"Well, let her go to the devil!"
"Who is to go to the devil?" asked a sonorous voice from the doorway. It was Isidoro Pane, an old leech-fisher related to the Eras. He had come on a visit of condolence. Tall, with blue eyes and a yellow beard, a bone rosary about his waist, and clasping a long staff with a bundle fastened to the top, Uncle Isidoro looked like a pilgrim. He was the poorest and the gentlest and the most peaceable inhabitant of Orlei. When he wanted to swear, all he said was: "May you become a leech-fisher!" He and Costantino were great friends. Often and often had the two sung the holy lauds in church together, and the Eras had named him as a witness for the defence, because no one could testify better than he to the blameless character of the accused man. His name had, however, been rejected. What, indeed, would the testimony of a poor leech-fisher amount to when confronted with the majesty of the law!
The moment she saw him, Giovanna gave way and began to sob.
"The will of God be done!" said Isidoro, leaninghis staff against the wall. "Be patient, Giovanna Era, you must not lose your trust in God."
"You know?" asked Giovanna.
"Yes, I have heard. Well, he is innocent. And I tell you that even though he has been condemned to-day, to-morrow his innocence may be proved."
"Ah! Uncle Isidoro," said Giovanna, shaking her head. "Your confidence doesn't impress me any longer. Up to yesterday I believed in you, but now I have lost faith."
"You are not a good Christian; this is Bachissia Era's doing."
Aunt Bachissia, who regarded the fisherman with scant favour, and was always afraid of his bringing vermin into the house, turned on him angrily, and was about to launch forth into abuse, when another visitor arrived. He was presently followed by others, and still others, until at last the little cottage was filled with condoling neighbours; while Giovanna, who was really tired by this time even of weeping, felt it incumbent upon her to continue to sob and lament desperately.
All the time, Aunt Bachissia kept watching for the rich neighbour, but she did not appear. Instead, there came Giacobbe Dejas, the man who was about to enter her service. He was a cheerful soul, about fifty years old; ordinary-looking, short, thin, smooth-shaven, and bald; with no eyebrows, and a decided squint; the eyes, small and cunning, were of a nondescript colour, something between yellow and green.He had worked for Basile Ledda for twenty years, and had been called as a witness for the defence. In his testimony he had alluded to the ill-treatment Costantino had received from his uncle, but told also how the old miser had maltreated every one, his women and servants as well. Why, the very day before his death he had struck and kicked him—Giacobbe Dejas!
"Malthina Dejas is expecting you," said Aunt Bachissia. "You had better go on up there."
"The devil cut off her nose!" replied Giacobbe. "I'll go presently. What I'm afraid of is of falling out of the frying-pan into the fire! She's a worse miser than evenhewas."
"If she pays you what you earn, you've no right to judge her," said the ringing voice of Uncle Isidoro.
"Ah! you are there, are you?" said Giacobbe mockingly. "How are the legs? Pretty well punctured?"
Isidoro regarded his legs, which were wrapped about with bits of rag. It was his habit to stand in stagnant water until the leeches attached themselves to him.
"That need not concern you," he answered quietly. "But it is not well to curse the woman whose bread you are going to eat."
"I shall eat my own bread, not hers, and that is our affair. Come now, Giovanna, take heart! What the devil! Do you remember that story I was tellingyou on the road from Nuoro? Be sensible now, for this little chap's sake. Costantino is not going to die in prison, I can tell you that myself. Give me the baby," he added, stooping down to take it, but finding the little fellow asleep, he straightened himself, and, placing a finger on his lips, "Aunt Bachissia," he said (he always used the "Aunt" and "Uncle" even with people younger than himself), "do me a favour; send your daughter to bed; she has come to the end of her forces. And you, good people," he continued, turning to the company, "let us do something as well, let us take ourselves off."
One by one, accordingly, they all departed. Aunt Bachissia, seizing the stool upon which Isidoro Pane had been seated, took it outside and wiped it vigorously. When she came in she found Giovanna fallen into a sort of a doze, and had to shake her in order to arouse her.
The young woman opened her eyes, which were red and glassy; then she got up with the child in her arms.
"Go to bed," commanded the mother.
She looked at the door, murmuring: "Never again! He will never, never come back again! For a moment I thought I was waiting for him."
"Go to bed, go to bed," said the mother, her voice harsher than ever. She gave Giovanna a push, and then, taking up the old brass candlestick, opened the door.
The cottage consisted of a kitchen, with the usualstone fireplace in the centre and the oven in one corner, and two bedrooms, furnished in the most meagre way. Giovanna's bedstead was of wood, very high, and provided with an extremely hard mattress and a red cotton counterpane.
Aunt Bachissia took the little Martino, who was whimpering in his sleep, and laid him down, cradling him between her two hands, while Giovanna got ready for bed. When she was undressed and her head bare, the beautiful hair wound around it somewhat in the fashion of the ancient Romans, the mother covered her carefully and went out.
No sooner was she left to herself, however, than she threw off the covers and began to moan and lament. She was completely worn out with sorrow and fatigue, and her eyes were heavy with sleep, yet she could not rest. Confused pictures kept crowding through her brain, and, as though her mental anguish were not already suffering enough, sharp pains shot through her teeth and temples. Every time she had one of these twinges it was as though some one had poured a jug of boiling water down her spine, and she shook with nervous terror. Altogether, the night was one long horror.
From the adjoining room, the door of which stood open, Aunt Bachissia could hear Giovanna muttering and raving; now addressing Costantino in terms of extravagant endearment; then the jury with threats and imprecations. She herself, meanwhile, lay wide awake, her brain clear and active,going over every detail of what had taken place, and laying plans for the future. The sound of Giovanna's grief only aroused a dumb sense of resentment in her breast, and yet, after a while, she too found herself weeping.
On the evening of the following day, a Saturday, Brontu Dejas, returning from the sheepfolds, was hardly off his horse before he began to grumble. Among themselves, the Dejases were notorious grumblers, though with outsiders they were always extremely suave. Apart from this trait he was a good-natured devil; young and handsome, very dark and thin, of medium height, with a short curling red beard. He had beautiful teeth, and, when talking to women, smiled continually in order to show them. Coming home on this particular evening, he began to grumble because he found neither light nor supper awaiting him. It must be admitted that there was some justification; for, after all, he was a working-man, and week after week he would return from six days of toil to find a house as dark and squalid as a beggar's hovel.
"Eh! eh!" he said, as he began to unharness his horse. "This might as well be Isidoro Pane's shanty! Let us have some light, at any rate, so we can see to swear. What is there for supper?"
"Bacon and eggs; there now, be patient," said Aunt Martina. "Did you know that Costantino Ledda had been sentenced to thirty years?"
"Twenty-seven. Well, are those the eggs? My dear mamma, that bacon is rancid. Why don't you give it to the chickens? the chickens, do you hear?" and he snapped his handsome teeth angrily.
