“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 is barren, 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 tomorrow, but I told him to wait till Monday. Tomorrow is a holiday, and there is no sense in our having him eat at our expense.”
“Beautiful St. Costantino! You are close, 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 with the 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
