After the Divorce Part 35

"They have stolen everything else of mine," he thought, "and now they want to take my life as well. But they shan't have it; I will kill one of them first." He recalled a trial at which he had once been present, where the accused had proved that he had been attacked, and had struck back in order to defend himself; the jury had acquitted him. "Well, they will acquit me; I shall be striking in self-defence. And if they don't acquit me----!" There arose before him the faces of his fellow-convicts.

The _King of Spades_ smiled at him lugubriously, and behind him he could see the gloomy walls of the prison courtyard. At least, though, _they_ had been friendly; they might have been murderers, but they had never tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate him.

On the third day of his seclusion in Uncle Isidore's hut a storm came up. Nothing could exceed the comfortless desolation of the poor little abode. The black clouds travelling overhead seemed to break directly against the small, bare window; presently some big drops fell from the roof; one leak in especial, directly over the black, cold fireplace was so persistent that at last, seeing that the water was forming into a thin stream, the young man reached out and shoved Uncle Isidoro's earthenware saucepan beneath it. Drip, drip, drip, the sound was like the monotonous and melancholy ticking of a clock. Night descended, if anything colder and more dreary than before; the rain came down steadily, and the drops fell into the saucepan with the regularity of a machine. Costantino did not move; he had neither wood wherewith to build a fire, nor any more food, and it did not occur to him to get up, to bestir himself, to go out, to live. Perhaps Uncle Isidoro was stalled in some neighbouring village by the storm, and would not get back.

During the night fever set in, and Costantino was racked by hideous dreams, painful memories of the past, tempests of anger, mingled with physical suffering. How long he lay in this condition he could never remember, only he recollected hearing the steady drip, drip of the water as it fell into the saucepan, the beating of the rain on the roof, and the long sob of the wind as it swept about the deserted house. In the intervals of the fever, when he would arouse from the lethargy that weighed him down, he was conscious of sharp, shooting pains through all his limbs, similar to those he had felt in prison on awaking after a feverish night; and also of a savage, animal desire to do some harm, to fling himself on some one or some thing, and bite, and tear, and destroy. Another day and night went by. The rain was falling more heavily than ever, and that steady, inexorable drip, drip had at last filled and overflowed the saucepan. Between cold and starvation Costantino had almost come to the end of his forces. Once he was visited by a horrid illusion. He thought that a mad dog had thrown him down and bitten him in the stomach. He awoke shaking, and could not throw the idea off; perhaps he had been bitten by a mad dog, and this was hydrophobia! Towards evening the storm died down, though the rain did not cease entirely. Then, suddenly, he felt that he was dying; he had no sense of rebellion now; all that was over; he seemed to have lost even the power to care. To die, to die--Why should he want to go on living?

Everything both within him and about him was black and void. Through all his fever-ridden dreams one idea had remained persistently by him--that he was about to commit a crime. Now it was Aunt Martina whom he was on the point of stabbing; then some one else; but in the intervals of consciousness he realised that should he live, should he once more find himself burdened with the dolorous gift of existence, while he would not even attempt to resist the secret force that was urging him on, it would matter little against whom his fury expended itself; it might be Aunt Martina, or Brontu, or some one else. But then--then--deep down in his soul he could never rid himself of a sense of terror of _what would happen afterwards_. Yes; he wanted to die, so as to suffer no more and to be saved from becoming a murderer.

At last the rain was ceasing; it still fell steadily, but more, now, like a gentle shower, while the wind had died down completely. It was cold, though, and the damp, chill atmosphere hung over the cabin like a heavy wet cloth. So unutterably dreary were the weather and the surroundings that Costantino, recalling the periods of his most acute misery, could never remember being so utterly and hopelessly wretched as now. Not even on the day of the sentence, not even on the day when they had told him of the divorce, nor on that other day of his return: for on every one of those occasions, desperate as the outlook had been, there always remained the hope of better things in the life to come.

Then his conscience had been pure; but now, should he go on living, he believed that he would surely forfeit all hope in the life to come. At times, goaded by this horror, he would cry aloud, imploring death to come and save him, as a terrified child cries for its mother.

