As far as money, friendship and attention goes, I have nothing but praise for her. Only I can’t change my ways at my age. You see that, don’t you? And as for all the money she used to send me when she was on the stage, I put it to better use than to lodge, dress and feed myself well I have no taste for that sort of thing. I bought land, because that’s good. It lasts and it will go back to her when I am not there any more. She is my only child. So she will have no cause to regret all she has done for me. It was her duty to give me a share of her riches and she has always fulfilled it It is my duty to make that money prosper, to invest it well and restore it to her when I die. I have always been a slave to duty.”

This narrow, selfish manner of regarding his relations with his daughter made Salvator smile.

“I am quite sure,” said he, “that your daughter does not make that kind of calculation with you and she has not the slightest idea of your system of saving.”

“It is only too true that the poor thing has no head for it at all,” replied Menapace with a sigh, “and if I listened to her I would eat up everything, I would lead the life of a prince, like her, with her, and all those to whom she flings money in handfuls! But what is to be done? We can’t agree about it She is kind, she loves me, she comes to see me ten times a day, she brings me everything she can think of to give me pleasure. If I cough or have a headache she spends whole nights with me. But all that does not prevent her from having one great fault, and that is that she is not a good mother, as I would wish.”

“What? She is not a good mother?” cried Salvator who had difficulty in remaining serious in the face of the peasant’s parsimonious morality. “I have seen her in the midst of her family and I believe you are mistaken, Signor Menapace.”

“Oh, if you think that a good mother should caress, tend, spoil and amuse her children and nothing more, very well But I am not pleased to see them never being refused anything, the little girls dressed like princesses, the boy already allowed to have dogs, horses, a boat and a gun like a man! They are good children, I admit, and very pretty, but that’s no reason for giving them all they want, as if it all cost nothing. I can see clearly that they run through at least thirty thousand francs a year in that house, what with pleasures and teachers for the children, books, music, excursions, presents … follies of all kinds. And there are charities! It is scandalous! All the cripples, all the vagabonds around here have learned the way to the house, a thing which they never knew in the days of old Ranieri, when he was the owner. There was a man who knew his interests well and made a profit out of his land! Whereas my daughter will be ruined if she doesn’t listen to me.”

The old man’s avarice utterly disgusted the prince; but Salvator was more amused by it than indignant He was well acquainted with the nature of peasants, that ruthlessness to retain things, that harshness to oneself, that thirst to acquire capital without ever enjoying one’s income, that fear of the future which to these poor toiling old men stretches beyond the grave. However he felt somewhat displeased on hearing Menapace invoke the memory of old Ranieri who had played so ugly a part in the story of Madame Floriani.

“If I remember rightly what Lucrezia told me,” said he, “this Ranieri was a vile skinflint He cursed his son and wanted to disinherit him because the latter wished to marry your daughter.”

“He caused us some trouble, it’s true,” resumed the old man, unmoved, “but whose fault was it? That young fool who wanted to marry a poor peasant girl … In those days Lucrezia had nothing. From her godmother, Signora Ranieri, she had learned many useless things, music, languages, elocution…”

“Things which have served her well since,” Salvator interrupted.

“Things which ruined her,” continued the inflexible old man. “It would have been better if the old Ranieri woman who could not give her anything towards setting her up in life hadn’t taken such a great liking to her and had left her to remain a peasant girl, a mender of nets, the daughter of a fisherman as she was and the wife of a fisherman as she could have become. Because I knew a good one, a man who had a good house, two big fishing boats, a pretty meadow and some cows. Oh yes, an excellent match. Pietro Mangiafoco, who would have married her if she had wanted to listen to reason. But instead of that, by educating her and making her so beautiful and learned, her godmother was the cause of all the misfortune which followed. Memmo Ranieri, her son, became crazy over Lucrezia and because he couldn’t marry her, carried her off. That is how my daughter was separated from me and that is why for twelve years I did not want to hear of her.”

“Save to receive the money which she sent him,” said Salvator to Karol, forgetting that the fisherman understood German.

But this reflection in no way offended the old man. “Of course I received it, invested it and turned it to good account,” he went on. “I knew that she was living on a grand scale and that one day she might be very pleased to find enough to live on after squandering all she had earned. And what hasn’t she given away and wasted? Ah! It is a curse to have such a character.”

“Yes, yes, she is a monster,” cried Salvator, laughing. “But meanwhile it seems to me that old Ranieri was ill advised not to wish to marry her to his son. He would have done so had he been able to foresee that this same young peasant girl would earn millions one day with her talent!”

“Yes, he would have done,” said Menapace, with the utmost calm, “but he couldn’t foresee it; and in refusing his consent to a marriage so unsuitable, he was within his rights. He did well Everybody else would have done the same and so would I, in his place.”

“So you don’t blame him, and very probably you remained on excellent terms with him while his son was abducting your daughter, because he was unable to extract the old skinflint’s consent?”

“The old skinflint, the avarone, as they called him, was hard, I agree; but after all he was just, and he wasn’t a bad neighbour.