"They won't eat it," answered Aunt Martina tranquilly. "Yes, twenty-seven. Ah! twenty-seven years, that is a long time. I dreamed he had got penal servitude."
"Have you been to see the women yet? How pleased they must be now with their fine marriage! Miserable beggars!"
He had asked the question with evident curiosity, yet the moment his mother told him that she had been, and that Giovanna was tearing her hair and quite beside herself, while it was plain to see that Aunt Bachissia wished now that she had strangled her daughter before allowing her to make such a match, he turned on her furiously.
"What business had you to go near the den of those wretched beggars?"
"Ah! my son. Christian charity! You don't seem to have any idea of what that is!" Aunt Martina liked, indeed, to pretend that she was a charitable person. "Priest Elias was there too this morning; yes, he went to comfort them. Giovanna wants to take the baby to Nuoro for Costantino to see before they carry him off. I told her she was crazy to think of such a thing in this heat; but Priest Elias told her to go, and he nearly cried!"
"What does he know about children! He isbarren, like all the rest of them," snarled Brontu, who hated the priests because his uncle, who had been rector in the village before Priest Elias Portolu came from Nuoro, had left all his property to a hospital. Aunt Martina had not forgiven this outrage either, but the old she-wolf knew how to disguise her feelings, and when Brontu railed against the priests she always made the sign of the cross.
"What makes you talk that way, you fool?" said she, hastily crossing herself. "You don't know where your feet may carry you! Priest Elias is a saint. If he were to hear such evil talk as that—beware! He has the Holy Books, and if he chooses to, he can curse our fields, and bring the locusts, and make the bees die!"
"A fine saint!" exclaimed Brontu. Then he insisted upon hearing all the particulars about the Eras,—how Giovanna had cried out, what that old kite, Aunt Bachissia, had said——
"Well, Giovanna's sobs were enough to melt the very stones; and Aunt Bachissia was in despair because now, in addition to all the rest, the lawyer's fees and other expenses of the trial have stripped them of everything they possessed, even to the house."
The young man listened intently, his face beaming with satisfaction, and his white teeth gleaming. In his undisguised pleasure he was simply and purely savage.
"Listen," said Aunt Martina, when she had finished. "Giacobbe Dejas will be here presently to see you too. He wanted to begin his term of service to-morrow, but I told him to wait till Monday. To-morrow is a holiday, and there is no sense in our having him eat at our expense."
"Beautiful St. Costantino! Youareclose, mamma."
"Oh, you; you are just like a child! What use is there in wasting things? Life is long and it takes a great deal to live."
"And how are those two women going to live?" asked Brontu after a short silence, seating himself before the eggs and bread.
"They will catch snails, I suppose," said Aunt Martina scornfully. She had taken up her spindle again, and was spinning close to the open door. "You take a great interest in them, Brontu Dejas."
Silence. Within the room the only sounds were the rattle of the spindle and the noise of Brontu's strong teeth, as he munched the hunks of hard bread; outside, though, beyond the portico, the crickets were chirping incessantly; and from the far-away, deserted woods, through the warm, dim atmosphere of the falling night, came the melancholy cry of an owl. Brontu poured out some wine, raised the glass, and opened his mouth, but not to drink. There was something he wanted to say to his mother, but the words would not come. He drank the wine, brushed some drops off his beard withthe back of his hand, and again opened his mouth, but still the words died away.
A sound of heavy boots was heard, tramping across the open space before the house. Aunt Martina, still spinning, arose, told her son that Giacobbe Dejas was coming, and, taking the food and wine, put them away in the cupboard.
Giacobbe saw the action as he entered, and at once understood that she was hiding something in order not to have to offer it to him; but, as he himself would have put it, he was too much a "man of the world" to allow any expression of resentment to escape him.
He advanced, therefore, smiling and cheerful.
"I will wager," said he, laying one finger on his nose, "that you were talking about me."
"No, we were speaking of poor Costantino Ledda."
"Ah, yes, poor fellow!" returned Giacobbe, becoming serious at once. "And when you think that he is innocent! As innocent as the sun! No one can be more sure of it than I."
Brontu threw himself back in an easy attitude, crossed his legs, and, turning slightly around, showed his teeth as he did when talking to women. "As to that, opinions may differ," he said sharply. "There, for instance, is my mother; she dreamed that he had got the death sentence."
"Oh, no, Brontu! What are you talking about? Penal servitude!"
"Well, it amounts to the same thing. Now, we will talk business."
"Very well, let us talk business, by all means," assented Giacobbe, crossing his legs as well.
A little later the two men, having settled the matter in hand, went off together, Brontu leading the way to the tavern. He himself was not in the least close, and if he never offered a visitor a glass in his own house, it was only not to irritate Aunt Martina. At the tavern, though, he was superb, and on this particular evening he made Giacobbe drink so much, and drank so much himself, that they both became tipsy.
Coming out at last into the silent, deserted street, filled with the odour of the dry fields, they began talking again of Costantino, and Brontu said, with brutal frankness, that he was glad of the sentence.
"Go to the devil!" shouted Giacobbe. "You have no heart!"
"All right, that's it; I have no heart."
"Just because Giovanna wouldn't have you, you are glad to hear of the death, or worse than death, of a brother."
"He's not dead, and he's not a brother; and it was I who would not have Giovanna Era. If I had wanted her to, she would have licked the soles of my shoes."
"Bum—bum—look out, or you'll have a tumble, my little spring bird. You lie like a servant-maid."
"I—I—am—not—a—a—servant-maid," stammeredBrontu, furious. "If you say anything like that again, I'll take you by the crown of your head and choke you."
"Bum—I tell you, you'll fall down, little spring bird," repeated Giacobbe at the top of his lungs. Their voices rang out through the quiet street; then they suddenly ceased talking, and stillness reigned once more. In the distance, under the light of the stars which overhung the mountain crests like garlands of golden flowers, the owl still sounded his melancholy note.
All at once Brontu began to cry in a strange, drunken fashion, with neither sobs nor tears.
"Well, what is the matter now?" demanded Giacobbe in a low tone. "Are you drunk?"
"Yes, I am. Drunk with poison, you galley refuse. I only hope you will be strangled yet!"
At this the other felt very indignant. Not only had he never been to prison, but he had never so much as been accused of any offence against the law. Yet, mingled with his resentment, there was a vague feeling of terror.
"You are going crazy!" said he in a still lower tone. "What's the matter with you? Why should you talk to me like that? Have I ever done anything to you?"
Whereupon the other became confidential, and, groaning as though he were in physical pain, he declared that he was, in truth, madly in love with Giovanna, and that he had hoped, and prayed thedevil, from the beginning, that Costantino would be found guilty.
"Even if the devil were to get my soul it wouldn't matter, because, you see, I don't believe in him!" said he, breaking into a foolish, cackling laugh, more disagreeable to listen to even than his previous maudlin distress. "I intend to marry Giovanna," he presently added.
