“But is he not even baptized?” inquired Lidia.
“He has been baptized—” Maddalena admitted.
“That makes it far worse,” announced Sisto firmly, “the insult to our faith is the greater.”
And all this made Maddalena unhappy; unhappy and a little ashamed, so that she said to Gian-Luca one Sunday: “They cannot understand why you never go to Mass.” And he knew from her voice that she felt ashamed, and then he too felt unhappy.
Sisto, returning newly shriven from confession, would often look askance at Gian-Luca, for at such times he suffered from much pride of spirit; then Leone would quickly emulate his father, and he too would try to look prim and disapproving, while Gian-Luca, considerably better now in health, would be longing to kick them both. A nice frame of mind, indeed, for a man who had just been restored to his people.
Maddalena, however, felt at home with her cousins, for hers was not an analytical mind. She accepted their faults as things familiar; she had seen them all before, and while she deplored them, she could not find it in her to be overcritical. Moreover, she was growing very fond of Lidia; it was pleasant to have another woman to talk to, and the everyday duties of the household were pleasant, performed as they were in bright sunshine. Maddalena loved also to talk to the peasants, because then she could play with their babies. She enjoyed the red wine and the rich peasant cooking, but above all the blue sky and glorious weather—she expanded, growing younger and less careworn every day, a fact not lost on Gian-Luca. For Maddalena’s sake he endured her cousins—the last thing he wanted in the world was a quarrel—he had promised to remain at the farm for four months, and Sisto’s disapproval of his lack of religion had not been extended to his money. So Gian-Luca took to being much alone and would wander for hours in the mountains. His muscles grew firm and his cheeks less sunken, while the sun tanned his skin and nourished his body. As for food, he need eat only simple things—bread and cheese and much fruit, with occasional pasta, when Lidia had not drenched it in butter.
Yes, his body responded readily enough, for his body was young and strong; but his soul still doomed his eyes to their seeing, and now they must see yet a new cause for pity—on all sides they must see it, wherever man dwelt and compelled the dumb beasts to serve him. Never before had Gian-Luca realized the helplessness of those who cannot speak, for the English, on the whole, are too just to be cruel—a quiet, unemotional people, it is true, but possessed of a great sense of fairness. And Gian-Luca decided that by living among them, this sense of fairness was unconsciously acquired, for he could not conceive of any member of the clan doing what these peasants did. Rocca had hung his small goats upside-down, but at least his goats had been dead, whereas here they were carried bleating to slaughter with their legs tied together over a pole, and their heads all but bumping against the pathway—a brutal, unnecessary torment. Nerone kept his birds in small cages it was true, and believed that his skylarks were happy; but at least he gave them clean food and fresh water, and their cages were as palaces compared to those that Gian-Luca now saw in the paese. Horrible, punishing, heartbreak cages, filthy with excrement and slime; their water green and stinking from neglect, their one narrow perch encrusted with droppings, their inmates disheveled and bare in places from the constant rubbing of the bars.
Wherever he went he saw the same thing, an absolute disregard of dumb creatures, a curious lack of human understanding, of the realization of pain. But more than anywhere else, perhaps, he saw it on Lidia’s farm; for Lidia was a pleasant and kindly woman, and yet she had taken Leone to help her, and Leone did not lack understanding of pain—on the contrary he liked to inflict it. The farm consisted principally of chickens, and these Leone could crowd into crates, or better still, he could wring their necks slowly, taking a long time about it. He could pluck out their feathers before they were dead, or swing them about by their claws—there was no end to what he could do to the chickens, and no end it seemed to Lidia’s indifference; that was what so amazed Gian-Luca.
In addition to the chickens, there was one doleful cow, a half-grown calf, and a few lousy sheep; these lived all together in a species of damp cavern, hollowed out of the rock near the farm. A slatted oak door had been fixed at the entrance, admitting a modicum of light and air; but the beasts very seldom got a glimpse of the sky, and practically never of the grass, it appeared, for as Lidia explained to Gian-Luca one morning: “If our cow saw the grass, she would be so delighted that she might well forget to give milk!” The cavern reeked of filth and ammonia, causing the beasts’ eyes to stream; when they came into the light they must half-close their eyes—especially the calf, who was young and unaccustomed, and who suffered from conjunctivitis. Gian-Luca would lie in
