here and there with bread-crumbs; and a coffee cup had remained
half full. In the centre stood the basket of figs, whose covering of
leaves had been removed. However, only two or three of the figs were
missing. And in front of the window was Tata, the female parrot, who had
flown out of her cage and perched herself on her stand, where she
remained, dazzled and enraptured, amidst the dancing dust of a broad
yellow sunray. In her astonishment however, at seeing so many people
enter, she had ceased to scream and smooth her feathers, and had turned
her head the better to examine the newcomers with her round and
scrutinising eye.

The minutes went by slowly amidst all the feverish anxiety as to what
might be occurring in the neighbouring room. Don Vigilio had taken a
corner seat in silence, whilst Benedetta and Pierre, who had remained
standing, preserved similar muteness, and immobility. But the Cardinal
had reverted to that instinctive, lulling tramp by which he apparently
hoped to quiet his impatience and arrive the sooner at the explanation
for which he was groping through a tumultuous maze of ideas. And whilst
his rhythmical footsteps resounded with mechanical regularity, dark fury
was taking possession of his mind, exasperation at being unable to
understand the why and wherefore of that sickness. As he passed the table
he had twice glanced at the things lying on it in confusion, as if
seeking some explanation from them. Perhaps the harm had been done by
that unfinished coffee, or by that bread whose crumbs lay here and there,
or by those cutlets, a bone of which remained? Then as for the third time
he passed by, again glancing, his eyes fell upon the basket of figs, and
at once he stopped, as if beneath the shock of a revelation. An idea
seized upon him and mastered him, without any plan, however, occurring to
him by which he might change his sudden suspicion into certainty. For a
moment he remained puzzled with his eyes fixed upon the basket. Then he
took a fig and examined it, but, noticing nothing strange, was about to
put it back when Tata, the parrot, who was very fond of figs, raised a
strident cry. And this was like a ray of light; the means of changing
suspicion into certainty was found.

Slowly, with grave air and gloomy visage, the Cardinal carried the fig to
the parrot and gave it to her without hesitation or regret. She was a
very pretty bird, the only being of the lower order of creation to which
he had