Giacobbe was greatly astonished at this, but he pretended to be still more so. "What!" said he. "You take my breath away! How—why—what on earth do you mean? How can you marry her?"
"She will get a divorce, that's all. Well, what of that? There's a law that gives a woman the right to marry again if her husband has been sent to prison for a long sentence."
Giacobbe had heard some talk of this, but no case of legal divorce, still less of remarriage, had as yet been heard of in Orlei. Nevertheless, not to appear ignorant, he said: "Oh, yes, I know; but it is a mortal sin. Giovanna Era will never do it!"
"That's just what I am worrying about, Giacobbe Dejas. Will you talk to her on the subject to-morrow?"
"Oh, yes, of course! To-morrow! You're an ass, Brontu Dejas! You may be rich, but you are as stupid as a lizard, stupider than one! Here, when you might marry a maid,—some rich young girl, as fresh as a rose with the dew still on it,—you want instead to have that woman! Upon myword, it will give me something to laugh at for the next seven months!"
"All right, you can laugh till you split in two, like a ripe pomegranate! But I'm going to marry her!" said Brontu angrily. "There's no other woman like her, and I shall marry her; you will see!"
"Well, do marry her, my little spring bird!" cried the other, bursting into a loud laugh. Brontu joined in, and they continued on their way uproariously till they saw a tall figure with a staff silently approaching them.
"Uncle Isidoro Pane, did you have good sport?" shouted Giacobbe. "And your legs, have they plenty of punctures?"
"You had better turn leech-fisher yourself," said the other, coming up to them. "Whew! what a smell of brandy! Some one must have broken a cask near here!"
"Do you mean that you think we are drunk?" demanded Brontu in a bullying tone. "The only reason you don't get drunk yourself is because you haven't anything to do it with! Get away! get away, I tell you, or I'll crush you like a frog!"
The old man laughed softly, and walked on.
"Idiot!" said Giacobbe in an undertone. "Don't you know that he could have helped you with Giovanna? He's a friend of hers."
"Here! here!" shouted Brontu, turning around, and gesticulating with both arms. "Come back!come back, I tell you! 'Sidore Pane,che ti morsichi il cane!"[4]he laughed, delighted with his rhyme. But Isidoro did not stop.
"Do you hear me?" yelled the tipsy Brontu, stammering somewhat. "I tell you to come here! Ah! you won't do it, you little toad? I tell—you——"
But Isidoro silently pursued his way.
"Don't talk to him like that; what sort of way is this to carry on?" remonstrated Giacobbe. Brontu thereupon adopted a new method.
"Little flower, come here, come here! Come listen to what I have to say. You may tellher—that friend of yours—well, yes, Giovanna, that is who I mean. You may tell her that if she gets a divorce I'll marry her!"
This had the desired effect. The old man stopped short, and turning around, called in a distinct voice:
"Giacobbe Dejas!"
"What is it, my dear?" answered the herdsman mockingly.
"Make—him—keep—quiet!" returned Isidoro in the tone of a person who means to be obeyed.
For some unexplained reason, Giacobbe felt a sudden sense of chill as he heard the tone and those four emphatic words. Taking his new master by the arm he drew him quickly away, murmuring:
"You are a dunce! You behave as though you had no sense at all! What a way to talk!"
"Didn't you tell me to yourself?"
"I? You are dreaming! Am I crazy?"
They continued on their way, staggering along together, arm in arm. On the portico they found Aunt Martina, still spinning. She saw at once that her son was tipsy, but said nothing, knowing by experience that to irritate him when he was in that condition was only to arouse him to a state of fury. When he asked for wine, though, she said there was none.
"Ah! there is none? No wine in the Dejas' house! The richest people in the neighbourhood! What a miserly mother you are." Then he began to bluster: "I'm not going to make a scandal, but I can tell you I am going to marry Giovanna Era!"
"Yes, yes, you are going to marry her," said Aunt Martina to quiet him. "But in the meantime, go to bed, and don't make such a noise; if she hears you, she won't have you."
He quieted down, but made Giacobbe unroll a couple of rush mats and spread them on the floor; then, throwing himself down, nothing would do but the herdsman must lie down as well, and sleep beside him; and rather than have any trouble, Aunt Martina was obliged to agree.
Thus it fell out that instead of beginning his term of service on the Monday, Giacobbe entered his new place on Saturday evening.
Sunday morning, a fortnight later, found all the personages of our story assembled at Mass, with Priest Elias officiating. The country people said that when he celebrated he seemed to have wings.
Giovanna alone was absent; and this for two reasons. First, her late misfortune required the observance of a sort of mourning; she was expected not to show herself outside the house except when her work made it necessary. Apart from this, however, she had fallen into a state of lethargy, and appeared to be quite unable to move about, to go anywhere, to work, or even to pray. She had, indeed, never been much of a Christian at any time, though before the trial she had made a vow to walk barefoot to a certain church in the mountains, and, if Costantino were acquitted, to drag herself on her hands and knees from the point where the church first came into view to its doors; that is, a distance of about two kilometres.
Now, she had ceased praying, or talking, or eating, and even seemed to have lost all interest in her child. Aunt Bachissia had to feed him withbread crumbled up in milk in order to keep the poor little fellow alive. Some of the neighbours said that Giovanna was losing her mind; and indeed it did look so. She would remain for hours at a time in a sort of stupor, crouched in a corner with her glassy eyes fixed on vacancy, and when she aroused it was only to fly into violent paroxysms, tearing her hair, and crying out wildly.
After the final interview with Costantino, when she had had the child with her, she could think of nothing else, and described the scene in the prison over and over again, with the monotonous insistence of a monomaniac:
"He was there, and he was laughing. He was livid, and yet he laughed, standing there behind the bars. Malthineddu seized hold of the bars, and he touched his little hands and then he laughed! My heart! my heart! don't laugh like that; it hurts me, because I know that that is how dead people laugh! And the guards, standing there like harpies! At first they were good to us, those guards who watch over human flesh; but afterwards, when Costantino had been condemned, they were cruel, as cruel as dogs! Malthinu was frightened when he saw them, and cried; and his father laughed! Do you understand? The baby, the little, innocent thing, cried; he understood that his father had been condemned, and he cried! Oh, my heart! my heart!"
Then Aunt Bachissia, beside herself with impatience,and unable to hold in any longer, would exclaim:
"Honestly, Giovanna, any one would take you to be two years old! That child there has more sense than you. Simpleton!" And sometimes she would threaten to beat her; but prayers, sympathy, and threats were equally unavailing.
