'It will be him,' Colaneri dared to say, not raising his eyes.
'Perhaps it is,' Costa muttered, twisting his pocket-book absently in his hand.
At once all of them regretted that the medium was outside the door. The same shadow of furious disappointment disfigured their faces, hardening them, from the cruelty of a wicked man who sees his prey escaping. The furious instinct that sleeps at the bottom of all human hearts, urged by long unsatisfied passion, burst forth in that delirious form that vice produces in young and old, gentleman and working man. The faces were reserved and hard, strong in their ferocity. Dr. Trifari went forward in an energetic way to open the door. To let the company know for certain that the medium was there, he greeted him and the Marquis di Formosa at once, aloud.
'Good-evening, good evening, Don Pasqualino; we are all expecting you.'
He stood aside to let them go in; the men in the room took a long breath with fierce joy; there was no danger now that the medium would escape them. And he that spoke every night with spirits, who had especial communication by favour with wandering souls, he that ought to have known all the truth, went quietly into the little room where the meeting was, without suspecting anything. He cast, as usual, an oblique glance all round, but the Cabalists' faces said nothing new to him. They had the pallor, contortions, and feverish excitement usual on Friday evening, but he saw nothing else. Only the Marquis di Formosa, who was coming in with him, shivered two or three times; it almost looked as if he wanted to turn back. But the Marquis had been very excitable for some time past. He stammered in speaking, his noble countenance was now degraded by traces of his ignoble passion, he was badly dressed and untidy, had dirty shoes and a frayed collar, and his ill-shaved beard was disgusting and pitiable. He had got so excitable since he no longer had any money, since his daughter's engagement to Dr. Amati. The medium could get no more money out of him, so avoided him, and only saw him at the Friday evening meetings in Nardones Road. But that evening the intimacy had begun again, the Marquis had looked everywhere for the medium, and during the day had given him fifty francs, making an appointment for the evening at ten o'clock; indeed, he had anxiously insisted on this appointment, and the medium had put it down to a disappointed gambler's eagerness to get lottery numbers.