bed, and said:

"Here you are!"

Signora Barborin knelt before him, and began pulling on his stockings,
while the Controller, stretching out his arm to the pedestal, took his
snuff-box, and, having opened it, continued his previous meditations,
his fingers buried in the snuff. He intended to make several visits of
discovery, but in what order should he arrange them? From what his
farmer had told him, he judged that Signor Giacomo Puttini's Marianna,
and perhaps even Signor Giacomo himself must know something about Don
Franco, and certainly something must be known in Castello. While Signora
Barborin was tying the second shoe-lace, Pasotti remembered that it was
Tuesday. Every Tuesday Signor Giacomo, with a few friends, was in the
habit of going to the market at Lugano, or rather to the tavern called
"del Lordo," in order to vary the daily wine of Grimelli by a weekly
glass of an undiluted vintage, and he often came home in an
affectionate and communicative frame of mind. It would therefore be
better to call upon him late in the day, say between four and five. In
fancy Pasotti was already holding him in his hand, and managing him as
he liked. With a malicious smile he raised his fingers from the
snuff-box, shook the pinch to the proper dimensions by means of a few
gentle, even raps, enjoyed it at his leisure, and then his wife having
given him his handkerchief, he rewarded her by mumbling with a benign
expression of countenance, as he rolled the handkerchief into a ball:
"Poor woman! poor creature!"

When, after half an hour's labour he had put on and buttoned up his
coat, he exclaimed, seriously: "What d---- hard work!" and went to the
glass. Then his wife ventured to edge cautiously towards the door,
saying very timidly--

"Can I go now?"

Pasotti turned round frowning and imperious, and beckoning to her to
approach, he drew about her head and person certain lines in the air,
which meant a hat and shawl. She did not understand, and stood staring
at him, with her mouth open. Then she pointed her forefinger at his
breast, questioning him with her eyes, and her lifted eyebrows, as if
suspecting he wanted those articles for himself. Pasotti answered this
questioning in the same manner, with three stabs of his forefinger,
which signified: "you, you, you!" Then, making the motions of cutting
something with his open hand, he gave her to understand that she was to
go out with him. She started several times, astonished an