No sooner had news of Costantino's return got abroad than visitors began
to stream to Isidoro's hut. Throughout the entire day there was an
incessant coming and going of friends and relatives, and even of persons
who had never in their lives so much as interchanged a word with the
late prisoner, but who now hastened with open arms to invite him to make
his home with them. The women wept over him, called him "my son," and
gazed at him compassionately; one neighbour sent him a present of bread
and sausages. All these kindly demonstrations seemed, however, only to
annoy their object.
"Why on earth should they be sorry for me?" he said to Isidoro. "For
Heaven's sake, send them about their business, and let's get away into
the country."
"Yes, yes, we will go, all in good time, child of the Lord, only have a
little patience," said the other, bending over the fireplace, where he
was cooking the sausage. "How naughty you are, I declare!"
Since witnessing that paroxysm of grief in the morning, Uncle Isidoro
had felt much more at ease with his guest, and even took little
liberties with him, scolding him as though he had been a child. During
the short intervals when they found themselves alone, he told him the
_facts_. Costantino listened eagerly, and was annoyed when the arrival
of fresh visitors interrupted the narrative. Among these visitors came
the syndic, he who was a herdsman, and looked like Napoleon I. His call
was especially trying.
"We will give you sheep and cows," he began, wiping his nose on the back
of his hand. "Yes, every herdsman will give you a _pecus_,[9] and if
there is anything you need, just say so; are we not all brothers and
sisters in this world, and especially in a small community like this?"
Costantino, thinking of the treatment he had received at the hands of
his "brothers and sisters" of this particular small community, shook his
head.
"Yes," he said; "my brothers have treated me as Cain treated Abel; it
would take a good deal more than sheep and cows to make it up to me."
"Oh, well! that has nothing to do with it," replied the syndic, absorbed
in his idea. "You have travelled; tell me now, have you never stood on
the top of some high mountain, and looked down on the villages scattered
about in the plain below? Well, didn't they seem to you like so many
houses, each with its little family living inside?" Costantino, who was
tired of the conversation, merely replied that all he wanted was to
leave this village and never come back to it again.
"Oh, no! You mustn't do that!" urged the other. "Where would you go? No,
no; you must stay here, where we are all brothers."
The next to arrive was Doctor Puddu, carrying a large, dirty, grey
umbrella. He at once peered into the earthenware saucepan to see what
was cooking.
"You are all degenerates, every one of you," he announced in his harsh
voice, rapping the saucepan with his umbrella. "And I'll tell you the
reason: it's because you will eat pork."
"Don't break the saucepan, please," said Uncle Isidoro. "And I beg your
pardon, but that is not pork; it's beans, and bacon, and sausage."
"Well, isn't bacon pork? You're all pigs. Well----," turning to
Costantino. "And so, good sheep, you've come back? I saw him die--what's
his name?--Giacobbe Dejas. He died a miserable death, as he deserved to.
You had better take a purgative to-morrow; it's absolutely necessary
after a sea voyage."
Costantino looked at him without speaking.
"You think I'm crazy?" shouted the doctor, going close to him, and
shaking his umbrella. "A purgative! do you understand? A purgative!"
"I heard you," said Costantino.
"Oh, so much the better! Well, I've heard that _you_ say you want to go
away. Go-o-o----! Go, by all means. Go to the devil. But first of all,
go to the cemetery, go to that dunghill you call a cem-e-te-ry; and dig
and scratch like a dog, and tear up Giacobbe Dejas's bones, and gnaw
them."
He ground his teeth as though he were crunching bones; it was both
grotesque and horrible, and Costantino could do nothing but stare at him
in utter amazement.
"What are you looking at me like that for? You've always been a fool, my
dear fellow--my dear donkey! Just look at you now! calm and amiable as a
pope! They've robbed you of everything you possessed, betrayed you,
murdered you, knocked you about among them as though you had been a
dried skeleton, and there you sit, bland and stupid as ever! Why don't
you do something? Why don't you go to that vile woman, and take her, and
her mother, and her mother-in-law by the hair of their heads, and tie
them to the tails of the cows they offer to give you as a charity, and
set fire to their petticoats, and turn them loose in the fields so that
they may spread destruction in every direction? Do you understand? I
say, do you understand, idiot?"
