Intendant. From the instant you arrived, I felt your
smile on me as you questioned me about this and the70
other article in those papers—why your brother should
have given me this villa, that podere—and your nod at
the end meant—what?
Monsignor. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk
here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo!—75
Intendant. I have your brother's hand and seal to all I
possess: now ask me what for! what service I did him—ask me!
Monsignor. I would better not: I should rip up old
disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the80
way, Maffeo of Forli (which, I forgot to observe, is
your true name), was the interdict ever taken off you,
for robbing that church at Cesena?
Intendant. No, nor needs be; for when I murdered
your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him—85
Monsignor. Ah, he employed you in that business,
did he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa
and that podere, for fear the world should find out my
relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family
is the oldest in Messina, and century after century90
have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with
every wickedness under heaven: my own father—rest his
soul!—I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may
rest; my dear two dead brothers were—what you know
tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivaled them95
in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boyhood I came
out from among them, and so am not partaker of their
plagues. My glory springs from another source; or if
from this, by contrast only—for I, the bishop, am the
brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some100
of their wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten
treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences
of his crime—and not one soldo shall escape me. Maffeo,
the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves
pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities105
the virtuous forego, the villainous seize. Because, to
pleasure myself, apart from other considerations, my
food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my
couch straw—am I therefore to let you, the offscouring
of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating110
a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations
so unaccountably and exclusively associated with
it? Must I let villas and poderi go to you, a murderer
and thief, that you may beget by means of them other
murderers and thieves? No—if my cough would but115
allow me to speak!
Intendant. What am I to expect? You are going to punish me?
Monsignor. Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot
afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centuries of
sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in.120
How should I dare to say—
Intendant. "Forgive us our trespasses"?
Monsignor. My friend, it is because I avow myself a
very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of
conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed,125
as it were, a-pardoning?—I?—who have no symptom
of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest
efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less
keep others out. No: I do trespass, but will not double
that by allowing you to trespass.130