"Who? Why, you--I--any one."

"There you go again! Just like a three-year-old child! Or, rather, a snail before it's out of the sh.e.l.l. And how, pray, are we to find him out? Are we even certain that Costantino did not do it himself?"

"Yes, we are certain, entirely so," said Isidoro. "It might have been any one of us, but never him. I might have done it, or you----"

Giacobbe got up. "Well, what can you suggest to do? If there is anything to be done, tell me."

"Any one but him," repeated Uncle Isidoro, without raising his head.

"Yes, there is one thing to do,--commit ourselves into the hands of G.o.d."

"Oh, you make me so angry!" cried the other, stamping about the forlorn little room like an imprisoned bull. "I ask if there are any steps to be taken, and you answer like a fool. I'll go and choke Bachissia Era; that will really be something to do!" And he marched off as he had come, without greeting or salutation of any kind, angry this time in earnest.

Uncle Isidoro, likewise, did not so much as raise his head, but, noticing presently that his visitor had left the door open, he got up to close it, and stood for some moments looking out.

It was a mild March night, moonlit but overcast. Already one got faint, damp whiffs, suggestive of the first stirrings of vegetation. All about the old man's hovel the hedges and wild shrubs seemed to lie sleeping in the faint, mysterious light of the veiled moon.

Far away, just above the horizon, a streak of clear sky wound and zigzagged its way among the vapourous clouds like a deep blue river, on whose banks a fire burned.

Isidoro shut the door, and with a heavy sigh resumed his work.

CHAPTER XI

It was the vigil of the a.s.sumption, a hot, cloudy Wednesday. Aunt Martina sat on the portico spinning, while Giovanna, who was pregnant, sifted grain near by. Usually two women perform this task, but Giovanna was doing it alone. First she stirred the grain around in the sieve and extracted all bits of stone, then she sifted it carefully into a piece of cloth placed in a large basket that stood before her. She was seated on the ground, and beside her was another basket heaped with grain that looked as though it were piled with gold dust.

Instead of growing fat the "wife with two husbands," as she was called in the neighbourhood, had become much thinner; her nose was red and somewhat puffed; there were dark circles around her eyes, and her lower lip was drawn down with an expression of discontent.

Some dishevelled-looking roosters, which now and again fell to fighting and strewed the floor with feathers, were laying siege to the basket; from time to time one of them would succeed in thrusting his bill inside; then Giovanna, with loud cries and threats, would drive him off, but only to stand watchful and alert, ready to return to the charge the moment her attention wandered.

Her attention wandered frequently. Her expression was sad, or rather, indifferent--that of a self-centred person dwelling continually on her individual woes. The skies might fall, but she would consider only how the event might be expected to affect her personally. She was barefoot and quite dirty, as Aunt Martina hated to have her soap used.

The two women worked on in silence, but the older one watched her companion out of the corner of her eye, and whenever she was slack about driving off the chickens, she screamed at them herself.

At length one, bolder than the rest, jumped on the edge of the basket and began greedily pecking within.

"Ah--h--ah, a--a--ah!" shrieked Aunt Martina. Giovanna turned with a sudden movement, and the rooster, spreading its wings, flew off, leaving a trail of yellow grains behind it, which, in dread lest her mother-in-law should scold her (she was always in dread of that), she hastily began to gather up.

"What a nuisance they are!" she exclaimed peevishly.

"Ah, I should say they were, a downright nuisance," said the other mildly. "No, don't lean over like that, my daughter, you'll hurt yourself; let me do it," and leaving her spindle she stooped down and began to pick up the grains one at a time, while a hen seized the opportunity to pull at the bunch of flax on her distaff.

"Ah! ah, you! I'll wring your neck for you!" shrieked Aunt Martina, suddenly turning and espying it, and as she drove it off, the others all instantly fell to gobbling up the grain.

The younger woman went on with her task, bending over the sieve, silent and abstracted.