Thus the hours wore on; he had dropped into a feverish sleep, but awoke suddenly, trembling with terror at he could not tell what. The rain was over at last, but in the profound stillness that enwrapped him, Costantino fancied that he still heard it beating on the roof, and the drip, drip from the leak over the fireplace; only now the sounds seemed to come from far, far away, from a world that was already remote. He thought that he was already dead, or lingering on the extremest confines of life, in a place of shadows, of silence, of mystery. What would he find there--just beyond? The light of eternity, or--the darkness of eternity? He was afraid to open his eyes; he tried to cry out, but could not utter a sound. Then--a knock came on the door. The sound dragged him back from that vague tide on which he was floating; he opened his eyes without moving, conscious both of relief and regret at finding himself still alive.

The knocking was repeated louder than before. Who could it be? Not Uncle Isidoro; he would have called out.

Costantino neither stirred nor spoke. Possibly he had not the strength to get up, but in any case he had no wish to. Why must they come to disturb him? dragging him back from those mysterious sh.o.r.es on which he had almost set foot.

Meanwhile the knocking continued still more vigorously, but after a little it ceased, and everything became perfectly still. A short time elapsed; then some one again approached the hut; presently the end of a stout stick was thrust under the door, serving as a lever; the frail barrier, secured only by a metal hasp, quickly yielded, and the figure of a woman, with a skirt thrown over her head and shoulders, appeared for a moment in the opening; stepping inside, she turned and replaced the rickety door before Costantino was able to recognise her. There was a moment of breathless silence, during which he could hear his visitor groping her way about, in the pitchy darkness, on the other side of the hut; then she spoke, and he recognised the voice of Aunt Bachissia.

"Costantino! Are you there? Where are you? Are you dead or alive? Why don't you answer? Some one said you had not been seen for three days, and that Isidoro Pane was away. I came once before and knocked and knocked, but you wouldn't answer. What's the matter? are you sick?"

Still he made no reply, burying his face like a sulky child.

"My soul!" moaned the woman, "he must be ill as well."

_As well!_ Then some one else was ill! Who, he wondered. Perhaps Giovanna. He listened intently, still keeping his face covered.

"He has no fire and no light!" she muttered. "What does it all mean?

Wait, I'll strike a light. Where are my matches?"

The pale, blue flame of a sulphur match shot up for a moment, and then suddenly died away.

Costantino could see nothing, but he heard Aunt Bachissia stumbling her way towards him, moaning: "Costantino, Costantino!"

A wave of anger swept over him; he tried to cry out, to rise and fling himself upon her, choke her--but he was powerless. A cold sweat broke out all over him, and he knew that if he attempted so much as to speak, he would burst into tears. How hatefully weak he was!

Aunt Bachissia struck another match, and began searching for a light of some sort, but all she could find was a rude iron lamp hanging on a nail, with neither wick nor oil. Then she groped her way to the fireplace, and, stooping down, held out her hand with the lighted match between her fingers. There were the saucepan full of water, the heap of wet ashes, the soaked hearthstone, and beyond, half in the circle of light, the figure of Costantino extended motionless on the pallet. The match flared up and then went out, and all became again perfectly dark and silent.

For a moment Aunt Bachissia did not stir; she hardly seemed to breathe; then a long, choking sob broke from her.

Of what had she been thinking in that moment of silence and darkness?

Did that vision of Costantino lying apparently dead before her awaken a sudden, agonising sense of what she had done; of her iniquitous responsibility in the ruin that had been wrought in Giovanna's and Costantino's lives, and in the lives of every one concerned in the melancholy drama? Throwing herself on the floor beside the pallet, she pa.s.sed her hands tremblingly over his body and face, sobbing in the darkness and silence: "Costantino, Costantino! are you alive? Answer me----Yes," she murmured presently, "he is alive, but ill, ill--you are ill, aren't you?" she went on coaxingly. "Is it a wound? Ah, G.o.d! If you only knew what terrible things have happened! Giovanna sent me; she was frightened, you know; she thought you might have been hurt, that some one might have been lying in wait for you; she's more dead than alive herself--Costantino----!"

