The clergy now
began to appear in goodly numbers upon the scene. They were in the best
of humours and more ready than usual, it seemed, to take part in any
conversation which might be going on. It had been decided, during their
informal gathering, that the apprehensions of the faithful could not be
better allayed at this preliminary stage than by a mild demonstration
of this kind. Appearances were everything; so they had concluded, not
for the first time. And it was precisely then that the simple-minded
PARROCO, surrounded by a knot of devout believers, pointed to the
playful cloudlets of smoke as they issued from the mouth of the crater
and apposite, but calculated to calm the minds of his hearers. He said
that no rosy schoolboy, smoking his first cigarette, ever looked more
innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity
that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how
inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper,
pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to
certain experiences of his own at the tender age of six years, affirmed
that the smoking of a first cigarette, for all its seeming
harmlessness, is liable to be followed by something in the nature of a
cataclysm.
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