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

Aunt Anna-Rosa had looked at him angrily, and muttered something under her breath.

Poor little Aunt Anna-Rosa! It did not take much to anger her in these days; she quarrelled, indeed, with everyone except the patient. And how old she looked! After that night her face had remained yellow and drawn; she looked like a different person, and her brother’s revelation had worked a singular change in her both physically and morally. She was constantly tormented by the question as to how Giacobbe ever could have brought himself to kill any one. He, who was always as merry and gentle as a lamb! How in the name of the holy souls in purgatory had he ever done it? And our father, he was no thief, not he! He was a God-fearing man, and always so kind and gay that when any of the neighbours were in trouble they invariably came to him to be cheered up.

The little woman’s heart swelled as she thought of her old father long since dead, but suddenly a mist seemed to rise in her brain, and her face contracted with the horror of a terrible thought.

“Perhaps he, too, the kindly, good old man had committed some crime! Why not? No one could be trusted any more, living or dead, old or young.” And then she fell to crying, beating her breast with her tiny fists, and bitterly repenting of her wicked doubts.

When, approaching the bedside, she would find the patient’s face drawn with suffering, his wide, terror-stricken eyes, meanwhile, seeming to implore death to spare him, an infinite tide of pity would well up within her, a rush of maternal tenderness, a sorrow beyond words. More than ever was he her little brother, her boy, curled up on the great bed; so frightened, so shrunken with suffering! And while everything else, every one else, even the sacred dead, even innocent children, aroused hateful suspicions, he alone, he of them all, called for pity, tenderness, a passionate and consuming love, that was like melting wax within her. Yet she must see him, and she was seeing him⁠—die. More than that, she must wish for his death. All the while that she was nursing him with tenderest care, she must hope that her watchfulness, the medicines, everything, would fail. Moreover, death, that awful thing which she must ardently desire for the “little brother” whom she loved, when it came would bring, not only the deep, natural sorrow of her loss, but that other horror, the announcement of his guilt.

Of all the burdens that pressed upon her, however, the hardest to bear was the fact that the sick man was perfectly conscious of her attitude towards him.

On the third day of his illness, Isidoro had brought, with great secrecy and mystery, a medicine obtained from the sacristan. It was a concoction made of olive-oil, into which had been plunged three scorpions, a centipede, a tarantula, a spider, and a poisonous fungus; it was considered a cure for any kind of sting. Aunt Anna-Rosa applied it at once to the patient’s puffed and swollen hand, he allowing her to do it, and watching the operation intently. Then he said:

“Why do you take all this trouble for me, Anna-Ro? Don’t you want me to die?”

Her heart sank, while he continued quietly, addressing Isidoro: “And you? You brought me this, but just suppose it were to cure me, what would you do then?”

“God will look after that; leave it to him,” said the fisherman.

Giacobbe lay quiet for a few moments; then he said:

“Shall you two go together to the magistrate’s?”

“Where?”

“To the magistrate’s; it’s cold, though, now, and it’s a long way to go; you must not go on horseback, Anna-Rosa, do you hear? You will have to have a carriage to drive to Nuoro.”

“What for?” she faltered distressedly, pretending not to understand.

“Why, to see the magistrate, of course.”

She scolded him, and then went into the kitchen and wept bitterly.

“Here is your oil,” she said presently, as Isidoro came out and prepared to leave. “You could not do anything but bring it, of course. When is Priest Elias coming?”

“This evening.”

“Yes, he ought to; Giacobbe must confess. Time is flying, and he is very ill; last night he didn’t close an eye. Ah!” she added suddenly, “he seems to me just like some wounded bird.”

“Have the Dejases been here?”

“Oh, yes! They’ve been here, both of them, mother and son. Brontu has been here twice. Oh, they all come!” she said desperately, “but what good does it do? They can’t cure him; they can’t give him either life or death.”

“Either one would be equally a blessing or a curse to him,” said Isidoro, carefully wrapping his red handkerchief around the vial of oil.

“As they are for most of us!” said the woman.

Soon after, the doctor arrived in a shrunken overcoat, with the collar turned up. He had been drinking already, and smelled strong of spirits; his lips were white, and he puffed, and spat about, sometimes over himself. He seemed somewhat startled, however, when he saw his patient’s condition.

“What the devil’s the matter with you?” he demanded roughly. “Your side? your side? You’ve got the devil in your side. Let’s have a look.” He threw back the covers, exposing Giacobbe’s hairy chest; passing his hand up and down his side, he listened with his ear close to the patient’s back. “It’s all nonsense,” he said. “You’ve worked yourself up like some old woman.” Then he replaced the covers carelessly, and went out. At the door, however, he turned and fixed Aunt Anna-Rosa with his eye.

“Woman,” he said, “let him see the priest at once; he has pneumonia.”

At dusk Giacobbe confessed; then he called his sister. “Anna-Ro,” he said, “Priest Elias is going to Nuoro with you too. You must be sure to have a carriage on account of the cold.”

It was, in fact, snowing then, and the big room was filled with the white reflected light.

Priest Elias looked attentively at Aunt Anna-Rosa, for whom he