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Updated: May 18, 2025
"Daddy, see if I know my La Fontaine fable: Le corbeau et le renard." "Very well, let's hear it," Signor Odoardo assents, taking the open book from the little girl's hands. Doretta begins: "Maitre corbeau, sur un arbre perche, Tenait en son bec un fromage; Maitre...maitre...maitre..." "Go on." "Maitre..." "Maitre renard."
Signor Odoardo, giving free rein to his thoughts, evokes the vision of his married life, sees the baby's cradle, recalls her first cries and smiles, feels again his dying wife's last kiss, and hears the last word upon her lips, DORETTA. No, no, it is impossible that he should ever do anything to make his Doretta unhappy!
Signor Odoardo, for his part, receives his new guest with some diffidence; but Doretta, intervening in Melanio's favor, undertakes to answer for his good conduct. It is long since Doretta has eaten with so much appetite. When she has finished her breakfast, she clears the table as deftly and promptly as she had laid it, and in a few moments Signor Odoardo's study has resumed its wonted appearance.
No, Signora Evelina can never restore what he has lost to Signor Odoardo. For the dead give no kisses, no caresses, and the living long to be caressed and kissed. Who talks of kisses? Here is one that has alit, all soft and warm, on Signor Odoardo's lips, rousing him with a start. Ah!...Is it you, Doretta? It is Doretta, who says nothing, but who is longing to make it up with her daddy.
Yet if, in the meantime, he engages himself to Signora Evelina, this visit to his mother-in-law will become rather an awkward business. "There I've finished!" Doretta cries with an air of triumph. But the cry is succeeded by another, half of anguish, half of rage. "What's the matter now?" "A blot!" "Let me see?...You little goose, what HAVE you done?...You've ruined the letter now!"
Doretta, having endeavored to remove the ink-spot by licking it, has torn the paper. "Oh, dear, I shall have to copy it out now," she says, in a mortified tone. "You can copy it this evening. Bring it here, and let me look at it...Not bad, not bad at all. A few letters to be added, and a few to be taken out; but, on the whole, for a chit of your size, it's fairly creditable. Good girl!"
"Oho," Signer Odoardo says to himself, "it is time to have this matter out." And, going up to Doretta, he takes her by the hand, leads her to the sofa, and lifts her on his knee. "Now, then, Doretta, why is it that you are so disagreeable to Signora Evelina?" The little girl, not knowing what to answer, grows red and embarrassed. "What has Signora Evelina done to you?" her father continues.
Doretta, meanwhile, is convulsing the kitchen with the noisy announcement of the impending journey. At first she is thought to be joking, but when she establishes the fact that she is speaking seriously, it is respectfully pointed out to her that the master of the house must be crazy. To start on a journey in the depth of winter, and in such weather! If at least they were to wait for a fine day!
Signor Odoardo, who is not an ill- mannered boor, yields to the temptation of opening the window for a moment. "Bravo, Signora Evelina! I see you are not afraid of the snow." "Oh, Signor Odoardo, what fiendish weather!...But, if I am not mistaken, that is Doretta with you...How do you do, Doretta?" "Doretta, come here and say how do you do to the lady." "No, no let her be, let her be!
Only the cat Melanio remains, comfortably established by the stove, on the understanding that he is to be left there as long as he is not troublesome. The continual coming and going has made the room grow colder. The mercury has dropped perceptibly, and Doretta, to make it rise again, empties nearly the whole wood-basket into the stove. How it snows, how it snows!
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