He flung the words in the other's face, his breath heavy with absinthe,
his eyes bloodshot.
Costantino recoiled, trembling, but the doctor turned to go. On the
threshold he paused again and shook his umbrella.
"You make me long to break your neck!" he cried. "Men such as you
deserve precisely the treatment they get! Well, take a purgative,
anyhow, stupid."
"Yes, I'll do that," said Costantino, with a laugh, but at the same time
the doctor's words made a deep impression on him. There were times,
indeed, when he felt utterly desperate. He said over and over again that
he meant to go away, but, as a fact, he did not know where to go. Nor,
on the other hand, could he see what was to become of him should he
decide to remain on in the village. He said to himself: "I have no home,
and there is no one belonging to me; for this one day every one rushes
to see me out of curiosity, but by to-morrow they will all have
forgotten my very existence. I am like a bird that has lost its nest.
What is there for me to do?"
All the time, though, those words of the doctor's kept ringing in his
head. Yes, truly, that would be something for him to do. Go there, fall
suddenly upon them like a bolt out of heaven, and utterly destroy all
those people who had destroyed his life!
"No, Costantino," resumed Uncle Isidoro, as they sat at table, eating
the neighbour's white bread and sausage. "No; she is not happy. I have
never looked her full in the face _since_, and it gives me a queer
feeling to meet her, as though I were meeting the devil! And yet, do you
know, I can't help feeling sorry for her. She has a little girl that
they tell me is like a young bean, it is so thin and puny. How could a
child born in mortal sin be pretty? It was baptised just like a bastard,
the priest wouldn't go back to the house, and the people were sneering
all along the street."
"Ah, do you remember my child?" asked Costantino, cutting off a slice of
fat, yellow bacon. "_He_ was not like a bean, not he! Ah, if he had only
lived!"
"It may be better so," said the fisherman, beginning to moralise. "Life
is full of suffering; better to die innocent, to go--to fly--up there,
above the blue sky, to the paradise that lies beyond the clouds, beyond
the storms, beyond all the miseries of human life. Drink something,
Costantino; this wine is not very good, but there is still some
left.--Well, I remember last year on Assumption Day, Giacobbe Dejas
asked me to take dinner with him. He was afraid of me; he thought I
knew, and he wanted his sister and me to get married. Oh! if you could
just see that little woman you wouldn't laugh. She went with the priest
and me to Nuoro. May the Lord desert me in the hour of death, if ever I
saw a more courageous woman in all my life! She hardly seemed to touch
the ground! Well, she's gone all shrunken and shrivelled now, don't you
know--like a piece of fruit that dries up on the tree before it is ripe.
I go all the time to see her, and just to amuse her I say: 'Well, little
barley-grain! Shall we two get married? She smiles and I smile, but we
feel more like crying! Who could ever have imagined such a thing?--I
mean, here was Giacobbe Dejas, seemingly happy and contented; he was
getting rich, and he talked of being married. And then--all of a
sudden--pum!--down he comes, like a rotten pear! Such is life! Bachissia
Era sold her daughter, thinking to improve her condition, and now she is
hungrier than ever. Giovanna Era did what she did, imagining that she
was going to have a heaven upon earth, and instead of that, she's like a
frog with a stick run through it!"
"But does he _beat_ her?" asked Costantino heavily.
"No, he doesn't do that; but there are worse things than beating. She's
treated just like a servant, or, rather, like a slave. You know how they
used to treat their slaves in the old times? Well, that's the way she's
treated in that house."
"Well, let her burst! Here's to her damnation!" cried Costantino,
raising his glass to his lips. It gave him a cruel pleasure to hear of
Giovanna's misery, such pleasure as a child will sometimes feel at
seeing an unpopular playmate receive a whipping.
Dinner over the two men went out and stretched themselves at full length
beneath the wild fig-tree. It was a hot, breathless noontide; the air,
smelling of poppies and filled with grey haze, was like that of a summer
midday, and there were bees flying about, sounding their little
trombones. Costantino, completely worn out by this time, fell asleep
almost immediately. The fisherman, on the contrary, could not close an
eye. A green grasshopper was skipping about among the blades of grass,
giving its sharp "tic, tic." Isidoro, stretching out one hand, tried to
catch it, his thoughts dwelling all the while on Costantino. "I know why
he wants to go away," he ruminated. "He still cares for her, poor boy;
and if he stays here he will just suffer the way San Lorenzo did on his
gridiron. There he lies, poor fellow, like a sick child! Ah, what have
they done to him? Torn him to pieces--Ah-ha! I have you now!" but just
as he was about to pull the grasshopper apart, it occurred to him that
possibly it too, like Costantino, had had its trials, and he let it go.
