As she watched, a wave of golden light seemed to spread over the face of the landscape below her, and the sun rose. And Bianca Acorari flung out her arms once more; this time not in doubt and almost in despair, but in a passion of joy, thankfulness, and love.
XXVI
The Caffè Garibaldi, which was situated in the main street of Montefiano—a street that bore, as a matter of course, the name of Corso Vittorio Emanuele—was doing an unusually brisk business. At each little marble-topped table a group of excited men was sitting, each member of which was talking at the top of his voice. Nobody was listening to his neighbor; but then, as all the world knows, there are occasions when no Italian ever does listen to his neighbor during a discussion; the whole aim and object of each speaker being to talk the other down. A considerable amount of wine was being drunk, and some of it was new wine, the process of fermentation being scarcely over. No doubt this fact accounted for much of the heat with which the sole topic of conversation in the Caffè Garibaldi that evening was being discussed. There was an argument, indeed, and, taking into consideration the number of half-litres consumed and the quality of at any rate a large proportion of the wine, it was perhaps as well that everybody was of the same opinion, though each strove to express that opinion more forcibly than his companion. A difference on the main issue in question would have certainly led to quarrels, and quarrels would as likely as not have resulted in the flow of other liquid than Stefano Mazza's red wine at eight soldi the litre.
In a room at the back of the caffè—a room wherein was to be found the solitary billiard-table in Montefiano, and where the choicer and more exclusive elements of Montefianese society were wont to gather—the conversation was as animated and scarcely less noisy than in the portion communicating directly with the street bearing the name of the Re Galantuomo.
Stefano Mazza, the host, was himself attending to the wants of his clients in this more select part of his premises; and Stefano Mazza was a person of considerable weight in Montefiano, not only bodily but, what was far more important, socially. The sindaco of Montefiano himself, with all the importance of bureaucracy at his back, was not so influential a man as Stefano Mazza; for Mazza, so to speak, held the sindaco in the hollow of his hand, as he did a very considerable proportion of the sindaco's municipal councillors and of the inhabitants of Montefiano generally. There were few, very few of the Montefianesi, from officials to peasants, whose signatures to certain pieces of paper bearing the government stamp and setting forth that the signatories were in his debt to amounts ranging from thousands to tens of lire, Stefano did not possess. He was, in short, the money-lender, not only to Montefiano, but to a considerable portion of the agricultural district surrounding it, and, as such, his opinion on most questions was listened to with unfailing respect by all members of the community.
On the whole, strozzino though he was, Stefano was neither an unjust nor a hard man. To be sure, he charged a six-per-cent. interest for the money he loaned; but he was content with getting this interest and never departed from his conditions. He had been known to wait for his money, too, when, owing to bad seasons, some of his poorer clients were unable to pay their interest at the proper dates. The consequence was that Sor Stefano was regarded by his neighbors of all degrees as a personage with whom it was to their advantage to stand well; the more so as even the most prosperous among them could never tell when they might not want to borrow his money, or renew a bill for money already advanced by him.
A sudden hail-storm which would devastate the crops or the vineyards in the space of a few minutes; an unfortunate season with the lambs or the pigs; a failure with the maize or the grain—and it was as likely as not that Sor Stefano's assistance would have to be sought in order to tide over the winter months; and often, too, in order to have the rent ready for Sor Beppe, the fattore, when he should come to collect it.
It was certain, therefore, that nobody, not excepting Sor Beppe himself, was so thoroughly acquainted with the financial conditions of the tenants on the Montefiano estates as Stefano Mazza, the proprietor of the Caffè Garibaldi. Moreover, Sor Stefano and Sor Beppe were good and intimate friends, as their fathers had been before them. Sor Stefano, indeed, had recently stood by the fattore on more than one occasion, when, after the rents had been farmed out to the new lessee, Sor Beppe had been compelled to obey instructions from Rome and increase them, thereby incurring the dislike of the small holders, who not unnaturally regarded him as the primary cause of the extra burden laid upon them.
The news of Sor Beppe's dismissal from the office of fattore had stirred public opinion in and around Montefiano to its depths. Notwithstanding its Corso Vittorio Emanuele, its Via Giordano Bruno, and other outward and visible signs of a desire to tread the path of independence and liberty, Montefiano was conservative enough in maintaining its own traditions, and in not welcoming any changes in the order of things to which it had become accustomed. For five-and-twenty years Sor Beppe had been fattore at Montefiano to Casa Acorari; while, for fifty years before he succeeded to the post, it had been occupied by Sor Pompilio, his father. This fact was in itself sufficient to cause the news that another fattore was to be appointed in the place of Giuseppe Fontana to be received with astonishment and not a little indignation.
When it became known, however, that Sor Beppe had been dismissed because he had flatly declined to obey instructions of the administration in Rome to raise the rents of certain small holdings without laying the matter personally before the princess, popular indignation had increased until it became a deep and bitter anger. As Sor Beppe had pointed out to Don Agostino, it had been generally known in Montefiano for some time that the principessa's foreign priest was practically the head of the administration to the Eccellentissima Casa Acorari; and during the last few weeks, since the sudden arrival at the castle of the princess and the Principessina Bianca, rumor had insisted that the new affittuario of the Montefiano estate was no other than the priest himself. If this were not so, it was argued, why did the new affittuario never show himself in the flesh, and why did the foreign monsignore make a point of personally examining every holding on the property? But that Sor Beppe should be dismissed from a post that he had honorably filled for five-and-twenty years because he would not lend himself to furthering this interloper's schemes for enriching himself at the expense of the poor, and of the good name of Casa Acorari, was an abominable thing. Men and women had talked of nothing else in the streets of the paese during the day, and at night the men flocked to the Caffè Garibaldi to hear what Sor Stefano and the more influential members of the community might have to say on the subject.