A deserted neighbourhood, too--a turn to the left, the low trees of the Piazza de' Branca, the dark, short, straight street to the water.

At one o'clock after midnight who was stirring?
It would all have been so simple, so terribly effectual.
And then there would have been no more Paolo, no more domestic annoyances, no more of the priest's smooth-faced disapprobation and perpetual opposition in the house.

He would have soon brought Maria Luisa and Lucia to reason.

What could they do without the support of Paolo?
They were only women after all.

As for Gianbattista, if once the poisonous influence of Paolo were removed--and how surely removed!--Marzio's lips twisted as though he were tasting the sourness of failure, like an acid fruit--if once the priest were gone, Gianbattista would come back to his old ways, to his old scorn of priests in general, of churches, of oppression, of everything that Marzio hated.