“The sermon, eh?—­the sermon, the sermon!” the Moro repeated mechanically, looking at the fire, and ruminating.  “See here,” he concluded, “suppose we do this.  There are pens, paper, and inkstand in the sitting-room.  Sit down there and write your stuff.  Meanwhile, if you will allow me, I will take a mouthful, as it is sixteen hours since I have eaten.  When we have finished we will talk.”

At first Don Rocco was not disposed to agree, but he was as halting in his secular utterances as he was fiery in his sacred eloquence.  He could only squirm and give out a few low, doubtful grunts; after which, as the other man kept silence, he got up from his chair with about as much difficulty as if he had been glued to it.

“I will go to find out,” said he, “but I am afraid I shall find very little, the servant—­”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” interrupted the Moro.  “Let me attend to it.  You go and write.”  He left the hearth, lighted another lamp and carried it into the neighboring sitting-room, which had windows facing the south on the courtyard, while the kitchen windows were at the back of the old convent on the north side, where the cellar and the well were placed.  Then he came back quickly, and under the eyes of the astonished priest took down a key that was hanging in the darkest corner of the kitchen, opened a closet against the wall, put up his hand without hesitating and took down a cheese of goats’ milk, the existence of which Don Rocco had not even suspected; he took bread from a cupboard, and a knife from a drawer in the table.

Now it happened for only the third or fourth time in the whole life of Don Rocco that the famous frown entirely disappeared for a few moments.  Even the eyelids stopped winking.

“You look surprised, Don Rocco,” said the Moro complacently, “because I am at home in your house.  But just keep on writing.  You will understand later.  We must also keep the fire going,” he added, when the priest, having slowly recovered from his amazement, passed into the sitting-room.

The Moro took the iron bellows, a sort of arquebuse barrel, turned one end toward the coals, and blew into the other in so unusual a way as to produce a strident whistle.  Then he started on his supper.

What possessed him!  At one moment he was devouring his food, at another he would raise his head and remain transfixed, while at another he would walk up and down the kitchen violently knocking the chairs and table.  He seemed like an imprisoned wild beast which every now and then raises its fangs from the bone, listens and looks, seizes it again, leaves it, rushes around its cage in a rage and goes back to gnaw.