t is not _risotto_," the vanguard murmured. "It is _risotto_," the
rearguard answered in the same tone. And thus they continued, ever more
softly: "It is not _risotto_; it is _risotto_," until Pasotti pushed
open the door of the red room, where the mistress of the house was
usually to be found.

A hideous, lean, little dog trotted, barking, towards Signora Barborin,
who was endeavouring to smile, while Pasotti was putting on his most
obsequious expression, and the curate, entering last, his big face all
sweetness, was really, in his heart, consigning the cursed little beast
to hell.

"Friend, come here, Friend!" the old Marchesa said placidly. "Dear
Signora, dear Controllore, and the curate!"

Her gruff nasal voice was pitched in the same calm tone to the guests
and to the dog. She had risen to receive Signora Barborin, but did not
move a step from the sofa, and stood there, a squat figure, with dull,
torpid eyes beneath her marble forehead, and her black wig, which
rounded out over her temples in the shape of two big snails. Her face
must once have been handsome, and still retained in its pallor, tinged
with yellow like old marble, a certain cold majesty, which--like her
glance and her voice--never varied with the varying emotions of her
soul. The big curate, standing at a distance, made her two or three
jerky bows, but Pasotti kissed her hand, while Signora Barborin, who
felt her blood turn to ice under the old lady's lifeless glance, did not
know how to move, nor what to say. Another lady had risen from the sofa
when the Marchesa rose, and was staring with an insolent air at Signora
Pasotti, at that poor little bundle, old within, and new without!
"Signora Pasotti and her husband," said the Marchesa. "Donna Eugenia
Carabelli."

Donna Eugenia hardly bowed her head. Her daughter, Donna Carolina, was
standing at the window, talking with one of the Marchesa's favourites,
the niece of the agent.

The Marchesa did not consider it necessary to disturb her in order to
present the new arrivals, and when she had invited them to be seated,
she resumed her quiet conversation with Donna Eugenia concerning mutual
friends in Milan, while Friend, sniffing and sneezing, circled slowly
round Signora Barborin's shawl, which smelt of camphor, or rubbed
himself against the curate's calves, studying Pasotti the while, with
those pitiful, watery eyes of his, but never once touching him, as if he
understood that the master of that Ind