“Thanks!” said he, fixing his eyes humbly on the end of his nose.  “Thank you very much!”

“Body of Bacchus!” he added to himself, as the professor was going down the stairs.  “He is a span higher than I am, that just occurs to me!”

But it certainly did not occur to him to call him back.

VII.

At half-past nine Don Rocco appeared in the doorway of his house to start on his exodus.  The overcoat of the professor danced around his heels and swallowed up his hands down to his finger tips.  The stove-pipe hat, of enormous size, came down to his ears.  The professor followed right behind him, laughing silently.  In the courtyard some people attracted by the report of what had happened were laughing.  “Oh, Don Rocco, see what he looks like!” said the women.  And one of them would tell him about some action of Lucia, and another about another, things of all kinds which he had never suspected.  “Enough, enough,” he answered, disturbed in his conscience at all this malicious gossip.  “It is now all over, all over.”

He went on, followed by them all, gave a last look at the fig tree near the bell-tower, and passing between the cypresses in front of the church, turned back toward the door, devoutly raised his hat, and bent his knee.

The little wagon was awaiting him on the main road.  The driver, seeing him in this costume, laughed no less heartily than the rest.

Then Don Rocco took leave of all, again thanked the professor, sent his respects to the countess, and reduced to silence those who were still heaping abuse on Lucia.  When he had taken his seat the beggar approached him and put his right hand upon one of his shoes.  “Is this yours?” said he.

“Yes, yes, the shoes are,” answered the priest with a certain satisfaction, as the horse started.

The beggar carried to his forehead the hand that had touched the shoe of Don Rocco, and said with solemnity: 

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.  Amen.”

SAN PANTALEONE

BY

GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO

The Translation by George McLean Harper.

I.

The great sandy piazza, glittered as if strewn with powdered pumice.  Its whitewashed houses held a strange metallic glow, like the walls of an immense furnace cooling off.  The glare of the clouds, reflected from the stone pillars of the church at its far end, gave them the appearance of red granite.  The church windows blazed as with inward fire.  The sacred images had assumed life-like colors and attitudes, and the massive edifice seemed lifted now, in the splendor of the new celestial phenomenon, to a prouder domination than ever, above the houses of Radusa.