He was
recalled to outer things by feeling a hand laid gently on his leg, and
immediately afterwards he heard a man's voice, in a quietly gruff tone
that scarcely rose or fell, reciting a whole litany of the most
appalling blasphemies that ever fell from human lips. For an instant, in
his suffering, Zorzi fancied that he had died and was in the clutches of
Satan himself.
He turned his head on the cushion and saw the ugly face of the old
porter, who was bending down and examining the wounded foot while he
steadily cursed everything in heaven and earth, with an earnestness that
would have been grotesque had his language been less frightful. For a
few moments Zorzi almost forgot that he was hurt, as he listened. Not a
saint in the calendar seemed likely to escape the porter's fury, and he
even went to the length of cursing the relatives, male and female, of
half-legendary martyrs and other good persons about whose families he
could not possibly know anything.
"For heaven's sake, Pasquale!" cried Zorzi. "You will certainly be
struck by lightning!"
He had always supposed that the porter hated him, as every one else did,
and he could not understand. By this time he was far more helpless than
he had been just after he had been hurt, and when he tried to move the
injured foot to a more comfortable position it felt like a lump of
scorching lead.
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