"Is it locked? I must have done it without thinking," said Giovanna innocently. "I'll open it right away; just wait a moment. I was talking to the baby; she wouldn't go to sleep."

"Mariedda!" called the grandmother. But there was no response.

"Is she asleep now?"

"She is just falling asleep."

In the pause that ensued a painful drama was enacted in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the two women.

"I will get up now and open the door," said Giovanna presently in a strained voice. But the old woman made no reply. Motionless, a cold chill creeping through her, she _felt_ the horrible truth flash into her mind like a sudden glare of blinding light. Giovanna must have a lover, and that lover could be none other than Costantino Ledda. In that moment of searching illumination a thousand little incidents to which she had paid no heed at the time, a thousand little unconsidered trifles, rose up to confront her, and she trembled from head to foot, in a paroxysm of grief and rage. Yet, when Giovanna repeated: "I will open the door right away," she was able to control herself, and answer quietly:

"It's not worth while; stay where you are."

Then she turned, and, crossing the room again in the dark, said to herself with a sort of calm fury: "Now is the time to show them that old Martina is no fool!"

Her first impulse was to hurry downstairs and look out to see if any one had climbed from Giovanna's window to the roof below, which, in turn, gave on another and still lower roof. But she restrained herself, reflecting very sensibly that if Giovanna saw that she was suspected she would instantly be on her guard. "No, no; this is a time to dissemble, old Martina; to pretend, spy, listen, watch--and then?" What was to happen afterwards? The _afterwards_ suggested such a mult.i.tude of wretched possibilities that the old woman threw herself on her bed in a torment of agonised conjecture.

What would Brontu do if he knew? Poor Brontu! With all his violent temper he was such a good fellow at bottom, and so tremendously in love with Giovanna! But there it was; he was so much in love with Giovanna that he would be perfectly capable of committing some crime should he suspect her constancy. Then, what would become of him? thought Aunt Martina. "Ah, it will be far better for him to know nothing of all this trouble. I will implore Giovanna to be loyal, and not to betray her poor husband. And then--suppose, after all, I should be mistaken! Suppose she really was talking to the baby! Eh, no, no! Some one else was there, and it could have been no one but Costantino. Oh, wretched creature!

accursed beggar! Is this your grat.i.tude towards those who have fed and clothed and nourished you? But never mind, we will pay you back! We will drive you out of this house with a whip, naked as when you came into it!" And thus, torn by successive impulses of hatred, pity, fury, and despair. Aunt Martina dragged through the weary night.

One significant circ.u.mstance she did recall--that Costantino was said to be on good terms with Aunt Bachissia, Giovanna's mother. Some time previously he had set to work in earnest; had rented a little shop, and was making a good deal of money by his trade of shoemaking. A repulsive thought came into the old woman's head. What if Aunt Bachissia knew and encouraged her daughter's intimacy with her first husband! "The old harpy detests us," said Brontu's mother to herself. "Perhaps Costantino makes her presents!"

Daybreak found her still wide-eyed and sleepless. Getting up, she went out to examine the wall above which rose the roofs leading to Giovanna's window. Not a trace was to be found of any one having been on it. The dawn was exquisitely tranquil and beautiful; the village was still asleep, and the fields lay bathed in soft grey haze beneath a silver sky. Aunt Martina drew a deep breath; she felt as though she had awakened from a horrible dream; the utter peace and serenity of the early morning seemed to communicate itself to her distracted spirit.

Then, on a sudden, happening to raise her eyes to Giovanna's window, she saw the young woman watching her. Instantly the conviction flashed across her that she too had lain awake the entire night; that she too was looking now to see if any tell-tale traces remained to betray the fact that she had had a visitor, and more than that, that she now was fully aware of Aunt Martina's suspicions. Across the s.p.a.ce that divided them, the two women exchanged a look of mutual fear and hatred. War was declared!

The battle opened in ominous calm, each side marshalling its forces in silence and secrecy. Aunt Martina's efforts were directed to allaying Giovanna's suspicions in the hope that she might some day surprise her and her lover together. Giovanna, perfectly awake to her mother-in-law's tactics, pretended not to notice anything, but at the same time proceeded with great caution in her relations with Costantino.

