“_Come, come?_ What do you mean?” cried old Testaferrata, one of the largest landed proprietors in the country. “I pay the bi-monthly tax upon the produce of my estates every two months in anticipation. It is heavy enough already, in all conscience; but I remember an army of occupation cannot be maintained for nothing, and they who necessitated the Austrians being here are those we have to thank for it. _Ma, ma_, I think we bear our part sufficiently. You surely do not mean to say anything more is expected from us?”
“_Caro mio_,” answered the lady of the house, “in this extremity, miraculous powers have developed themselves to aid the suffering Church. The calendar year, without disturbing the order of nature, will henceforth consist of fourteen months! No _new_ measure is in contemplation; tranquillize yourself on this point; simply, we are to pay seven _bimestri_, instead of six, as heretofore, to supply the exhausted coffers of the treasury—or, in more straightforward terms, to line the pockets of a certain _eminentissimo_ and his amiable relations.”
“Impossible! impossible!” groaned the poor codino, “it is too hard. Surely some distinction should be made.”
“Without arguing upon differences of opinion,” mildly remarked the good Alessandro, whose office it was to spread oil upon the troubled waters of political discussion, “I am sorry to assure you, marchese, that what Gentilina tells you is too true. You may always trust to her sources of information.”
“Yes, he is right,” said the marchesa, looking at her husband with a pleased expression. “Alessandro knows I have never misled him yet in any news of this kind; and you will see that, at the end of this month, although you paid punctually at the beginning of last, you will be again summoned to do so; and then, just as if it was in the proper course of things, your usual _bimestre_ will, a few days afterwards, be called for!”
By way of parenthesis, I must state that the correctness of the marchesa's information, in the course of a few days, was fully demonstrated, while this singular arrangement is still continued yearly.
“But this is not the worst,” she continued. “Our good Conte Muzio there”—indicating the quiet man who had first alluded to the increased taxation—“lamented our losses by this long prohibition upon the exporting corn-trade—a measure rendered indispensable, we were told, by the fears entertained respecting a scarcity after next harvest; so, although commerce languished, and in the seaports thousands of people were thrown out of their usual employment, we did not complain, but acquiesced in its necessity. We sold our grain meantime—at low prices, it is true—but still we sold. There was a silent yet almost a simultaneous demand for it all over the country. Once or twice I had my misgivings, and asked who the buyers could be, and what part of the State it was principally intended to supply. 'The interior, the interior,' was always the answer. There was nothing to say against that. Notwithstanding, I remarked once or twice to Alessandro: 'There will be some _diavoleria_ here yet.' Now my words have come true! The prohibition is removed for a limited period; the ports are open again. At Civita Vecchia it is known to-day; the welcome news will reach Ancona to-morrow morning. For a moment there will be great joy. The merchants will scour the country to buy grain, but there is nothing left for them. It has all been sold—sold unsuspectingly into the hands of one person, the Cardinal Antonelli's brother. He has it all—a perfect monopoly of the corn-trade. Ha! ha! was it not cleverly done? There will be just time given for it to be all shipped, and then down comes another courier. The ports are once more closed, and the curtain falls upon the brother—or somebody else—chuckling over a few hundred thousand dollars he has realized by this pretty little transaction.”