"What do the candles cost?" he asked the woman.
"Two bajocchi each."
As a matter of fact they were scarcely thicker than quills and were not a foot in length.
"How many candles can still go on your triangle?"
"Sixty-three, since there are seven alight."
"Ah!" thought Fabrizio, "sixty-three and seven make seventy; that also is to be borne in mind." He paid for the candles, placed the first seven in position himself, and lighted them, then fell on his knees to make his oblation, and said to the old woman as he rose:
"It is for grace received.
"I am dying of hunger," he said to Lodovico as he joined him outside.
"Don't let us go to an osteria, let us go to our lodgings; the woman of the house will go out and buy you everything you want for your meal; she will rob you of a score of soldi, and will be all the more attached to the newcomer in consequence."
"All this means simply that I shall have to go on dying of hunger for a good hour longer," said Fabrizio, laughing with the serenity of a child: and he entered an osteria close to San Petronio. To his extreme surprise, he saw at a table near the one at which he had taken his seat, Peppe, his aunt's first footman, the same who on a former occasion had come to meet him at Geneva. Fabrizio made a sign to him to say nothing; then, having made a hasty meal, a smile of happiness hovering over his lips, he rose; Peppe followed him, and, for the third time, our hero entered the church of San Petronio. Out of discretion, Lodovico remained outside, strolling in the piazza.