“... Disposed ... always disposed to obedience....” In uttering these words he did not quite know, himself, whether he was giving a promise, or merely bestowing a commonplace compliment. The bravoes took it—or appeared to do so—in the more serious sense.
“Very good. Good-night, your Reverence,” said one of them, and turned, with his comrade, to depart. Don Abbondio, who a few minutes before would have given one of the eyes out of his head to get rid of them, now would have liked to prolong the conversation. “Gentlemen,” he began, shutting his book with both hands; but, without listening to him, they took the road by which he had come, singing the while a ditty better not transcribed, and were soon out of sight. Poor Don Abbondio remained for a moment with his mouth wide open, as if spell-bound; then he turned up the lane leading to his house, walking slowly, and seeming scarcely able to drag one leg after the other....
Alessandro Manzoni (1784–1873).
THE INTERRUPTED WEDDING.
[Don Abbondio, by finding one excuse after another for deferring the marriage, has driven Renzo nearly to despair. At last, having discovered the reason for the priest’s hesitation, in Don Rodrigo’s hostility, he eagerly adopts a suggestion of Lucia’s mother, Agnese, to the effect that a perfectly legal, though irregular, marriage may be performed by the parties severally pronouncing, before a priest, and in the presence of witnesses, the words, “This is my wife,” and “This is my husband.” Renzo easily secures two witnesses, in the persons of his friend Tonio and the latter’s half-witted brother. Tonio owes Don Abbondio twenty-five lire, for which the priest holds his wife’s necklace in pledge, and Renzo secures his co-operation by giving him the amount of the debt. The five start at dusk for Don Abbondio’s house. Agnese engages the priest’s housekeeper in conversation outside the front door, and the others slip upstairs unnoticed—the bride and bridegroom waiting on the landing, while Tonio knocks at the door of Don Abbondio’s sitting-room.]
“Deo gratias!” said Tonio, in a loud voice.
“Tonio, eh? Come in,” replied a voice from within.
Tonio opened the door just wide enough to admit himself and his brother, one at a time, and then closed it after him, while Renzo and Lucia remained silent and motionless in the dark.
Don Abbondio was sitting in an old arm-chair, wrapped in a dilapidated dressing-gown, with an ancient cap on his head, which made a frame all round his face. By the faint light of a small lamp the two thick white tufts of hair which projected from under the cap, his bushy white eyebrows, moustache, and pointed beard all seemed, on his brown and wrinkled face, like bushes covered with snow on a rocky hillside seen by moonlight.
“Ah! ah!” was his salutation, as he took off his spectacles and put them into the book he was reading.