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don matteo’s mission
73
derous locks. It had walls of lava, and a loggia
where the green slime grew over the brick floor and
where the cobwebs were so thick, that the lithe lizards
came near being caught in them.
Don Matteo lifted the knocker and struck
vigorously. And immediately the women along the
whole alley began to talk and question.
The women washing at the market-place cistern
dropped their washing stones and batlets, and began
to whisper and ask : " On what errand is Don Matteo
out now?" They said, "Why is Don Matteo
knocking at the portal of an old house that is haunted, and
where no one dares to live except the strange
signo-rina, whose father is in prison ? "
But Giannita now opened and admitted Don
Matteo, conducting him through a long corridor which
smelt mouldy and damp. In several places the tiles
had loosened, and Don Matteo could look straight
down into the cellar, where swarms of rats ran across
the black mud floor.
In wandering through the old house, Don Matteo’s
good humor left him. He did not pass a staircase
without peering suspiciously up the same, and the
least rustle startled him. He became low-spirited, as
though he foresaw some calamity. Don Matteo
remembered the little turbaned Moor who used to live
in this house, and although he did not see him, it
might nevertheless be said that he was conscious of
him in one way or another.
Finally Giannita opened a door and ushered the
rector into a room. There the walls were naked as
in a barn, the bed was as thin as a nun’s, and above
it hung a Madonna, that was not worth more than
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