Meanwhile, word came from Nuoro that, while waiting to hear from the appeal, Costantino had been removed to the jurisdiction of Cagliari. Then came a short, sad, little letter from the prisoner himself. The journey had gone well, but there, at Cagliari, the heat was suffocating, and certain red insects, and others of different colours, tormented him night and day. He sent a kiss to the child, and urged Giovanna to bring him up in the fear of God. He also asked to be remembered to his friend Isidoro. On this Sunday, therefore, at the close of the Mass, Aunt Bachissia waited till the fisherman should have finished singing the sacred lauds in his ringing voice, in order to deliver Costantino's message.
Priest Elias remained kneeling on the steps of the high altar, with white ecstatic face, and Isidoro still sang on, but the people began to leave, filing past Aunt Bachissia, as she stood waiting.
Aunt Martina passed, with the fiery bearing of a blooded steed, old but indomitable still; Brontu passed, dressed in a new suit of clothes, his hair shining with oil; he railed at the priests, but onSunday he went to Mass; and Giacobbe passed, in a pair of new linen trousers, smelling strong of the shop. Still Isidoro sang on.
The church, at last, became almost empty; the fisherman's sonorous voice resounded among the dusty, white rafters; the boards and beams of the roof; the side altars, covered with coarse cloths, adorned with paper flowers, and presided over by melancholy saints of painted wood.
When Uncle Isidoro stopped at length, there were only the priest, a boy who was extinguishing the candles, Aunt Bachissia, and an old blind man left.
Isidoro had to repeat the final response to the lauds himself; then he got up, put away the little bell used to mark the Stations of the Rosary, and moved towards Aunt Bachissia, who stood waiting for him near the door. They went out together, and she gave him Costantino's message; then she begged him to do her a favour; it was to ask Priest Elias to go to see Giovanna and try to reason her out of the condition she had allowed herself to fall into. He promised to do so, and they separated.
On the way home Aunt Bachissia was joined by Giacobbe Dejas, who had been standing on the open square before the church, looking down at the village and the yellow fields, all bathed in sunlight.
"How are you?" asked the herdsman.
"Ah, good Lord! bad enough, without being actuallyill. And you, how do you like your new place?"
"Oh! I told you how it would be. I'm out of the frying-pan into the fire! The old woman is as close as the devil; she expects me to work till I fall to pieces, and will hardly let me come in to Mass once a fortnight."
"And the master?"
"Oh! the master? Well, he's just a little beast, that's all."
"What do you mean by saying such a thing as that, Giacobbe?"
"Well, it's the simple truth, little spring bird. He growls and snarls over every trifle, and gets drunk, and lies like time. I suppose Isidoro Pane told you——" He paused, and Aunt Bachissia, fixing her small green eyes upon him, reflected that, if he talked like that about his master, he must have some object.
"Well," he resumed, "Isidoro Pane must have told you—of course he told you, about Brontu being drunk that evening; it was just here, where we are now, Brontu yelled out: 'Tell Giovanna Era that if she gets a divorce I'll marry her!' The beast, that's just what he is, a beast! He drinks brandy by the cask."
Of the last clause of this speech, however, Aunt Bachissia took in not one word. The fact that Brontu had said he would marry Giovanna if she got a divorce was all she comprehended. Hergreen eyes flashed as she asked haughtily: "And you wish him not to, Giacobbe?"
"I? What difference would it make to me, little spring bird? But you ought to be ashamed of yourself to think of such a thing, Aunt Kite, hardly two weeks after——"
"I'm not a kite," snapped the old woman angrily; and though the other laughed, she could see that he too was furious.
"You might, at least, wait to hear from the appeal," said he. "And then you can devour Costantino as you would a lamb without spot. Yes, devour him if you want to, but I can tell you that Giovanna will get a brandy-bottle for a husband, and just as long as Martina Dejas is alive you will starve worse than ever."
"Ah! you bald-pate——" began Aunt Bachissia. But Giacobbe walked rapidly away, and she had only the satisfaction of hurling abuse at his retreating back. Not that she proposed to have Giovanna apply for a divorce. Heaven forbid! With poor Costantino still under appeal, and waiting there in that fiery furnace, devoured by horrible insects! No, indeed, but,—what right had that vile servant to talk of his master so? What business was it of his to meddle in his master's concerns? And Aunt Bachissia decided then and there that that "bald raven" had himself taken a fancy to Giovanna; and, filled with this new idea, she reached the cottage.
Her immediate thought was to repeat the whole story to Giovanna, but finding her, for the first time in two weeks, bathed, and tranquilly engaged in combing out her long hair, which fell down in heavy, tumbled masses, she was afraid to say a word.
Time passed by; the autumn came, and then the winter. Costantino's appeal had, of course, been rejected, as appeals always are. One night he was fastened by a chain to another convict, whom he had never seen, and the two took their places in a long file of others, all dressed in linen, all silent; like a drove of wild beasts controlled by some invisible power. They were going—where? They did not know. They were silent—why? They could not say. Presently they were all marched down to the water's edge, put on board a long, black steamer, and shut into a cage—still like wild beasts. All about them lay the crystal sea, across whose dark, green waters the ruby and emerald reflections from the ship's lights danced and sparkled like strings of glittering jewels; while above, engirdling the great ring of water, hung the deep blue sky, like an immense, silent vale dotted over with yellow, starry flowers. At first Costantino's sensations were not altogether unhappy. True, he was going into the unknown to fulfil a cruel destiny, but down in the bottom of his heart he firmly believed that before very long he would be liberated, and he never lost hope.
The bustle on deck, the rattle of the chains, and the first motion of the ship as it got under way, filled him with childish curiosity. He had never been to sea, but, as a boy, he had often stood scanning the horizon, and gazing at the grey stretch of the Mediterranean, sometimes dotted over with the white wings of sailing vessels. At such times, as he stood among the wild shrubs and undergrowth of his native mountains, he would dream of some day crossing that far-away sea to distant, unknown lands, and to the golden cities of the Continent. He could read and write, and had a book in which St. Peter's at Rome was depicted; and in the chapter on sacred history there was an engraving of ancient Jerusalem. Ah! Jerusalem. According to his ideas, Jerusalem must be the finest and largest city in the world; and, as he stood there dreaming among the bushes on Mount Bellu, and gazing off at the grey Mediterranean, it was to Jerusalem that he longed to go. And now, here he was crossing the sea; but how different from his dreams! Yet, so splendid was his conception of Jerusalem that if it had been thither that he was bound, even a chained and condemned prisoner on his way to expiate a crime, he would, nevertheless, have been content to go.
The pitching and rolling of the ship was accompanied by the ceaseless rush of the water from the bows. Some of the convicts chattered among themselves, laughing and cracking jokes. Costantinofell asleep and dreamed, as he always did, that he was at home again. He had been set free almost immediately,—he dreamed,—and had gone home without letting Giovanna know a word about it so as to give her the unutterable joy of the surprise. She kept saying: "But this is a dream, this is a dream——" The expenses of the trial had stripped the little house bare of everything, even the bed was gone; but nothing made any difference. All the riches in the world could not compare with the bliss of being free and of living with Giovanna and Malthineddu. But he was terribly tired, so he curled himself up in the baby's cradle; the cradle rocked, harder and harder all the time. Giovanna laughed and called out: "Be careful not to fall out, Costantino, my dear, my lamb!" And the cradle rocked more than ever. At first he laughed as well, but all at once he found he was suffering, then he fell head foremost on the ground, and woke up.
