The peasant continued walking towards her, but answered nothing.
‘Maybe you’re afraid of me, as I was of the procession, that you don’t speak,’ continued Maria Grazia; ‘but I am not a spirit. I am Maria Grazia, servant in such and such a convent at Velletri.’
But still the peasant said nothing.
‘What a very odd man!’ thought Maria Grazia. ‘But as he seems to be going my way he’ll answer the purpose of company whether he speaks or not.’ And she walked on without fear till she came to the provost’s house, the peasant always keeping beside her but never speaking. Arrived at the provost’s gate she turned round to salute and thank him, and he was nowhere to be seen. He too had disappeared! He too was a spirit!
When the archpriest came he had his nephew and his servant to go with him, and they carried torches of straw,[3] for it seems in that part of the country they use straw torches; so she went back in good company.
And Maria Grazia told me that herself.
[1] ‘Fattore,’ an agent; a man who attends to the business and pecuniary affairs of a convent. [↑]
[2] ‘Suora Maria tale.’ Mary being such a favourite name, it has to be generally qualified by a second name being appended to it by way of distinction. [↑]