old one. Leave it to me."
Giannella was really ailing now; the improvement which had surprised Mariuccia had been short-lived. The summer was long and oppressive and the scirocco had hung over the city for weeks past, stifling and heavy, an invisible pall shutting off all freshness and sucking the life out of man and beast. The older people felt it less, but to the young it was a horrible trial; little children blanched and faded away; boys and girls moved listlessly and wearily; and to those in the full tide of their youthful vitality it was like a poison absorbed with every breath. Giannella, the child of northerners, had not the yielding wiriness of the Latin constitution. She fought against lassitude and rated herself for idleness when, in the hot hours of the day, while three-quarters of the population was wisely taking its siesta, she tried task after task and dropped them all, from sheer fatigue. And now the troubles at home, the mysterious persecutions of the padrone, Mariuccia's only too natural breakdowns of temper—all these irritations on the one hand, and on the other the disturbing happiness of first love and the fear that it ought to be renounced—these things were too much for the white northern rose set to achieve its growth in the hot south, and Giannella broke down. Fever and its attendant demon, headache, had fastened upon her; for one day she lay in the dark back room, and then, feeling that she should go crazy there, she begged Mariuccia to make up a bed for her in the little workroom where at any rate the window admitted something to breathe. So Mariuccia settled her comfortably, closed the venetians and left her to herself, only looking in from time to time to bring her a sip of lemonade or turn her crumpled pillow. The summer fever was a familiar ill, and the old woman knew just what to do for it. It would pass—she had no anxiety on that score. Her whole mind was turned to something else, the discovery of some means by which to cure her padrone of the mad caprice which was destroying the peace of the household and would inevitably break up the household itself unless something were done to snap the spell.
For a spell it was, an "incanto," a cursed enchantment, cast by that stranger who had visited him some time ago but who now came no more. Yes, she had been right in fastening the blame of it on him. Again she counted the days and weeks, with all the difficulty that besets the uneducated in any attempt at accuracy, and assured herself that she had not been mistaken. It was just two days after his first visit that the padrone had discovered that Giannella cooked polpetti so beautifully—that was the beginning of his symptoms. Yes, the strange lawyer had brought the trouble (managgia to him and the best of his little dead); he had woven the spell and, according to all the canons of black magic, he alone must remove it. The only other cure would be an exorcism in form, and Mariuccia doubted whether the master in his present naughty state of mind would admit the priest and acolyte into the house, much less stand still to be sprinkled with holy water and have the prayers said over him.
So the stranger must be found and coaxed or bribed or terrorized into undoing his work. Mariuccia had no personal fear of him and no doubts of her success, could she only lay her hand upon him. If Domine Dio would but keep His Hand on her head so that she should not choke with rage before she had said her say, that say would open the lawyer's eyes to the punishments awaiting the servants of the Fiend. Cipicchia! She would describe his future and that of all his descendants, as well as the present torture of his ancestors for his misdoing, in terms so scorching that the boldest miscreant's courage must give way under them. All the splendidly vivid descriptions of hell that she had listened to in church when some Passionist Father was invited to preach repentance during Lent had been stored up in her memory, clear and sequent, as it is only possible for spoken words to be stored in minds which have always depended on oral instruction alone. Each grizzly, terrifying detail was as much a fact to Mariuccia as the visible surroundings of her daily life.
"Oh, give him to me, Madonna mia bella," she prayed, "and I will teach him something for the good of his soul, besides obtaining the cure of my poor padroncino! Tell me a little—is it his fault? How should he, good pacific man, with his blind eyes that never seem to see anything but his books and his stones—how should he recognize the emissary of Satan, in that nice frock coat too, and with such pleasant manners? That young man would have deceived anybody except an angel or a saint. Now, if I find him, I will light a candle of three pounds' weight—think of that, how grand it will look—over there at your altar in San Severino! I will indeed, if I have to go without food for a week to buy it."
Having made this heroic promise, Mariuccia felt better. She would be shown the way—who ever appealed to the Mother of Mercy in vain? And as she went cheerily about the humble tasks which made the sum of her life, a light came to her. She and Giannella must have a man to help them, a man who could go about in the streets and public places and seek out their enemy for them, as they themselves could not possibly do. And the man was there. Who but that kind, clever Signorino Goffi, who spoke so amiably, so condescendingly, not only to Giannella—small wonder in that, she was the prettiest bit of sugar in Rome—but to poor old Mariuccia Botti, who was little accustomed to courtesy and attention and had not made a new friend in twenty years.
Yes, she would tell him all about it, and he, so instructed, so intelligent, would certainly do what was required. Here was the answer to her prayer already. She would take the rest for granted and buy that candle to-morrow. The blessed Madonna would not let a poor old woman beat her in generosity—spend all that money in vain. That would hardly be delicate, and delicacy, the most exquisite consideration for the feelings of others, was, as Mariuccia knew, one of the Divine characteristics, and could always be counted upon, if poor mortals were only willing to do their part.