“Can you not sleep?” Maddalena would ask him.
And then he must tell her about the cattle.
“I know, I know—” she would answer, sighing, “but thank God, they do not suffer as we do!”
Gian-Luca would sit up and stare into the darkness. “How do you know?” he would ask her.
And one night she answered quite naturally and simply: “Perché non sono Cristiana.”
Then Gian-Luca felt that his wife was slipping back in mind and in spirit to her people; that her country was luring her, drawing her away, since she, who was all tender mercy and compassion, could repeat this crude blasphemy of the peasants.
“Inasmuch as your Christ had pity,” he cried hotly, “so must every poor beast be Christian!”
But Maddalena hid her face on his shoulder. “No, no, Gian-Luca!” she protested. “God is good, He would not allow them to suffer—I have asked the Parroco, and he says the same; the beasts do not suffer as we do.”
Gian-Luca sighed, and taking her hand, he tried to explain more gently: “The priest is a peasant himself,” he told her; “and he thinks and speaks very much as they do—but listen, mia donna: the dumb things do suffer, if you look you will see it in their eyes.” He could not go to sleep, and she had perforce to listen while he pleaded the cause of the dumb: “They cannot tell us,” he kept on repeating; “they can only trust us, Maddalena.”
And now Maddalena was almost weeping, yet he knew that she was only half convinced.
“God is good, God has always been good!” she pleaded.
“He is merciful, then,” said Gian-Luca.
III
The creature Leone loved best to torment was a little Sardinian donkey; in size it was not much bigger than a dog, and its hoofs were easily avoided. A favorite pastime was twisting its tongue, and one day he kicked it in the stomach—just by way of letting it know that he was there—and the donkey stood still and shivered. But Leone was as cruel as death to all beasts, and all beasts knew it and feared him, and he it was who helped on the farm—yet Lidia was a kindly woman … Gian-Luca’s eyes sometimes blazed fury at Leone; Leone would see this and snigger.
“Non sono Cristiani!” he was always saying, because this tormented Gian-Luca.
And Gian-Luca would have to walk away quickly in case he should be tempted to strike, for he too was a Latin, in spite of his pity, in spite of his newfound seeing. But where could he turn to be rid of this seeing? There were days when he knew despair: “A country as lovely as Paradise and as cruel as Hell!” he would mutter.
Under the very window of his bedroom hung Marchese Sabelli’s richiami—ortolans used to decoy their fellows—there were eight of them, each in a tiny cage not much more than six inches long. They were fairly large birds, so that only with an effort could they stand half upright or turn round; and their calling would wake Gian-Luca every morning: “Dio!” he would think, “those miserable creatures!” And perhaps he would bury his head in the bedclothes so as to shut away their calling.
At last he spoke to Lidia about them. “I will buy you much larger cages,” he told her.
But she answered: “They are wild, the wildest of all birds—in a larger cage they would beat themselves to pieces, one must always keep ortolans in a small cage. These belong to our padrone the Marchese.”
Then Gian-Luca lifted up his voice in protest, and his protest was far from polite. He said: “May your damned Marchese go to hell, and may he be kept there in a cage as small for him as these cages are for his poor tormented birds, and may he remain there forever and ever; I hope he will never get out!” After which, Cousin Lidia was naturally offended, and she went and complained to Maddalena.
One morning Gian-Luca could bear it no longer; he stole out of bed at dawn, and his long arm shot out to each cage in turn, and he opened their doors, and the birds flew away, too astonished to thank Gian-Luca.
Oh, what a hubbub when a couple of hours later Sisto saw all those empty cages! His oaths far exceeded Rocca’s at their best, he attacked the Madonna from every point of view, nor did he omit to mention the Mass, which he lingered over in great detail.
“Who has committed this outrage?” yelled Sisto. “They are gone! The Marchese’s richiami!” His voice sounded almost tearful with rage, he was literally dancing with passion.
Gian-Luca unfastened the window and looked down. “Of course they have gone,” he said, smiling serenely; “of course they have gone; I opened their cages—the birds were not fools, you can tell your Marchese!”
“You—you—?” stammered Sisto. “Che vergogna! What an outrage! They were specially trained richiami—you are mad, mad, mad—you behave like a madman—”
“I like being mad,” said Gian-Luca, quite gravely, after which he closed the window.
Maddalena had risen from her bed and was staring at her husband in horror: “What have you done, Gian-Luca!” she exclaimed. “They were trained richiami. The Marchese will be furious, he will surely punish our miserable Sisto—he will surely make Sisto pay for the birds!”
“I hope so, indeed,” said Gian-Luca.
Then Maddalena’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, but what shall I say?” she demanded.
“Tell them that your husband is mad but harmless.” And Gian-Luca laughed softly, thinking of the birds away by now in the mountains.
What his wife really said Gian-Luca never knew, but nothing could have made any difference, for Sisto and Lidia were firmly convinced that they harbored a lunatic. When Gian-Luca went down to breakfast that morning, they eyed him timidly a moment without speaking; then Lidia inquired if he would not prefer to have his breakfast upstairs.