There was a heavy sea on, and Costantino was sick. The ship struggled up to mountain-heights and then plunged swiftly into bottomless gulfs of water, the waves breaking even over the third deck.
All the convicts were ill; some still attempted to joke, while others swore, and one, with a yellow, cunning face,—he was Costantino's companion—moaned and lamented like a child.
"Oh!" he groaned, cowering down, gasping and frightened. "I was dreaming that I was athome, and now—now—oh! dear St. Francis, have pity on me!"
Notwithstanding his own misery, both physical and mental, Costantino felt sorry for him. "Patience, my brother, I was dreaming too about being at home."
"I feel," cried another, "as though my soul were melting away. What the devil is the matter with this ship! It seems to be trying to dance the Sardian dance!" Whereat some of the others still had sufficient spirit left to laugh.
The storm was increasing. At times Costantino thought he was dying, and was frightened; yet, on the other hand, he felt an unutterable weariness of life. His soul seemed to be steeped in the same bitter fluid that his stomach was casting up. Never, not even at the moment when the sentence of condemnation had been passed upon him, had he experienced anything like his present condition of hopeless misery. He too began to swear and groan, doubling his fists, and twisting his chilled toes. "May you die just as I am dying now, you murderous dogs, who brought all this on me!" he muttered, while tears as bitter as gall welled up into his eyes.
Towards dawn the wind subsided, but even when the sickness had passed, Costantino found no relief; he felt as though he had been beaten to the point of death, and he was shaking with cold, and exhaustion, and dread. The steamer relentlessly pursuedits way. Oh, if it would only stop for just one moment! A single moment of quiet, it seemed to Costantino, would suffice to restore his strength; but this continuous forging ahead, the constant rolling, the never-ceasing roar of the waves as they lashed the sides of the vessel, kept him in a state of nervous tremor. On, and on, and on; the long hours of agony dragged slowly by; night came again; and all the time his subtle-faced, yellow-visaged companion hardly ceased to sigh and lament, driving Costantino into a perfect frenzy of irritation. Sleep came at length, and then, strange to relate, he had the same dream as on the previous night, only this time it was Giovanna who was in the cradle, and the cradle was rocking quite gently.
When Costantino awoke, the boat seemed hardly to move; in the silence that precedes the dawn, he heard a voice say: "That is Procida."
He was shaking with cold, and wondered if they were to land there, where, he thought he remembered to have heard, the galleys were.
Presently his companion awoke, shivering and yawning prodigiously.
"Are we there?" asked Costantino. "How do you feel?"
"Pretty well. Are we there?"
"I don't know; we are near Procida; is that where the galleys are?"
"No; they're at Nisida," said the other. "But we are not galley-birds!" he added, with a touchof pride, and then fell to yawning again. "Oh, how I was dreaming!" he said, and then stopped, overcome by the memory of his dream.
The prisoners were landed at Naples and immediately placed in a black-and-yellow van, something like a movable sepulchre. Costantino caught a brief glimpse of a wide expanse of smooth green water, a quantity of huge steamers, and innumerable small craft filled with gaily dressed men who shouted out all manner of incomprehensible things. All around the boats, on the surface of the green water, floated weeds, scraps of paper, refuse of all kinds. Enormous buildings were outlined against a sky of deepest blue. At Naples, the convicts were separated; Costantino was taken off to the prison at X—— and saw his yellow-visaged companion no more.
On reaching his destination, Costantino was at once consigned to a cell where he was to pass the first six months of his term in solitary confinement. This cell measured hardly two metres in length by six palms in breadth: it was furnished with a rude folding bed, which, during the day, was closed and fastened against the wall. From the tiny window nothing could be seen but a strip of sky.
Of the entire term of his imprisonment this was the dreariest period. He would sit immovable for hours with his legs crossed and his hands clasped about his knee—thinking; but strangely enough he never either lost hope or rebelled against his fate. He was persuaded that what he was enduring wasin expiation of that mortal sin, as he regarded it, of having lived with a woman to whom he had not been married by religious ceremony, and he felt an absolute certainty that, this sin atoned for, his innocence would some day be established and he would be set free. At the same time, although he did not despair, he suffered acutely, and passed the days, hours, minutes in a state of nervous expectation of some change that never came, and a prey to a devouring homesickness. Thus day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, he lived in his thoughts close to Giovanna and the child, recalling with minute precision every little unimportant detail of the cottage life, his past existence, and the happiness that had once been his. In addition, moreover, to his own misery, he suffered at the thought of what Giovanna was enduring: now and again an access of passionate tenderness, having her far more than the child for its object, would seize him and arouse him from his usual state of pensive melancholy; then, leaping to his feet, he would stride back and forth,—two, or at most three, steps bringing him to the opposite wall, where he would presently stop, and, throwing himself against it, would beat his head as though trying to dash out his brains. These were his moments of utmost desperation.
Hope always returned, however, and then he would begin to weave fantastic dreams of an immediate and romantic restoration to freedom, and the guard never entered his cell that his heart did notbegin to beat violently, fancying that he was the bearer of some joyful tidings.
Sometimes he playedmorrawith himself, and he cared so much whether he lost or won that he would laugh aloud like a child. At other times he would sit for hours looking at his outstretched palm, imagining that it was a plain divided intotancas, with walls, rivers, trees, herds of cattle, and shepherds; and weaving stories about them all, full of exciting adventures. And sometimes he prayed, counting on his fingers, and repeating the lauds aloud, trying even to improvise new verses. In this way it came about that he actually did compose a laud of four strophes, dedicated to St. Costantino, in which the saint's aid was particularly invoked in behalf of all prisoners wrongfully condemned. The refrain ran:
"Saint Costantino, we implore theeFor thy condemned innocent!"
"Saint Costantino, we implore theeFor thy condemned innocent!"
The composing of this laud completely occupied him for many days, and made him, for the time being, almost happy. When it was finished he was wild with joy, but instantly an overpowering desire to tell some one about it seized him; whom was there, though, to tell? The guard was a little Neapolitan; bald, clean-shaven, with a flat, snub nose like that of a skeleton; he talked to him sometimes, but he was not sufficiently intelligent to understand the laud; then there were the other prisoners whom he saw during the exercise hour, but to them he wasnot allowed to speak; finally he bethought him of the chaplain, and asked to confess in order that he might have the opportunity to repeat the laud to him. The chaplain was a Northerner, a young man, tall and lean, with quick, nervous movements, and great flashing black eyes filled with intelligence. He listened patiently while Costantino repeated his laud, and then enquired if he did not think that, in asking to confess for the purpose of reciting it, he had been guilty of the sin of vanity.