From the portico could be seen the deserted common, Aunt Bachissia's bare little cottage in the sultry noontide glare, a burning stretch of road, yellow, deserted fields, and a horizon like metal.

The clouds, banked high one upon another, seemed to rain heat, and the stillness was almost oppressive. A tall, barefooted boy pa.s.sed by, leading a couple of small black cows; then came a young woman, likewise barefoot, who stared at Giovanna with two round eyes, then a fat white dog with its nose to the ground; but that was all; no other incident broke the monotony of the sultry noontide.

Giovanna sifted and stirred ever more and more languidly. She was weary; she was hungry, but not for food; she was thirsty, but not for drink; through her whole physical nature she was conscious of a need of something hopelessly lost.

Her task finished, she leaned over and began pouring the grain back from one basket to another.

"Let it be, let it be," said Aunt Martina solicitously. "You will do yourself some harm."

Giovanna, starting presently to carry the grain to the "mill" (a grind-stone turned by a small donkey, which grinds a hundred litres of grain in four days), her mother-in-law prevented her and took it herself. Left alone, Giovanna went into the kitchen, looked cautiously around, and then began to search through the cupboards. Nothing anywhere; not a piece of fruit, no wine, not so much as a drop of liquor wherewith to quench the intolerable thirst that tormented her. She did, at last, find a little coffee, which she heated, and sweetened with a bit of sugar from her pocket, carefully re-covering the fire when she had done.

The mouthful of warm liquid seemed, however, the rather to augment her thirst. Giovanna felt that what she wanted was some soft, delicious drink, something that she had never tasted in all her life and--never would. A dull anger took possession of her, and her eyes grew bitter.

Walking over to the door of the storeroom, she shook it, although knowing perfectly well that it was locked; her lips grew white, and she murmured a curse below her breath. Then, barefoot as she was, she went out, noiselessly crossed the common, and called her mother.

"Come in," answered the latter from the kitchen.

"I can't; there's no one in the house."

Aunt Bachissia came and stood in the doorway; glancing up at the sky, she remarked that it looked threatening, and that there would probably be a storm that night.

"Well, I don't care," said Giovanna sullenly. "It may rain every bolt out of heaven!" Then she added more gently: "But may that which I bear be saved from harm."

"Upon my soul, you are in a bad humour. What has become of the old witch? I saw you sifting grain."

"She has taken it to the 'mill.' She was afraid to let me go for fear I might steal some."

"Patience, my daughter; it will not always be like this."

"But it is like this, and like this, and I can't stand it any longer.

What sort of a life is it? She has honey on her lips and a goad in her hand. 'Work, work, work.' She drives me like a beast of burden, and gives me barley-bread, and water, and no light at night, and bare feet.

Oh, as much of all that as ever I want!"

Aunt Bachissia listened, unable to offer any consolation. She was, indeed, accustomed to hear these plaints poured into her ears daily. Oh, Aunt Bachissia had been fooled as well! and had to work harder than ever before, though for that she cared little; it was Giovanna's really wretched condition that gave her the most concern.

"Patience, patience; better times are coming; no one can rob you of the future."

"Bah, what does that amount to? I shall be an old woman by that time,--if I haven't died already of rage! What good will it do to be well off when you're old? You can't enjoy anything then."

"Eh! yes, you can, upon my soul," said the other, her green eyes gleaming like a couple of fireflies. "I could enjoy a great many things well enough! Eh, eh! To have nothing to do all day long, and roast meat to eat, and soft bread, and trout, and eels, and to drink white wine, and rosolis, and chocolate----"

"Stop!" cried Giovanna, with a groan; and she told how she had been unable to find anything wherewith to quench her burning thirst.

"You must have patience," repeated the mother. "That comes from your condition. If you had the most delicious things in the world to choose from--liquors from the King's own table--you would still be thirsty."

Giovanna kept gazing up at the house with the portico, her eyes weary and hopeless, and her mouth drawn down sullenly.

"Yes, we will have rain to-night," said the other again.

"It can rain as much as it wants to."