“You look like a soul possessed,” remarked his friend Fedri affectionately, “like a painter . . . what prevented you from combing your hair? Please, next time . . . you know Mother’s views on this,” and he burst out laughing.
He was interrupted by a peevish inquiry from his father: “Well, shall we begin this bridge? We’ve still got time, you know. One game and then bed. Giorgina, would you be good enough to get the cards?”
At this point the butler appeared; he looked thoroughly dumbfounded by the turn events were taking. “What is it now?” asked Signora Gron, with ill-concealed irritation, “has someone else arrived?”
“It’s Antonio, the bailiff . . . he wants to speak to one of you, he says it’s important.”
“I’ll go,” said Stefano immediately, standing up quickly as though afraid of somehow being too late.
His wife did indeed hold him back. “No, no, you stay here. It’s far too damp outside . . . you know quite well . . . your rheumatism . . . you stay here, dear. Fedri will go.”
“It’ll only be the usual business,” said the boy, walking toward the curtain. From the distance there came a confused sound of voices.
“Are you going to play here?” asked the signora in the interim. “Giorgina, take that vase away, please . . . then do go to bed, dear, it’s already late. And what are you going to do, Martora, go to sleep?”
The old man roused himself, embarrassed: “Had I fallen asleep? Yes, I believe I had, for a few minutes.” He smiled: “The fireside, old age . . .”
“Mother,” the girl called from another corner of the room. “I can’t find the box of cards, they were here in the drawer yesterday.”
“Open your eyes, my dear. What’s that on the side table? You never find anything . . .”
Massigher arranged the four chairs and began to shuffle the pack. At this point Fedri reappeared. Wearily, his father asked, “What did Antonio want?”
“Absolutely nothing,” answered the boy merrily. “Just the usual peasant’s panics. The river’s very swollen, they say the house is in danger—think of that. They wanted me to go and see—in this weather! They’re all praying there now, and ringing the bells, can you hear?”
“Fedri, let’s go and see together,” suggested Massigher. “Just for five minutes. Will you come?”
“And what about our game, Massigher?” inquired the signora. “So you’d leave Dr. Martora in the lurch? And get a soaking too.”
So the four men began their game, Giorgina went to bed and her mother sat in a corner with her embroidery.
As the game progressed, the thuds they had heard earlier became more frequent. It sounded as if some heavy object were falling into a deep mud-filled hole, a sound of doom coming from the bowels of the earth. After each thud there was a feeling of unease, the players hesitated to play their cards, caught their breath, fumbled, but the tension vanished as quickly as it had come.
No one, it seemed, wished to talk about it. Except Martora, who observed at one point, “It must come from the sewer underneath here. There is one very old water pipe which runs into the river. Probably some sort of overflow. . . .” No one said anything.
Now it is time to study the reactions of Signor Gron, that true nobleman. He is looking at the small fan of cards in his left hand, but occasionally his glance steals out beyond the cards to take in the head and shoulders of Martora, who is opposite him, and finally to include the far end of the room where the polished floor disappears under the fringes of curtain. And now he no longer looks at the cards or at the face of his old friend, but stares beyond him at the back of the room, at the bottom of the curtain; his eyes widen further, kindle with a strange light.
At last the old nobleman says simply, dully but in a tone of great desolation, “Look.” He is not addressing his son, nor the doctor, nor Massigher in particular. He simply says “Look,” but that one word is frightening.
He uttered this one word and the others looked up, even his wife, who was sitting in a corner, with great dignity, absorbed in her embroidery. Slowly, from beneath the lower border of the dark curtain, something black and shapeless crept across the floor.
“Stefano, why on earth do you have to use that tone of voice?” exclaimed Signora Gron who had already jumped to her feet and was walking toward the curtain. “Can’t you see that it’s water?” None of the four players had stood up.
It was indeed water. It had finally crept into the villa through some crack or gap, sneaking like a snake along corridors before finally entering the drawing room, where it looked black because of the shadow. It would have been amusing, had it not been such a blatant outrage. But behind that negligible tongue of water, that merest trickle, might there not be something else? Could one be quite certain that that was the full extent of the damage? Was there no water trickling down the walls, no pools between the tall shelves in the library, no slow dripping from the arched ceiling of the next room (the water falling on the great silver salver, a wedding present given by the prince many years ago)?
“Those idiots have left a window open,” exclaimed Fedri. “Go and close it then,” said his father. But the signora intervened. “Out of the question, stay where you are; someone else will come and close it, I trust!”
She pulled the bellpull nervously and they heard the distant sound of the bell. At the same time the mysterious splashing sounds began to occur with ominous ever-increasing frequency; now they could be heard throughout the whole house. Old Gron, frowning, was staring at the tongue of water on the floor; it seemed to swell at the edges,
