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 on Sunday 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 actually ill. 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. Her green 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.
VI
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