Costantino reddened and said "No," whereupon the confessor smiled indulgently, reassured him, praised his verses, and sent him off in a state of beatification.
A few days later the prisoner again asked to confess. "Well, have you written another laud?" asked the chaplain.
"No," said the other, looking down, "but I want to ask a favour."
"What is it? Let us hear."
Costantino held his breath a moment, frightened at his own temerity; then he said quickly: "Well, this is it: I want to send the laud home!"
"Ah!" said the chaplain, "I can't do that; how could you write it, anyhow?"
"Oh, I know how to write!" exclaimed the prisoner, raising his clear eyes to the other's face.
"Yes; but the trouble is, my brother, that you are not allowed to write."
"Oh, I can manage that!"
"Well, well, but I can't; I can't do it."
Costantino looked extremely dejected and all but wept; then he confessed; asked whether it might not be better to dedicate the laud to SS. Peter and Paul, since they too had been in prison, and begged to be forgiven if he had presumed too much in making such a request. The young chaplain gave the absolution and prayed for some moments aloud, the prisoner, meanwhile, praying to himself; then, laying one hand on the other's head, the priest said in a low voice: "Listen; write out your laud if you can manage it, and—keep a brave heart."
A wave of joy swept over Costantino, and from that moment he had no other thought than of how he might contrive to transcribe his verses. "I have been a student," he said one day to the guard. "But I know how to make shoes as well. Would you like to have me make you a pair? Oh, I can fit you!"
"You want something," said the man in Neapolitan. "But it's no use, I will do nothing."
"Now, Uncle Serafino, be kind! Remember your immortal soul!"
"I remember my immortal soul well enough, and I've told you before that I'm not your uncle; you killed your uncle."
"All right; it does not signify; only in our part of the country we always call all the important people 'uncle.'"
Don Serafino, however, wanted his own title,which Costantino, for his part, could not bring himself to employ, since in Sardinia it is used only in addressing people of noble birth; so for that day nothing was accomplished.
On the following morning the prisoner returned to the charge: he recounted how he was of good family, had received an education, and fallen heir to a fortune; this, his uncle, he whom he had been accused of murdering, had spent, and had then shut him up in a dark little room, and forced him to make shoes; and once he had torn almost the entire skin off one of his feet. He even offered to show the foot, but Don Serafino declined with an expression of horror, and cursed the dead man's cruelty under his breath.
The result was that Costantino presently found himself in possession of a sheet of paper, and by means of blood and a small stick, he succeeded in writing out the laud for condemned prisoners. Thus the winter wore away.
One March day a visit of inspection was made to Costantino's cell; it was under the direction of a big man, with two round, staring, pale-blue eyes, and so little chin that what he had was completely hidden by a heavy light moustache.
"Hello! you there," he cried to the prisoner. "What can you do?" Don Serafino was with the party, and as his eye fell upon him, Costantino suddenly recalled the fancy sketch he had once given him. "I can make shoes," he replied.
"Hello!" said the big man with the staring blue eyes. "You can? Well, you murdered your uncle."
As the remark seemed to call for no reply, Costantino merely moved his lips, as though to say: "Certainly, I murdered my uncle; may it please your mightiness!"
The party moved on, but before long Don Serafino returned and informed the prisoner that his term of solitary confinement had been shortened by more than a third, and that he would soon be released from his cell. Costantino supposed that he owed this favour to his good behaviour, but Don Serafino explained that it was because he had interceded for him with the authorities, telling them that the prisoner was of good family, that one of his feet had been flayed, and that he could make shoes.
A few days after this Costantino was taken from the cell and set to work, in company with a number of others, at making shoes; he had, moreover, the privilege of writing once every three months to Giovanna. All of these concessions made him quite happy. Then the spring came, and the convicts, who had suffered intensely from cold, became gay and cheerful, keeping up a continual flow of chaff during working hours. Two brothers from the Abruzzi, however, who had asked as a special favour to be allowed to work together, quarrelled so incessantly over the division of a piece of property that was to be settled on their release—that is to say, in ten years' time—that, after falling upon one anotherone day, they had to be separated and confined for two weeks in cells. Even then, the very first time they encountered each other during the exercise hour, they began fighting again.
It was during this hour of comparative freedom, when the prisoners took their exercise in the courtyard, that Costantino made the acquaintance of a compatriot, another Sardinian. This man, who had received the nickname of theKing of Spades, on account of his triangular-shaped face, his big body, and spindle legs, was white and puffy, and so closely shaven as to look quite bald; he was an ex-marshal of carbineers, convicted of peculation, and, according to his own account, was related to a Cardinal who was secretly in friendly relations with the King and Queen. This personage, he declared, might shortly be expected to procure his pardon, and not alone his but that of any among his friends whom he should recommend; those, for instance, who supplied him with cigars, money, or stamps. He had been assigned for duty in the clerk's office, and thus had many opportunities to communicate with persons outside, to arrange clandestine correspondences between the prisoners and their families, and to smuggle in money, tobacco, stamps, and liquor; all greatly to his own profit and advantage. It was not long before he asked Costantino if he did not wish to send a letter home.
"Yes," replied the young man, "but I am poor; I have nothing to give you."
"Never mind," said the other generously; "that makes no difference, we are compatriots!" and forthwith he launched into an account of his exploits as a marshal. He had, it appeared, killed ten or more bandits in the course of his career, and had received ten medals; once when he happened to be in Rome the King had invited him to his box at the theatre! He was, in short, a hero; but of his crowning exploit he never spoke, merely observing that he had been sent to prison through the machinations of powerful enemies.
At first, in spite of his equivocal appearance, Costantino believed it all, and felt deeply sympathetic; but gradually, as day by day the accounts of the marshal's adventures grew more varied and marvellous, he became sceptical, and ended by placing as little faith in what he said as did the others, though they all pretended to be greatly impressed in order to obtain favours.
Every member, indeed, of the little community, not excepting the guards, was both a liar and a hypocrite. The prisoners all tried to make out that they were something quite different from what they appeared to be, and each one had some remarkable explanation of how he happened to be there; while the very fact of their being compelled, quite against their will, to associate closely and intimately together, destroyed every spark of mutual regard that might, under different circumstances, have sprung up among them.
Costantino noted with surprise that those who were held for the more serious charges, while they were the greatest braggarts and boasters, seemed in other respects to be better than the rest. The minor delinquents were, almost without exception, cowardly, surly, and treacherous; fawning upon any one who could do them a service, and betraying their friends without hesitation, when the occasion arose.
