After the Divorce, Grazia Deledda [the giving tree read aloud .txt] 📗

pass forty years in prison; and, at the same time, he panted for his freedom precisely in order that he might not lose her.

During the winter that followed, he suffered intensely from cold; his face and nails were livid, and during the exercise hour, even when he stood in the sun, his teeth chattered like those of an old man. He asked often to confess, and confided all his troubles to the young chaplain.

“Who puts such ideas as these into your head, my son?” asked the confessor, his dark eyes flashing.

“A fellow-countryman of mine, the ex-marshal⁠—Burrai. The King of Spades they call him.”

“May God bless and protect you!” said the other, becoming thoughtful; he knew the King of Spades well. Then he administered what comfort he could, and asked what Giovanna had written herself, and when.

Alas! she wrote but seldom now and never more than a few lines at a time. It seemed almost as if, after the child’s death, she had nothing to write about. In her last letter she had told him that the weather was bitterly cold; there had been two snow-storms, in one of which a man, while attempting to cross the mountains, had been frozen to death. And then she had added that they were having a famine.

These accounts, of course, preyed upon Costantino’s mind. He would dream constantly that he had been taken to Nuoro and given his liberty; from thence he would set forth on foot for home; it was cold, bitterly cold; he could go no further⁠—he was dying, dying⁠—then he would wake up shivering, and with a heavy weight on his heart.

“You are so weak, my brother,” said the confessor. “It is bodily weakness that makes you imagine all these things. Your wife is a good Christian; she would never wrong you in the world. Come, put all such ideas out of your head. You should try to get back your strength; you must eat more, and drink something now and then. Are you earning anything?”

“A little; but I send it all to my wife, she is so terribly poor. Oh! I eat plenty, and I don’t like to take anything to drink; it gives me nausea.”

“Well, take heart. I will talk to Burrai; he shall not bother you any more.”

He did, in fact, have an interview with the King of Spades, and took him severely to task for putting such wicked ideas into Ledda’s head. “The poor fellow is far from strong as it is,” said he. “If you don’t let him alone, he will be ill.”

Burrai regarded the priest calmly out of his shrewd little pig-eyes, then he gave a puff and shook his head.

“I only do it for his own good,” he said confidently.

“But what good, what possible good? You⁠—”

“I tell you, my dear fellow⁠—I beg your pardon⁠—but here it is, for the present⁠—as long as the cold weather lasts⁠—there is very little to be feared, so far as the young woman is concerned; that is, I fancy that now it is only the old one, Costantino’s mother-in-law, who is at work, advising and tormenting her daughter not to let her chance slip by. But when the spring comes⁠—then you’ll see; that’s all.”

The chaplain’s face fell; he was disturbed and puzzled. The other, watching him out of his sharp, little eyes, concluded that the present would be a good time to explain himself more fully, and accordingly began to enlarge upon the mother-in-law’s grasping disposition, the youth of her daughter, the dangers of the spring season, and so forth. The chaplain now became really angry.

“This is too much!” he exclaimed, as he strode up and down, striking the palms of his hands together, and his eyes flashing. “How dare you imagine all this string of things that may possibly happen, and then repeat them to that poor creature as though they were actual occurrences? Because the young woman once had another suitor, you mean to say⁠—”

“My dear friend, there is no need to get so angry,” said the other. “Here, look at this,” and he showed him the anonymous letter.

The chaplain saw at once that the matter was more serious than he had supposed; he read the letter, and then asked if Ledda paid him money.

“Of course, a trifle now and then. Perhaps you think it wrong? Well, don’t I take the risk of being put in a cell in order to serve him?”

“And you consider that you are doing right when you act in this manner?”

“What is doing right? If it is helping your neighbour, then I most certainly think that I am.”

The chaplain reread the letter attentively.

“Yes,” pursued the other. “I certainly am. And what is more, if, when I get out of here, they don’t reinstate me in my position, I intend to arrange a system of correspondence for all the prisons in Italy. It will be a sort of agency⁠—”

“I see, my friend, that it will not be long before we have you back again.”

“Eh! eh! I shall know how to manage the thing; a secret agency, and⁠—”

“Pardons too!” said the priest, folding the letter and returning it. “How can you have the heart to fool those poor creatures so?”

“Yes, pardons too,” replied Burrai calmly. “Well, and suppose they are fooled; if it gives them any comfort to hope, is not that an act of kindness in itself? What is there for any of us, but hope?”

“Well,” said the other more mildly, “at least do me the favour to leave that poor fellow alone. Allow him to enjoy the pleasures of hope, otherwise he will certainly fall ill.”

The ex-marshal promised, though with bad grace. It seemed to him a poor method.

“He will die of heartstroke, I verily believe,” he said to himself. “Wait till the spring; then we will see whether a man of the world knows what he is about or no.” And he laid one hand on his breast.

When they next met, Costantino asked with a smile if he had seen