He had entirely altered his mode of life; he now worked regularly, and was doing very well; but underneath everything was a sense of unutterable melancholy, which he was never able wholly to throw off.

"I am doing everything I can to provoke Brontu to break with me," said Giovanna one day. "I want him to apply for a divorce, so as to be rid of me; then I will go back to you, beloved, and nothing shall ever part us again. I will be your servant, your slave--and make you forget all your past sorrows."

But Costantino only smiled wearily. It was true that he still loved Giovanna, but it was a very different kind of love from that which she had formerly inspired in him. Now, there was more of pa.s.sion, perhaps, but it did not go so deep, and he knew, though he could not tell her so, that even were she free to return to him as his wife, he could never be happy again as in the old days. She was not the woman to whom he had given his heart, but another and a very different person. One who, having been false to both husbands in succession, was now, perhaps, deceiving them simultaneously.

Often Costantino was seized with an access of rage against the entire human race, Giovanna included. He would have liked to murder some one--Brontu, or Aunt Bachissia, or even Giovanna, in order to avenge himself for what he had been made to suffer. And yet, all the time, he knew himself to be quite incapable of doing anything brutal or violent, and raged and fumed the more at his own weakness. His heart seemed to have sunk into a state of torpor, and to have lost the power to enjoy acutely.

Uncle Isidoro was now constantly urging him to marry again, much as such an act would be contrary to his own principles.

"I have one wife already," Costantino would reply. "What could I do with another? Have her betray me too? All women are exactly alike."

Then Uncle Isidoro would sigh, and remain silent. He was in constant dread lest some new tragedy should befall. He was aware, partly from intuition and partly because Costantino himself allowed him to have an inkling of the truth, that the young man was holding secret intercourse with his former wife, and his daily fear was of some explosion. Thus, he argued to himself that if Costantino could only be induced to marry some gentle, affectionate young woman, who would bear him children, he would come in time to forget the other one, and find rest and peace. To these suggestions, however, Costantino only gave the same weary smile that had now become habitual.

"Are you afraid that I will murder some one?" he asked, divining the old man's nervous terrors. "No, no; there is no need to feel alarmed now; matters are going too much to my taste just at present for me to do anything to disturb the current."

The current was, however, in a fair way to be disturbed after that night on which Aunt Martina made her discovery.

On the following day Costantino went, as his frequent custom now was, to Aunt Bachissia's cottage.

He had no liking for the old woman who had been chiefly instrumental in bringing about Giovanna's divorce; there were even moments when the thought of strangling his ex-mother-in-law got into his blood, filling his veins with a sensation of almost voluptuous joy. But he went there, nevertheless, mainly because he took a dreary pleasure in living over the past in that little cottage where he had once been so happy.

Moreover, he enjoyed listening to Aunt Bachissia's never-ending abuse of everything connected with the house of Dejas.

Did the old woman know of her daughter's renewed relations with Costantino? Neither of them had said a word to her on the subject; yet, like Isidoro, she suspected how matters stood, though, unlike him, she made no effort to interfere. Costantino had made her a present of a pair of shoes, and from time to time he performed other little services for her. Had he asked her to allow him to meet Giovanna in her house, it is quite possible that she would have offered no objection; but up to the present time he had neither told nor asked her anything.

On this day, however, he arrived visibly anxious and perturbed, and Aunt Bachissia, who was sitting by the door spinning, laid down her spindle and gave him a steady look out of her sharp little eyes.

Night was falling, and Costantino, who had worked hard all day, was tired, sad, unhappy. The soft brilliance of the summer night, the silence of the little house, the peaceful solitude of the common, the warm, sweet breath of the evening, all combined to create a flood of homesickness for the past, and an acute sense of present misery that was well-nigh unbearable. He threw himself down on a stool and rested his elbows on his knees and his forehead on his interlocked hands. For a few moments neither of them spoke; the man was thinking of Malthineddu, of his little dead child; he seemed to see him then, playing before the door, and hot tears trembled in his eyes.