At last Costantino gave a moan; something hard in his breast seemed to melt; he was moved--affected. Then he was not forgotten, after all; Giovanna had been anxious; she had sent to find out about him; she was frightened, unhappy. Then, in his changed mood, Aunt Bachissia's words of a moment before came back to him with fresh meaning. "He is ill _as well_," she had said. Who was this other person who was ill? Again he thought of Giovanna, and his heart sank.

"Is it a wound?" she repeated.

"Yes," murmured Costantino.

"Who did it?"

"I don't know; some one hired by Aunt Martina Dejas."

"Ah!" cried Aunt Bachissia, her voice thick with anger; then, in a changed tone, she said: "The saying goes that G.o.d does not pay on Sat.u.r.day--well,--Brontu Dejas is dying--poor wretch!"

Costantino felt as though an electric shock had gone through him; he started to his feet, swayed, and fell back on his knees. In the darkness his hands encountered those of Aunt Bachissia, and she felt that they were scorching hot and trembling.

"Costantino! my soul!" she cried, alarmed lest in his weak and exhausted condition the shock of her news had been too great for him.

"Costantino, what is it? You are shaking all over like a little kid!

Yes; Brontu is very ill. He came back yesterday; it was a holiday, you know, and he came home so drunk that he was like something crazy. It seems that he has been drinking all the time lately, even up at the sheepfolds. So then yesterday when he came in he was horribly drunk, and he began quarrelling with his mother and Giovanna, and tried to beat them; they were so frightened that they ran up and locked themselves in their rooms. Brontu stayed down in the kitchen, and he must have stretched himself out alongside the fire. After some time they heard him crying out, but they thought it was just some drunken foolishness, and did not go down to see what it was. After a while, though, when he had become quiet, Aunt Martina went and found him lying there unconscious and frightfully burned. He had evidently fallen asleep and had put his legs right over the fire,[10] and then his clothing caught. There was an empty brandy bottle lying beside him. He hasn't come to since, and the doctor says he can't live through the night. Poor Brontu; he wasn't bad; he was weak, but not really bad--Costantino! Costantino!--what on earth is it? What are you doing?" For in the darkness Aunt Bachissia, who had told her story with moans and sighs of sympathy, partly for Costantino, partly for Brontu, heard what she at first took to be a burst of insane laughter. The young man's hands became rigid, his limbs contracted, and for one wild moment she thought he had lost his reason. Then the truth broke upon her; he was crying, weeping bitterly, half from weakness and reaction, but half, too, from horror and sympathy at the awful ending of a man whom, but a short while before, he had thought that he hated so much that he was in danger of killing him.

That same night Brontu died, and some time later Giovanna and Costantino were reunited. Old Aunt Martina, absorbed in her grief and completely shattered by it, like an oak-tree that has been struck by lightning, offered no objection, but neither did she forgive the young people, and she demanded that the little Mariedda should be left under her care.

Thus the two, the old woman and the child, lived on in the white house, while Giovanna and Costantino returned to the little grey cottage.

There, after a time, another child was born to them--Malthineddu.

It is a soft spring day. Overhead the sky is a tender blue, and all around the village the fields of grain sway like the waves of a green, encircling sea. Aunt Martina sits on the portico, spinning, and praying silently; a white, tragic figure, spiritualised by sorrow.

Aunt Bachissia sits spinning likewise, before the door of the cottage.

Giovanna is sewing, and hard by Costantino works at his bench. No one speaks, but the thoughts of all are turned on the past.

In the middle of the common Mariedda and Malthineddu are playing together with gurgles and shouts of joyous laughter, as happy and unconcerned as the birds on the neighbouring hedges.

Hither and thither they go, trotting from Aunt Martina to Costantino, from Aunt Bachissia to Giovanna, from Giovanna to Aunt Martina. And each in turn, even the desolate, heartbroken old grandmother, looks up to receive them with a smile of tender indulgence. They are the invisible woof of peace and mutual forgiveness.

THE END

FOOTNOTE:

[10] In Sardinia the fireplaces almost always consist of four stones placed so as to form a square in the centre of the kitchen. They have no chimneys.