"There is hardly a man in this place," remarked theKing of Spadesone day to Costantino, "but what is utterly corrupt; most of them are hardened criminals, versed in every form of vice. Why, the very air we breathe is contaminated, and a man, suddenly deprived of his liberty and cut off from society, quickly goes to decay in such a place; he loses all moral sense, becomes deceitful, cowardly, and violent, and soon grows so depraved that he cannot even realise his own depravity." And he gave some startling instances in illustration of his point. "It is my belief," he continued, "that among all who are here now, we two, theDuck-neckand theDelegate, are the only honest ones; all the others are criminals. Be very wary with them, Costantino, my dear fellow-countryman; this place is nothing but a den of bandits, of a worse class even than those whom I put an end to!"
Sometimes Costantino felt quite depressed, reflecting that if his own honesty made no better impression than that of theKing of Spadesthere was little to be proud of.
TheDuck-neckwas a Sicilian student, a consumptive with white hair, a long neck, and the body of a child. Though he spent most of his time reading, was timid and shrinking, and rarely spoke, he would occasionally fly into such violent rages that he was obliged to submit to the embraces ofErmelinda, as the prisoners called the strait-jacket. In one such paroxysm he had once killed a professor.
TheDelegate, who looked like a gentleman, was likewise a Southerner; he, it appeared, had been sent to prison out of pure envy! He had a swelling chest and a noble head; his nose was large and Grecian, and there was a cleft in the middle of his lower lip; his expression was haughty and repellent, but as soon as he was approached he became extremely affable, even servile. Notwithstanding the "powerful influence" that was being exerted in his favour, certain lofty personages, a minister in particular, were persecuting him unrelentingly. The student had lent him some scientific books, and he was now bent upon writing a great scientific work himself. Being also assigned to the clerk's office, he was able secretly to devote a good deal of time to this splendid undertaking, of which theKing of Spadesgave glowing accounts.
"See here," said he one day to Costantino; "that man will make all our fortunes. We work every day on the book and have a set of phrases of our own, referring to it; but the utmost caution is necessary,otherwise—beware!—everything may be ruined, and it is a real scientific discovery. I will run over the main heads for you. How the atmosphere was formed—that is, the air. How the ocean was formed—that is, all bodies of water. Origin of the organic world. A rational demonstration of the existence of a primordial continent in the central tract of the Pacific Ocean. Upon this continent human life first made its appearance, passing the period of infancy in those tropical regions. Immigration into Africa and Asia. The continent disappears by reason of a great cataclysm. Identification of this cataclysm with the flood of the Bible. The other continents emerge. Then—End of atmosphere—End of oceans—End of the heavenly bodies—End of the earth!"
"And end of imprisonment?" enquired Costantino with a smile. He had understood very little of the other's discourse, only taking it for granted that, as usual, he was relating fiction. TheKing of Spadeshad to have a listener, however, so he continued tranquilly: "Just wait a moment, the other chapters are: Amplification of the accepted doctrine of evolution. Evolution of our species from the anthropomorphic apes. Causes of the inclination of the axis of the planets,—but not Saturn. Reasons for this anomaly. Sun spots, etc.——"
"Oh, go to the devil!" said Costantino to himself, yawning prodigiously. He was staring across the bare courtyard, with its fountain playing in the middle."And how about the magpie?" he presently asked, pointing to one that had domesticated itself in the establishment. The convicts gorged him with food, and he had become fat and somnolent. If by any chance he felt hungry, he called certain of them by name in a queer, shrill voice.
"Oh, let him burst!" said theKing of Spadesfretfully. "You are nothing but a child, Costantino; more interested in that silly bird than in a scientific work of the very first importance. Indirectly I can lay claim to themagnumpart of the discovery, as it was I who brought theDelegateand theDuck-necktogether. We have already succeeded in despatching an abstract of the work, together with a letter addressed to the King, to the Prime Minister. But remember—not a word of this to any one! One eminent scientist, on reading the abstract, exclaimed: 'This is the loftiest manifestation we have yet had of Italian genius!' Take my word for it, Costantino, my dear compatriot, theDelegatehas reached a dizzy height. He has some powerful friends who are now in Rome for the express purpose of working for his pardon; but then, he has powerful enemies as well! However, he will be liberated before long on account of this book."
Costantino found all this extremely tiresome, but he pretended to listen as he was hoping soon to get an answer to his letter to Giovanna, and wanted to keep in the other's good graces. The answer didarrive, sure enough, in May, and gave him the most intense happiness. Giovanna wrote that the boy had been unwell, possibly because the anguish she had endured had affected her milk; now, however, he was entirely well again. Isidoro Pane had received the lauds to San Costantino written in blood, and had wept when he read them, and now he sang them in church, the whole congregation accompanying him. No one knew who had written the verses, but Isidoro said an old man with a long, snowy beard, all dressed in white, had appeared one day on the river-bank, and had handed them to him. People said it was San Costantino, or perhaps Jesus Christ himself! And Giacobbe Dejas had hired himself out to his rich relatives. And the Nuoro lawyer had taken possession of the title to their house, allowing the two women to live there for a small rent. The rich Dejases often had work for Aunt Bachissia, and for her, Giovanna, as well; so they managed to get along. Pietro Punia had been ill with carbuncles, and had died. Annicca "with the silver shoulders" was married. An old shepherd had been arrested for stealing beehives. Thus the letter went on, entirely filled with such simple chronicles, which, to Costantino, however, were fraught with the most intense interest. As he read he seemed to breathe again his native air; each item set before him a picture of the rocks and bushes, the people and objects, to which he was bound by the closest ties of habit and affection. Only, it disturbed him a littleto learn that Giovanna sometimes worked at the Dejases'. He knew of Brontu's passion for her, and that she had refused him, and as he read this part of the letter he experienced a first, vague sensation of alarm. Three francs were enclosed, and when he reflected that this money might probably have come from the Dejases, he hated to touch it. Two francs he offered to theKing of Spades, rather expecting that his dear compatriot would refuse to take them. His dear compatriot, on the contrary, accepted them with alacrity, remarking that they would serve as part payment for the person who conducted the clandestine correspondence.
Under other circumstances this would have angered Costantino, but just then he was so anxious to write again to Giovanna, to maintain some sort of intercourse with his little, far-off world, that he would have sacrificed the half of his life to secure the good offices of theKing of Spades.
He read and re-read his letter till he knew every word by heart. During the day he hid it in the sole of his shoe, ripping this open again each night. And always, as he sat silently bending over his work, his mind dwelt continuously on the people and events in that little, distant village, and he identified himself so completely at times with the subjects of his thoughts that he lost sight of his real surroundings. He saw the old shepherd steal cautiously up to the hives, his face and hands wrapped in cloths. The spot is sunny, deserted; all about liegreen fields dotted over with flowers, dog-roses, honeysuckle, sweet-peas, undulating lines of colour stretching away in all directions as far as the eye can reach. The warm air is heavy with the odour of pennyroyal and other aromatic herbs, and the brooding silence is broken only by the low hum of the bees.