"Do you know," said Aunt Bachissia suddenly, "the old colt is going crazy?"

"Who?" asked Costantino.

"Who? Why, the old miser, Martina Dejas. She got up out of her bed last night, and went and banged on my Giovanna's door. She said she heard some one talking to her. Upon my soul, fancy such a thing! She has gone entirely mad; she always was half so."

"Ah!" was all that Costantino said.

"Listen, my soul," said Aunt Bachissia, lowering her voice. "Giovanna tells me that the old colt suspects----"

"What?" asked Costantino, raising his head quickly.

"Suspects that you and Giovanna--you understand? She has not said a word, the old maniac, but Giovanna has guessed that she has some idea in her head, and on that account----"

"I understand," said Costantino.

He did understand. Evidently Giovanna had taken this method of warning him that they would have to be prudent.

"And so, my soul," Aunt Bachissia went on, "for the present it will be as well for you to stop coming here--just so as not to arouse suspicions. I will go every once in a while to see you--for a chat, you know. Ah!" she gave a weary sigh, "you--yes, you are a man! Look at you, standing there now, as tall and handsome as a banner! When I think of that little freak of nature--Brontu Dejas--I declare, I wonder what on earth Giovanna could have been thinking of to--forget you. Ah, if she had only listened to me!"

Costantino, who had risen and was standing in the doorway, crimsoned with anger when he heard these outrageous lies being calmly offered for his acceptance.

"Hold your tongue," he began in a hoa.r.s.e voice. But Aunt Bachissia was not listening; she was looking intently up at the white house; presently she whispered: "Look, my soul, we are being watched now. Giovanna is right. Do you see the old harpy peering at us? Oh! I could tear out her eyes!"

Sure enough the figure of Aunt Martina could be seen lurking in the shadow of the portico. For the moment Costantino, who had never really borne any especial ill-will towards Brontu's mother, felt all the anger, and sorrow, and rebelliousness in his nature concentrate into one bitter longing to do the old woman some bodily harm. He would dearly have liked to make a wild dash across the common, fall upon her without warning, and tear her eyes out, as Aunt Bachissia had said.

"Never mind, let her alone," said the latter. "Giovanna has told me that she is doing everything she can to make them ill-use her and drive her out of the house. Then we will apply for another divorce--you, my soul, all you have to do is to be careful and--wait."

"What have I to wait for?" he asked roughly. "Nothing can happen now that _I_ want."

She said something more, but he was not listening. Standing erect and motionless on the threshold of the door that had once been _his_ door, he stared across at the portico of the Dejas house, feeling even more desolate and forlorn than usual. So, then, his one remaining consolation, that of holding intercourse with Giovanna, was about to be torn from him, and by the same people who had stolen from him everything else that made life pleasant; moreover they might deprive him even of life itself should he continue his relations with her who really was his own wife!

Ah, Dejas! accursed race! Yes, now the old mother as well was included in his hatred of that house, and the longing to cross the common, fling himself on the portico, and make the still summer evening resound with her shrill screams of agony, at last overmastered him. With a sudden movement, right in the middle of one of Aunt Bachissia's sentences, he stepped out into the twilight, and with rapid strides began to cross the common. When he had gone about half-way, he stopped, stood motionless for a moment, and then, altering his direction, walked away. Aunt Bachissia watched his figure as it was slowly swallowed up by the shadows; and the silence and languor of the dusk deepened into night.

After that evening Costantino visited her cottage no more.

One day, towards the end of October, Uncle Isidoro Pane had an unexpected visitor. The old fisherman, seated before his fireplace, was getting supper ready for himself and Costantino, who still made his home with him. Outside, the air felt almost cold, the wind was rising, and long, violet-coloured clouds were flying across the clear, greenish, western sky. Uncle Isidoro was thinking sadly of that evening when, amid the chanting of the women, they had interred Giacobbe Dejas in the dungheap. The earthen pot bubbled on the fire, and from without came the melancholy rustling of the fig-tree and the bushes, shaken by the wind.

All at once a low knock came on the door.