When Andrea ascended the stairs, he could not get past Signoria Giovanna without answering to her. She was not content with the fact that he had only found such inferior employment. She said she would not rest until he had abandoned it and found a more profitable and more honourable position. He shook his head. "It will do, good woman," he said gravely, "for the little time I've still left."
"What's this talk!" the woman scolded him. "To approach the good and to let the bad come by itself, that's the thing to do for a man, and for honey you are licking, while the vermouth has you spitting. Look at the pretty sun outside, and be ashamed for coming home thus early, while there's music on the Piazzetta and those who are handsome, rich, and noble are strolling up and down the Piazza San Marco. Your place is among them, Signore Andrea, not in this room."
"I'm neither handsome, nor rich, nor noble, Signoria Giovanna."
"Doesn't it give you any joy, to see the beautiful part of the world?" she asked eagerly, looking around to see, whether Marietta might, by any chance, be nearby. "You wouldn't be lovesick?"
"No, Signoria Giovanna."
"Or might you even regard it as a sin to enjoy life? There are those little books, you've got lying on your table; I'm just saying this, because you're the first guest who has brought a religious book into my house, let God hear how I lament this! But nowadays, the young people think: Live audaciously and die piously, this is the way to spoil the devil's fun, and around Christmas time, even the sparrows on the roof are fasting."
"Kind woman," he said with a smile, "you're very worried about me, but nobody would be able to help me. When I'm sitting quietly at my work, I'm feeling most comfortable, and you could do me a favour by getting me an inkstand and a few sheets of paper."
Soon afterwards, Marietta brought what he had asked for to his room, where he was sitting silently by the window, staring into the empty space. She found him in the same position, when she brought him the light in the evening, and being asked by her what he wanted to eat, he only ordered bread and wine. She did not have the courage to ask him, whether the gnats were bothering him and whether he wanted to have the room fumigated again. "Mother," she said, sitting down on the stairs next to the old woman, "I won't go into the room again while he's there. He has such eyes, like the martyr in the small chapel of San Stefano. I can't smile, when he looks at me."
Whatever would she have said, if she had entered the room a few hours later? While the nightly winds were blowing across the canal, he stood at the window, talking to the maid on the other side, eagerly trying to give his eyes a worldly look.
"Beautiful Smeraldina," he said, "I couldn't bear waiting for the time when I was to see you again. Passing by a goldsmith's store, I've thought of you and bought you a pin, a filigree, which is certainly too inferior for you, and is still more genuine than the brooch on your turban. Open the window, then I'll throw it to you, hoping that I'll soon take the same course through the air and fall at your feet."