‘You live upon air, do you? Then you’re just the wife I’m looking for. Will you come down and marry me?’
As this was just what she wanted she did not keep him waiting, and soon they were married and she was installed in the miser’s house.
But it was not so easy to get at the money as she had thought. At first the miser would not let her go near his cellars; but as he spent so much time down there she said she could not be deprived of his company for so long, she must come down too.
All the time she was down with him the miser held both her hands in his, as if he was full of affection for her; but in reality it was to make sure she did not touch any of his money.
She, however, bought some pitch, and put it on the soles of her shoes, and as she walked about in the gold plenty of it stuck to her shoes; and when she came up again she took the gold off her shoes, and sent her maid to the trattoria[4] for the most delicious dinners. Shut up in a room apart they fared sumptuously—she and her maid. But every day at midday she let the miser see her taking her fancied dinner of air.
This went on for long, because the miser had so much gold that he never missed the few pieces that stuck to her shoes every day.
But at last there came a Carneval Thursday,[5] when the maid had brought home an extra fine dinner; and as they were an extra length of time over this extra number of dishes and glasses, the old miser, always suspicious, began to guess there must be something wrong; and to find it out he instituted a scrutiny into every room in the crazy house. Thus he came at last to the room where his wife and her maid were dining sumptuously.
‘This is how you live on air, is it?’ he roared, red with fury.
‘Oh, but on Carneval Thursday,’ replied the wife, ‘one may have a little extra indulgence!’
‘Will you tell me you have not had a private dinner every day?’ shouted the excited miser.