“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,” stammered Brontu, 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 the devil, 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 re-marriage, 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 tomorrow?”
“Oh, yes, of course! Tomorrow! 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 my word, 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! Someone 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
