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

like drops of gold, ready to fall. He walked steadily on, knowing perfectly whither he was bound, and never wavering for a single instant. Here and there, on the thresholds of cottages whose owners were too poor to indulge in the luxury of a light, little groups of people sat, enjoying the freshness of the night air.

Occasionally the high-pitched voice of a woman would float across the road, recounting some piece of gossip, or trifling incident of domestic life. In a lonely angle Costantino espied a pair of lovers; the man, hearing his footsteps approach, tried to hide his companion, who quickly turned her face to the wall. Costantino walked on, but presently he stopped and half turned, thinking he would give the two young people a fright by calling out: “I am going to tell your father right away!” But the fear of attracting attention, and being himself discovered, deterred him, and he went on.

When he discerned the black mass of the almond-tree, rearing itself from beside the path beyond Aunt Bachissia’s cottage, his heart gave a sudden bound, and then stood still; it was so like a great head with rough, shaggy locks, thrusting itself out, intently watching for him to appear. He had fully determined to pass the tree, cross the common, enter the Dejas house, and speak to Giovanna; it all seemed perfectly simple and plain, and he was prepared to do it; yet he was frightened, more than frightened⁠—terrified. A flexible, girlish voice floated out into the night: “No matter how often you may say it, it’s not true!”

He looked all about him; no one was to be seen, and he went on, his nervousness increasing with every step. Crossing the common, he examined Aunt Bachissia’s cottage; then the white house; then Mattea’s hovel; from the last a faint light shone; the two others were in total darkness. Again the idea crossed his mind that Mattea might be playing him a trick; or, perhaps, Aunt Bachissia was with Giovanna, or the latter might already have gone to bed, and would decline to open the door! Nevertheless, he walked steadily on, and up on the portico.

Instantly the figure of Giovanna became apparent, seated on the doorstep. At the same moment she recognised him and leaped to her feet, rigid with terror. His voice, low, agitated, at once reassured her.

“Don’t be frightened. Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

A second later they were in each other’s arms.

Epilogue

A year elapsed.

One night, when Brontu was away from home, Aunt Martina heard, or thought she heard, a low murmur of voices in Giovanna’s room. Had Brontu come back? the old woman wondered, and if so, why? Could anything have happened at the sheepfolds?

Tormented by the thought, she finally got up. The door was open, and she listened a moment. Yes, undoubtedly someone was talking in Giovanna’s room. Not wishing to strike a light, she attempted to cross the room that separated her own chamber from Giovanna’s, in the dark. She made a misstep, however, and, trying to recover herself, overthrew a chair. “Holy Mary!” she muttered, setting it right again. Then she groped her way to the door, felt for the handle, and tried to open it. It was locked.

“What do you want?” demanded Giovanna’s voice instantly.

“Has Brontu got back?”

“No; why?”

“I thought I heard some one talking. Why have you got the door locked?”

“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 breasts 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 anyone 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 multitude 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,