CHAPTER V.--continued. THE "BONCI" MURDER.


Some three years ago, then, there lived in the hamlet of Cannara, near
Perugia, a family called Bonci. They belonged to the peasant class, and
were poor, even among the Papal peasantry. The family consisted of the
father and mother, and of their son and daughter, both grown up. Between
the father and son there had long been ill-blood. The cause of this want
of family harmony is but indistinctly stated, but apparently it was due
to the irregular habits of the son, and to the severity of the father;
while all this domestic misery was rendered doubly bitter by the almost
abject want of the household. On the night of November the 9th, 1856,
Venanzio Bonci, the father, Maria Rosa, his wife, and their daughter,
Caterina, were at supper in the miserable room, which formed the whole of
their dwelling, waiting for the return of the son, Luigi, who had been
absent ever since the morning. There had been frequent quarrels before
between father and son about Luigi's stopping out late, and now it was
past midnight. There was no light in the room except a faint flicker
from the embers, and the feeble glimmering of the starlight which entered
through the open windows. A noise was heard in the stable underneath the
room, and the father, thinking it was the son, called out three or four
times, but got no answer. A few minutes after Luigi entered without the
lantern, which he had left below in the stable, and although his sister
bade him good night he made no reply. As he entered the room his father
called to him, "A fine time of night to come home." "What then?" was the
only answer given by Luigi. "You have never been home since morning,"
went on the father. "What then?" was still the only answer. The father
then told the son to hold his tongue, and again received the same reply.
At last Venanzio, losing his temper, called out, "Be quiet, or I'll break
your head;" or, according to the story, "I'll murder you:" to which Luigi