“Ferrara let it be,” answered the official, whistling; he took up a stamp, printed the visa upon the passport in blue ink, and rapidly inserted the words “Mantua, Venice, and Ferrara” in the blank space left by the stamp. Then he waved his hand in the air several times, signed his name, and dipped his pen in the ink again to make his flourish, a feat he performed slowly and with infinite care. Fabrizio watched every motion of his pen. The clerk looked complacently at his flourish, added five or six dots, and then returned the passport to Fabrizio, saying indifferently, “A pleasant journey to you, sir.”
Fabrizio was departing with a rapidity which he was attempting to conceal when he felt himself stopped by a touch on his left arm. Instinctively his hand sought the handle of his dagger, and if he had not seen houses all round him he might have been guilty of a blunder. The man who had touched his left arm, seeing his startled look, said apologetically:
“But I spoke to you three times, sir, and you did not answer. Have you anything to declare at the custom-house?”
“I’ve nothing on me but my handkerchief; I am going to shoot with one of my relations, quite close by.”
He would have been sorely puzzled if he had been asked to mention that relation’s name.
Thanks to the great heat and his own emotions, Fabrizio was dripping as if he had fallen into the Po. “I am brave enough when I have to do with play-actors, but custom-house clerks with brass jewellery drive me beside myself. I’ll write the duchess a comic sonnet on that subject.”
Fabrizio entered the town of Casal-Maggiore and immediately turned to the right, down a shabby street leading to the Po. “I am in sore need,” said he to himself, “of the assistance of Bacchus and Ceres,” and he entered a shop, over the door of which a gray cloth hung from a pole. On this cloth was inscribed the word Trattoria. A ragged bed sheet, supported by two thin wooden hoops and hanging within three feet of the ground, sheltered the door of the trattoria from the direct blaze of the sun. Within it a half-naked and very pretty woman received our hero respectfully, a fact which gave him the keenest satisfaction. He lost no time in telling her that he was starving with hunger. While the woman was preparing his breakfast a man of about thirty years of age came into the room. On his first entrance he made no sign of greeting, but suddenly he rose from the bench on which he had cast himself with an easy gesture, and said to Fabrizio:
“Eccellenza! la riverisco!” (I salute your Excellency!) Fabrizio felt exceedingly cheerful at that moment, and instead of at once expecting something gloomy he answered with a laugh:
“And how the devil do you know my Excellency?”