Part 24 (1/2)

He said he had, and that she was coming home with him in order that the baby might be born there. His people, who understood the sincerity of his nature and the purity of his motives--

”Ah yes, indeed,” interrupted Ivanhoe, ”my brother has a heart of gold and we are all satisfied with his conduct.”

”But Filomena's family,” continued the corporal, ”are suspicious and unfriendly and dissatisfied. Her adorata mamma and all her aunts and female cousins wept when she left home, and they are still weeping. But what else could we do? She was getting ill after waiting so long and could not--”

”Yes,” interrupted Ivanhoe, ”she was becoming like Ettorina, and my poor brother also was unhappy.”

They admitted that the situation, though the best possible, was not ideal. The corporal has to sleep at the caserma and pretend to the authorities that he is a free bachelor, he can only visit the mother of his future children in his spare time. And this regrettable state of things had arisen in consequence, or partly in consequence, of my respect for law and order. I did not put it like that to him. I pointed out that if I had sent the 4000 francs I should have been obliged to deny myself the pleasure of coming to see him in Sicily. He concurred and thanked me for my consideration. His experience of life had already taught him that the same money cannot be spent on two different objects, and he was grateful to me for choosing the one which gave him the pleasure of making me acquainted with his fidanzata. The 4000 francs from some other source or the government appointment might drop into his lap at any moment, and at the latest, he could regularise his position in five years, when he should be forty, by leaving the service, returning to the carpentry, marrying and legitimising any children that might have been born.

So I said good-bye to the brothers, wished the corporal every happiness and gave him my sympathetic cigarette-case as a non-wedding present, or rather as something that by an enharmonic change should become transformed into a wedding present on the solemnisation of his marriage, and he swore to keep it till death as a ricordo of our friends.h.i.+p.

Next morning Ivanhoe called upon me and said:

”My dear Signor Enrico, I am in want. Would it be possible for you to lend me five francs till next week?”

I replied, ”My dear Ivanhoe, it distresses me to hear you are in want and it lacerates my heart that you should have made a request which I am compelled to decline.”

”I do not ask for myself. It is for my children.”

”Would you mind telling me, merely as a matter of idle curiosity and without prejudice to the question of the five francs, whether the mother of your children is your wife or your fidanzata?”

”She is my wife. We have been married thirteen months.”

”And how many children have you?”

”I have two.”

”Only two!”

”I am expecting another in a few weeks.”

”Bravo. Of course that alters the situation. Now suppose we settle it this way: Let us pretend that you ask me to lend you three francs, one for each child; I refuse, but propose, instead, to give you one franc on the faith of the new baby.”

”Do you mean you abandon all hope of ever seeing the one franc again?”

”I do.”

”Make it two francs and I agree.”

”No, Ivanhoe. One franc is quite enough for an unborn baby.”

”If you think so.”

So I gave him one franc.

”I am very much obliged to you,” he said, ”and now there is one more favour I wish to ask of you. Will you hold the new baby at the baptismal font and thus do me the honour of becoming my compare?”

This did not suit me at all. I replied: ”My dear Ivanhoe, let us forget all we have said since you told me you were expecting another baby, let us return to your original request and here--take four more francs. It will be better for me in the end than if I become your compare.”