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

kitchen looked like one of those pictures of Flemish interiors, where the figures are thrown out in a ruddy glow against a dark background. By the uncertain light, a grey spiderweb could be dimly discerned, with the spider in the middle; in the corner near the hearth, a glass jug filled to the brim with water in which black leeches swam about; a yellow basket against the wall; and finally the figures of the two men and the black hair cord, its loose ends held between the bony, red fingers of the old fisherman.

“And how goes it now?” asked Giacobbe.

“How goes it now? How does it go now?” repeated the old man. “I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s been published,” said Giacobbe more as though he were talking to himself. “The thing is actually done! The drunkard never even came near the pastures today, so I just took myself off as well. They may steal his sheep if they want to; I don’t care; here I am, and something has got to be done, Isidoro Pane! Hi! Isidoro Pane! leave that cord alone and listen to me. Some⁠—thing⁠—has⁠—got⁠—to⁠—be⁠—done⁠—Do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you; but what is there to do? We have done all we can⁠—implored, expostulated, threatened⁠—The syndic has interfered, the clerk. Priest Elias⁠—”

“Oh, Priest Elias! What did he do? Talked to them with sugar in his mouth! He should have threatened them; he should have said: ‘I’ll take the Holy Books and I’ll curse you! I’ll excommunicate you; you shall never be able to satisfy your hunger, nor to quench your thirst, nor to have any peace; you shall live in a hell upon earth!’ Ah, then you would have seen some result! But no, he is a dunce⁠—a warm-milk priest; and he has not done his duty. Don’t speak of him to me, it makes me angry.”

Isidoro laid down the cord: “It’s of no use to get angry,” said he. “Priest Elias has no business with threats, and he has not used them; but never fear, excommunication will fall on that house all the same!”

“Well, I am going to leave them; yes, I am going away. I’ll eat no more of their accursed bread!” said Giacobbe with a look expressive of his loathing and disgust. “But before going, I should like to have the pleasure of administering a sound thrashing to those favourites of the devil.”

“You are crazy, little spring bird,” said Isidoro with a melancholy smile, imitating Giacobbe.

“Yes, I am, I’m crazy; but even so, what do you care? You haven’t done anything either to stop this sacrilege. Oh, it’s disgraceful! I’ve lost all my good spirits⁠—”

“It has made me ten years older.”

“All my good spirits, and I keep thinking all the time of what Costantino will say to us for not being able to put a stop to it. Is it true that he is ill?”

“Not now; he was ill, but now he is only desperate,” said Uncle Isidoro, shaking his head. Then he picked up the cord and began plaiting it again, murmuring below his breath: “Excommunicate⁠—excommunicate⁠—”

“I get so furious that I foam at the mouth⁠—the way a dog does,” said Giacobbe, raising his voice. “Just exactly like a dog. No, after all, I don’t think I’ll quit that house; I’ll stay there if I burst, and see them when the blast of excommunication strikes them. Yes, if there is one thing that is sure, it is that God punishes both in this life and the other too, and I want to be on hand when it comes. What is that that you are making, Uncle ’Sidoro?”

“A horsehair cord.”

There was a short silence; Giacobbe sat staring at the cord, his eyes dim with grief and anger.

“What are you going to do with it when it is done?”

“Sell it, over in Nuoro; I sell them here too sometimes; the peasants use them to tie their cows. What makes you look at it like that? You are not thinking of hanging yourself, are you?”

“No, little spring bird, you can do that for yourself, if it is God’s will. Yes,” he continued, again raising his voice. “They have actually published the notice.”

Another silence; then Isidoro said: “Who knows? I can’t help hoping yet that that marriage may never come off. I have faith in God, and I believe that San Costantino may still perform some miracle to stop it.”

“Why, certainly; why not? A miracle by all means!” said Giacobbe scornfully.

“Yes; why not?” replied Isidoro calmly. “The real murderer of Basilio Ledda might die now, for instance, and confess. In that case the divorce could not hold good.”

“Of course, die just at this precise time!” said the other in the same tone as before. “You are as innocent as a three-year-old child, Isidoro, with your Christian faith!”

“Well, who knows? Or he might be found out.”

“Why, to be sure, he might be found out! Just in the nick of time! Only what has anyone ever known about it? And who is to find him out?”

“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 shell. 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 God.”

“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