A shadow fell across the foot of the path; Uncle Isidoro, recognising
Priest Elias, sprang to his feet, went to meet him, and drew him into
the hut, so as not to awaken Costantino. The latter, however, was a
light sleeper, and, aroused presently by the sound of their voices, he
too got up. As he approached the hut he realised that he was being
talked about.
"It is far better that he should go," the priest was saying in a serious
tone. "Far, far better."
Costantino could not tell why, but at the sound of these words his heart
sank within him like lead.
However, he did not go.
The days followed one another and people soon ceased to trouble the
returned exile; before long he was able to go about the village as
much as he chose without being stared at, even by the gossips and
ragamuffins. With the savings laid up in prison he purchased a stock of
leather, soles, and thread, but he never began to work. Every day he
bought a supply of meat and fruit and wine, eating and drinking freely
himself, and urging Isidoro to do the same. He was in great dread lest
the villagers might think that he was living on the old man's charity,
and wanted to let them see that he had money and was openhanded, not
only with him, but with every one else; so he would conduct parties of
his acquaintances to the tavern where he would make them all tipsy and
get so himself at times, and then the tales he would relate of his
prison experiences were marvellous indeed to hear.
In this way his little store of money melted rapidly away, and when
Isidoro scolded him, all he would say was: "Well, I have no children nor
any one else to consider, so let me alone." He was counting, moreover,
on the inheritance left by his murdered uncle, which the other heirs had
agreed to resign without forcing him to have recourse to the law.
"Then," said he, "I shall take myself off. I am going to give you a
hundred scudi. Uncle Isidoro."
But poor old Isidoro did not want his scudi nor anything else except to
see him restored to the Costantino of other days--good, industrious, and
frank. Frank he certainly was not at present, and when, occasionally,
the fisherman surprised him with tears in his eyes, his sore, old heart
leaped for joy.
"What is it, child of grace?" he would ask. But Costantino would merely
laugh, even when the tears were actually running down his cheeks. It was
heartrending.
Sometimes the two would go off together to fish for leeches; that is,
Isidoro would stand patiently knee-deep in the yellow, stagnant water,
while Costantino, stretched on his back among the rushes, would spin
yarns about his former fellow-prisoners, gazing off, meanwhile, towards
the horizon with an unaccountable feeling of homesickness.
Go away? go away? Did he not long to go away? Did he not, up there,
beneath that fateful sky, in the deathly solitude of the uplands, under
the eternal surveillance of those colossal sphinxes, feel as though an
iron circle were pressing upon him? Every object, from the blades of
grass along the roadside to the very mountain-peaks, reminded him of the
past. Each night he prowled around Giovanna's house like some stealthy
animal, and one evening he saw her tall figure issue forth, and move
down in the direction of _their_ cottage. This was the first time that
he had seen her, and he recognised her instantly, notwithstanding that
it was by the fading light of a damp, overcast evening. His heart beat
violently, and each throb gave him an added pang, a fresh memory, a new
impulse of despair. His instinct was to throw himself upon her then and
there, clasp her in a close embrace,--kill her. Before long, however, he
was no longer satisfied to catch only furtive glances, secretly and in
the dark; he became possessed with the desire to see her and to be seen
of her in broad daylight; but she never left the house, and he dared not
go by there in the daytime. On another evening, a Saturday, he heard
Brontu's laugh ring out from the portico, and he fancied that _hers_
mingled with it. His eyes filled, and he had much the same sensation of
nausea as on that first morning of the sea voyage when he woke up ill.
All this time he continued to feign the utmost indifference, without
quite knowing why he did so. The Orlei people had, however, become
almost hateful to him, even Uncle Isidoro. Sometimes he asked himself in
wonder why he had ever come back.
"I am going away," he said one day to the fisherman, gazing across the
interminable stretch of uplands to the blue and crimson sky beyond,
against which the thickets of arbute seemed to float like green clouds.
