Everybody was still save the old grey-headed clerk who fussed about with papers.  Signor Malipizzo, after a deferential but dignified bow to the famous lawyer, had taken his seat on the raised platform facing the public whence he was wont to dispense justice.  Nailed against the wall, directly over his head, was a large white paper bearing the printed words “La Legge”:  the law.  It dominated the chamber.  On one side of this could be seen a coloured portrait of the Sovereign in the bersagliere uniform; a fierce military glance shot out of his eyes from under that helmet whose plume of nodding feathers made it look three sizes too large for his head.  On the other side hung a representation of the Madonna, simpering benignly in a blue tea-gown besprinkled with pearls and golden lace.  The spittoon, which His Worship required continually during the audiences, was wont to be placed immediately below this latter picture; it was the magistrate’s polite freemasonish method of expressing his reverence for the Mother of God.  Everybody noticed that on the present occasion this piece of furniture was located elsewhere.  It stood below the Sovereign’s portrait.  A delicate compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn enemy to the House of Savoy.  People commented favourably on this little detail.  How artful of him! they said.

All eyes were fixed upon Don Giustino.  He sat there quietly.  If he was bored he certainly did not show it.  Now that he was here he would give these good people a taste of his quality.  He knew all about the gold coin; he was profoundly convinced of the prisoner’s guilt.  This was lucky for the young man.  Had he thought otherwise he would probably have refused to take up the case.  Don Giustino made a point of never defending innocent people.  They were idiots who entangled themselves in the meshes of the law; they fully deserved their fate.  Really to have murdered Muhlen was the one and only point in the prisoner’s favour.  It made him worthy of his rhetorical efforts.  All his clients were guilty, and all of them got off scot free.  “I never defend people I can’t respect,” he used to say.

He began his speech in a rambling, desultory sort of fashion and quite a low tone of voice, as if he were addressing a circle of friends.

A charming place, Nepenthe!  He would carry away the pleasantest memories of its beauty and the kindliness of its inhabitants.  It was like a terrestrial paradise, so verdant, so remote from all danger.  And yet nothing on earth was secure.  That volcanic eruption the other day—­what a scare it must have given them!  What a lucky escape they had, thanks to the Divine intervention of the Patron Saint!  Hardly any damage done; no victims worth mentioning.  The fertile fields were intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather round the family board.  Family life, the sacred hearth!  It was the pride,