"There!" she said, "put your nose over that! It is spotted and ruined!"
Don Rocco came also, and, knitting his brows, bent down over a large spot of oil, a black island on the gray cloth, muttering most seriously, "Oh, yes!" and remaining absorbed in his gaze.
"Now, go!" said the lady. "What is done is done."
It seemed in fact, as if he were awaiting her permission to raise his nose from the repentant stool.
"Yes, I'll go now," he answered, lighting his lantern, "because I am alone at home at present, and I am even afraid that I left the door open."
Very suddenly he said "Good-night," and disappeared without even looking at the countess.
She was astonished. "Dear me, what a boor!" she said.
II.
It was a damp, cloudy night in November. Little Don Rocco was limping along towards his hermitage of St. Luke with awkward steps, his arms in parentheses, and his back arched, knitting his brows at the road-bed as he went along. He was ruminating over the dark words of Signora Carlotta, and their importance was gradually piercing his obtuse brain. He was also ruminating over the next assembly of the ecclesiastical court, over the pereat mundus and the subtle reasonings of the professor, of which he had understood so little; not to speak of the exposition of the Gospels for the next day, which he had not yet fully prepared. All this would often get inextricably confused in his mind. Certainly poor innocent Lucia must not be condemned, pereat mundus. Signora Carlotta was almost a padrona to him; but what about that other great padrone? Nemo potest duobus dominis servire; thus, beloved brethren, says the Gospel for the day.
Poor Don Rocco, as usual, had also lost at terziglio; and this gave a somewhat gray cast to his ideas, notwithstanding his proverbial carelessness of every mundane interest. That hole in his pocket, that continuous dropping, made him reflect. Would it not have been better for him to give the same amount in alms?