Anxiously Costantino follows every movement of the old thief as he first detaches the little cork hives from the flat stones on which they stand; then, tying them all together with a stout cord, places them in a bag, and makes off. Just at this point Costantino could not quite make up his mind as to the next act in the drama, and as he was considering, a shrill voice broke in on his reflections: "Cos-tan-ti! Cos-tan-ti!" and arousing himself with an effort he saw the magpie, fat and sleek, hopping lazily about in the courtyard, and stretching its blue wings in the sun.
At night, with the precious letter safely deposited beneath his pillow, he would resume the thread of his thoughts. Now it was the sonorous voice of his friend the fisherman that he would hear, singing the lauds, and sometimes he almost wondered if Isidoro had not in truth seen—on the river-bank, among the oleander bushes bending over with their weight of fragrant pink blossoms—the figure of an old man dressed in white, with a long beard as snowy as the wool of a little newborn lamb! Ah, surely it was the Saint himself, good San Costantino, cometo tell Isidoro that he had not forgotten the prisoners unjustly condemned!
Costantino readily accepted this picture of the Saint, although the statue of him in the village church represented a robust and swarthy warrior.
"Good old Saint! Good San Costantino! Soon, soon thou wilt free us all, blessed forever be thy name!"
Then the scene changes. Now it is the portico of the rich Dejas's house; every one is busy with the spun wool, dividing it into long skeins preparatory to weaving it. Giovanna comes and goes, carrying huge bunches in her hands. Brontu is there too, seated on the threshold of the kitchen door, with his legs well apart, and between them, laughing and unsteady, stands the little Malthineddu. Ah, intolerable thought! Presently, however, remembering that Brontu is never at home except on holidays, he is somewhat comforted, and then he falls asleep, his heart steeped in a mingled sensation of joy and pain.
Summer had come again.
"How quickly the time passes," said Aunt Martina, as she sat spinning on the portico. "It seems only yesterday, Giacobbe, that you took service with us, and yet, here you are back again to renew the contract! Ah, the time does indeed pass quickly for us poor employers! You have saved thirty silver scudi at the very least, and have begun to build a house of your own, but what have we to show for it?"
"That's all very well, but how about the sweat of my brow, little spring bird? The sweat of my brow, doesn't that count for anything?" replied the herdsman, who was busily greasing a leather cord with tallow.
"But there's your keep," rejoined the old woman. "Ah, you have forgotten to allow for that!"
May the crows pick your bones! thought Giacobbe, who would have liked to say it aloud, but was afraid to. He thoroughly detested both his employers, the miserly old woman and the weak, hot-headed son, who tormented him continually with his project of marrying Giovanna if she would get a divorce. It was important, though, for him torenew the contract, so he held his tongue. He greased the thong thoroughly, rolled it up, and took it into the house; then he asked permission to go off to attend to a piece of business of his own, and having received a grudging assent, departed.
Walking in the direction of the Era cottage, the herdsman presently descried little Malthineddu bestriding, with very unsteady seat, a spirited stick horse, the sun gilding his dirty little white frock, his stout legs and bare arms.
Stooping down with outstretched arms, Giacobbe barred the way. "Where are we off to?" he asked caressingly. "There's the sun, don't you see it? Ahi! ahi! Maria Pettina[5]will come with her fire-comb and snatch you up, and carry you off to the hobgoblins! Run back quickly to the house."
"No-o-o, no-o-o-o," shouted the child, jumping up and down on his steed.
"Well, then," said Giacobbe, lowering his voice and closing one eye as he pointed to the white house, "Aunt Martina is up there, and to save bread she eats little children; don't you see her?"
The boy seemed to be impressed, and allowed himself to be led back to the cottage, still insisting, however, upon riding his stick.
Giovanna was sewing at the door, as round and fresh and rosy as though no misfortune had ever befallen her. Above her pretty face the mass ofwavy hair lay in thick, glossy coils. Seeing Giacobbe approach with the child, she raised her head and smiled. "Here he is," said the herdsman. "I am bringing him safely back to you; but I found him playing in the sun, and travelling straight towards Aunt Martina, who eats children so as to save bread."
"Oh, go away!" said Giovanna. "You ought not to tell children such things!"
"I tell them to grown people as well, for Aunt Martina eats them too. Look out, Giovanna Era, the first thing you know she will eat you, and all the more because you are like a ripe quince—no, not that either, quinces are yellow, aren't they? You are more like a—a——"
"An Indian fig!" she suggested, laughing.
"And how is Aunt Bachissia? Is it long since you heard from Costantino?"
At this Giovanna became suddenly grave, replying with an air of mystery that they had had news of the prisoner only a short time before.
"Ah!" said the man, without pressing the matter further. "Can you tell me if Isidoro Pane is anywhere about? I want to see him."
"Yes," she replied sadly, taking up her work again. "He is at home."
Giacobbe said good-bye, and walked thoughtfully away in the direction of Isidoro's house,—if house it could be called,—which stood at the other end of the village.
The fisherman, in justice to whom it should be said that he fished for trout and eels as well as leeches whenever he had the opportunity, was seated in the shadow of his hut, mending a net. This hut, which stood in the fields, a little apart from the rest of the village, was a prehistoric structure composed of rough pieces of slate dating possibly from the time when men, not yet having mastered the art of cutting stones for themselves, used such pieces as had already been detached by nature. It was roofed over with sticks and bits of tile, above which flourished a vigorous growth of vegetation.
The sun was sinking after a day of intense heat. Not a leaf stirred in the row of dusty trees along the scorched, deserted village street. Far off, the yellow uplands, furrowed by long, slanting shadows, were immersed in floods of crimson light; and beyond them rose the rugged line of purplish mountains—a row of huge red sphinxes covered with a veil of violet gauze. The all-pervading stillness was pierced by the distant note of a blackbird. Wild figs with coarse, dark foliage, and a hedge of wild robinia, among whose branches hairy nettles and the whitish-leaved henbane had wound and interlaced themselves, surrounded the hut; and from the doorway could be seen a wide expanse of country, lonely and vapourous as the sea. The atmosphere was filled with the acrid odour of stubble and dried asphodel, and the ground was so thickly covered with dead leaves, and twigs, and bits of straw that Giacobbehad got quite close to the old fisherman before the latter perceived him.
"What are we about now?" cried the herdsman gaily.
The other raised his eyes without lifting his head, and, regarding his visitor curiously for a moment, made no reply.
Dropping cross-legged on the ground, Giacobbe watched him as he mended the net with waxed twine threaded in a huge, rusty needle.
"Well, really!" said the herdsman presently, with a laugh. "I should think the little fishes would find no difficulty in coming and going at their pleasure!"
"Then let them come and go at their pleasure, little spring bird," said the fisherman, mimicking Giacobbe's favourite mode of address. "What are you doing here? Have you left your place?"