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

“No; the fault belongs to them as well. To Bachissia Era, for her avarice and wickedness in throwing her daughter at Brontu; and to Giovanna, for abandoning her first husband when she loved him, and marrying another out of self-interest! The blame belongs equally to all, or, rather, it does not; it is theirs alone, for we did nothing but what was good. It is theirs, theirs, and I hate every one of them⁠—vile, low-born beggars⁠—traitors. And I can tell you, if Costantino does not give this thing up, he’ll bitterly regret it. Beg, implore, adjure him! Tell him not to bring ruin on a respectable house, and then⁠—if he will not listen⁠—”

“Hush, Martina,” begged the fisherman, seeing that she was working herself into a fury. “Don’t talk foolishness. But tell me, are you really certain that Giovanna and Costantino are meeting each other?”

“Absolutely certain. For three months now, as I told you, I have hardly closed my eyes. One night I heard some one talking to Giovanna. She saw right away that I had noticed something, and for a while she was on her guard. But now⁠—now she has thrown aside all prudence. The other day they met at Bachissia Era’s cottage; I saw them plainly; and not only that, I heard them; I listened at the door. Then, last night he was with her again; do you understand? actually in my house, beneath my roof! And I⁠—I was trembling so with rage I hardly knew what I was about; but I waited for him below; I was going to speak to him, and then I was going to stab him⁠—kill him, if I could⁠—I had a knife ready in my hand. But do you know, I could not stir a limb! I could not even open my lips when he crept down as stealthily as a thief, first on to the roof, and then the ground, and away! Ah, I am nothing but a poor old woman; I can’t do a thing. I was just frightened, and I hid. Giovanna knows that I care more for Brontu than for anything else in the world, and that I would sacrifice everything to spare him, even the honour of our name. And so the ungrateful creature is taking advantage of the tenderest feeling that I have. She is counting on my being afraid to tell him for fear that he will commit murder, and so be ruined forever, and that is why she dares to carry it on. But I⁠—I⁠—Isidoro, I will be capable of doing almost anything if Costantino does not break this off. Tell him so.”

“But why don’t you speak to Giovanna?” asked the fisherman.

“Because⁠—well, I’m afraid of her. She follows me about and watches me all the time like a tigress ready to spring. She hates me, just as I hate her at times; and at the very first word she would fly at me and choke me to death. I don’t dare to open my mouth. Oh, it is all so horrible! You don’t know what days I pass! Death would be far less bitter than the life I am leading.”

As she spoke these words, Aunt Martina buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

A feeling of intense pity rose in the old fisherman’s heart. In the days of his most grinding poverty he had never been reduced to tears, and to think of the rich, proud Martina Dejas being actually more wretched than an old pauper like himself!

“I will do my very best,” he said. “Now go, and try not to worry. You had better get off at once, though; it is time for him to be coming back.” She got up, wrapped the petticoat carefully around her head and shoulders, and when Isidoro had looked out to make sure that no one was about who might recognise her, walked slowly away.

The air was sharp; the wind was blowing in gusts, tearing the first dead leaves from the trees. Aunt Martina, struggling against it, felt more anxious and depressed even than when she came. It seemed as though that chill, autumn wind that shook and lashed and tore her, were tearing and lashing her spirit as well. The presentiments of evil that she had spoken of as haunting her, were stronger than ever. Passing a certain wretched little hovel, more forlorn and poverty-stricken than any of the others, she shot a keen glance at it, and then quickly lowered her eyes, as though in dread lest some invisible being should read the dark thought of her soul. The owner of this hovel, a poor peasant, had come to her some time before, and had asked her to lend him some money. “Lend it to you!” she had exclaimed derisively. “And how do you propose to repay it?” “If I can’t pay you back in money,” the man had replied, “there may be some other way of showing my gratitude. You could require any service at all of me.”

She understood what he meant. He was ready to undertake anything, even the commission of a crime, in order to get the money he needed. But she had not wanted anything, and so had sent him off. Now, passing the forlorn little house, rapidly falling into ruins, through the darkness and wind, and melancholy of the night, she saw again before her the gaunt, resolute figure of this man; his hollow, sunken eyes; his lips, white from hunger; his dark, bony hands, ready for any act by which he might hope to snatch a little ease and comfort out of life; and the horrible schemes of vengeance that were tearing at her selfish old heart began to take a fearful and well-defined shape.

Thus she passed on. A dark, forbidding form, enveloped in her black tunic, swept by the wind past that wretched hovel like a shadowy portent of evil.

That same evening Uncle Isidoro reasoned with Costantino at length, urging him by every argument at his command