Marcello, as usual, as well as the old wine. She poured a little of the
latter into the glass and stirred the eggs quickly and softly, making
hardly any noise. From the recess in the wall she got a little sugar,
which was wrapped up in a bit of newspaper brown with age and smoke, and
she sweetened the eggs and wine and stirred again; and at last she came
and fed Marcello with the battered spoon. She had put off her coarse
slippers and walked about in her thick brown woollen stockings, lest she
should be heard below. She was very quiet and skilful, and she had
strangely small and gentle hands for a peasant girl. Marcello's head was
propped up by her left arm while she fed him.

She had kept him alive six weeks, and she had saved his life. She had
found him lying against the door of the inn at dawn, convulsed with ague
and almost unconscious, and had carried him into the house like a child,
though he had been much heavier then. Of course the innkeeper had taken
his watch and chain, and his jacket and sleeve-links and studs, to keep
them safe, he said. Regina knew what that meant, but Paoluccio had
ordered her to take care of him, and she had done her best. Paoluccio
felt that if the boy died it would be the will of heaven, and that he
probably would not live long with such care and such nourishment as he
would get up there in the attic. When he was dead, it would be time
enough to tell the carabineers who passed the house twice every
twenty-four hours on their beat; they would see that a sick boy had been
taken in, and that he had died of the fever, and as they need never know
how long he had been in the inn, the whole affair would redound to
Paoluccio's credit with them and with customers. But as long as he was
alive it was quite unnecessary that any one should know of his
existence, especially as the watch and chain had been converted into
money, and the money into a fine young cow. That Marcello could get well
on bread and water never entered Paoluccio's head.