When Vanna announced her condition the neighbours looked slyly at eachother; when her condition announced Vanna, they chattered; the gossipsank to whispering behind the hand as time went on, and ceasedaltogether when the baby was born. That was a signal for heads to shake.Some pitied the father, many defended the mother: it did not depend uponyour sex; sides were taken freely and voices were shrill when neitherwas by. Down by the river especially, upon that bleached board below thebridge, ci and si whistled like the wind in the chimneys, and thehands of testimony were as the aspen leaves when storms are in. Sometook one side, some another; but when, in due season, it was seen whatinordinate pride Baldassare had in the black-eyed bambino there was noquestion of sides. He had ranked himself with the unforgivable party:the old man was an old fool, a gull whose power of swallow stirreddisgust. Vanna had the rights of it, they said; such men were made to betricked. As for Fra Battista's pulpit, it was thronged about withupturned faces; for those who had not been before went now to judge whatthey would have done under the circumstances.[Pg 19] Having been, there wereno two opinions about that. Messer Gabriele Arcangelo, some said,judging by the honey-tongue; San Bastiano, others considered him, whowent by his comely proportions; and these gained the day, since hisbeardless face and friar's frock induced the idea of innocence, whichSebastian's virgin bloom also taught. The quality of his sermons did notgrow threadbare under this adventitious criticism: he kept a serenefront, lost no authority, nor failed of any unction. There was always afile at his confessional; and at Corpus Christi, when in the pageant heactually figured as Sebastian, his plump round limbs roped to apine-stock drew tears from all eyes.
A scared city of blank casements, a city of citizens feverishly askingquestions whose answers they knew beforehand, a city of swift feet andhushed voices, was Verona on the morrow of Can Grande's murder. Theycarried the two torn bodies covered with one sheet to Sant' Anastasia,and laid them there, not in state but just huddled out of sight, whilethe bishop and his canons sang a requiem, and "Dirige" and "Placebo"went whining about the timbers of the roof. Nobody mourned the man, yethe had his due. His yellow-skinned wife knelt at his feet; Can Signorio,the new tyrant, frozen rigid, armed in mail, knelt at his head. Themercenaries held the nave, the bodyguard the door, archers lounged inthe Piazza. All this parade of force was mere superfluity; Verona had nodesire to revolt. The Veronese were for rending their hearts and nottheir rulers that day.
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