"I have written to a friend of mine--Burrai--he can do anything, you
know; he could have gotten me a pardon, even if I had really been
guilty."
"You have told me all that before; I am tired of hearing it," said
Isidoro. "All the same, I notice that he has never even answered your
letter."
"He is going to get me a position; yes, I really mean to go. But tell me
why is it that the priest is so anxious for it? Is he afraid that I will
kill Brontu Dejas?"
"Yes, he is. He's afraid of just that."
"No, he's not; that's not it. I said to him: 'Priest Elias, you must
know perfectly well that if I had wanted to kill any one, I would have
done it right off.' And all he said was: 'Go away, go away! It would be
far better.' What do you think about it, Uncle Fisherman; shall I go or
not?"
"I don't think anything about it," answered the other in a tone of
strong disapproval. "What I do think is that you are an idle dog. Why
aren't you at work, tell me that? It's because you do nothing but think
all the time of your good-for-nothing Burrai, who, however, never gives
you a thought."
"Oh! he doesn't give me a thought?" said Costantino, piqued. "Well, I'll
just let you see whether he does or not. Look here!"
He drew a letter from the inside pocket of his coat, and proceeded to
read it aloud. It was from Burrai, written at Rome, where the ex-marshal
had opened a little shop for the sale of Sardinian wines. Naturally,
being himself, he had improved upon the facts, and announced that he was
the proprietor of a large and flourishing establishment; he invited
Costantino to pay him a visit, and reproached him for not having come at
once to Rome, where, he said, he could find him a position without
difficulty.
The fisherman's blue eyes grew round with innocent wonder.
"To think, only to think!" he exclaimed. "And you never told me a word
about it! What made you hide the letter? How much does it cost to go to
Rome?"
"Oh! only about fifty lire."
"And have you got that much?"
"Why, of course I have!"
"Then go, go by all means!" exclaimed the old man, stretching his arms
out towards the horizon.
They were both silent for a moment. The fisherman, bending his head,
gazed at the pebbles lying at his feet, while Costantino stared absently
ahead of him. Beyond the brook, the tall, yellow, meadow-grass was
bowing in the wind, and the long stems of the golden oats rippled
against the blue background of the sky.
Uncle Isidoro made up his mind that the moment had come to tell
Costantino plainly why all his friends wanted him to leave the village.
"Giovanna," he began quietly, "does not love her husband; you and she
might meet----"
"She and I might meet? Well, and if we did, what then?"
"Nothing; you might, that's all."
"Oh, nothing!" cried Costantino, and his voice rang out scornfully in
the profound stillness; "nothing! I tell you that I despise that low
woman. I don't want her."
"You don't want her, and yet you hang about her house all the time, like
a fly about the honey-pot."
"Ah, you know about that?" said Costantino, somewhat crestfallen. "It's
not true, though,--well--yes; perhaps it is. But suppose I do hang about
her house, what business is it of yours?"
"Oh! none at all, but--you had better go away."
"I am going. I suppose the truth is you are getting tired of having me
on your hands!"
"Costantino, Costantino!" exclaimed the old man in a hurt voice.
Costantino pulled up a tuft of rushes, threw it from him, and gazed
again into the distance. His face was working as it had done on the
morning of his return, after he had closed the door of Isidoro's hut;
his brain swam, once or twice he gulped down the bitter saliva that rose
in his throat; then he spoke:
"Well, after all, why does the priest insist so on my going? Am I not
actually her husband? Suppose even that she were to come back to me?
Wouldn't it be coming back to her own husband?"
"If she were to come back to you, my dear fellow, it would be Brontu
Dejas either killing you or having you arrested."
"Well, you needn't be afraid; I don't want her. She's a fallen woman, as
far as I am concerned. I shall go off somewhere, to a distance, and
marry some one else."
"Oh, no! You would never do that," murmured Isidoro appealingly. "You
are too good a Christian."
"No; I would never do that," repeated Costantino mechanically.
"Never in the world; you are far too good a Christian." The old man said
it again, but without conviction. The experience of a long life was
battling with the tenets of his simple faith.
"If he does not do it," he sighed to himself, "it will not be merely
because he is a good Christian."
FOOTNOTE:
[9] Head of cattle.