VI

Time passed by; the autumn came, and then the winter. Costantino’s appeal had, of course, been rejected, as appeals always are. One night he was fastened by a chain to another convict, whom he had never seen, and the two took their places in a long file of others, all dressed in linen, all silent; like a drove of wild beasts controlled by some invisible power. They were going⁠—where? They did not know. They were silent⁠—why? They could not say. Presently they were all marched down to the water’s edge, put on board a long, black steamer, and shut into a cage⁠—still like wild beasts. All about them lay the crystal sea, across whose dark, green waters the ruby and emerald reflections from the ship’s lights danced and sparkled like strings of glittering jewels; while above, engirdling the great ring of water, hung the deep blue sky, like an immense, silent vale dotted over with yellow, starry flowers. At first Costantino’s sensations were not altogether unhappy. True, he was going into the unknown to fulfil a cruel destiny, but down in the bottom of his heart he firmly believed that before very long he would be liberated, and he never lost hope.

The bustle on deck, the rattle of the chains, and the first motion of the ship as it got under way, filled him with childish curiosity. He had never been to sea, but, as a boy, he had often stood scanning the horizon, and gazing at the grey stretch of the Mediterranean, sometimes dotted over with the white wings of sailing vessels. At such times, as he stood among the wild shrubs and undergrowth of his native mountains, he would dream of some day crossing that far-away sea to distant, unknown lands, and to the golden cities of the Continent. He could read and write, and had a book in which St. Peter’s at Rome was depicted; and in the chapter on sacred history there was an engraving of ancient Jerusalem. Ah! Jerusalem. According to his ideas, Jerusalem must be the finest and largest city in the world; and, as he stood there dreaming among the bushes on Mount Bellu, and gazing off at the grey Mediterranean, it was to Jerusalem that he longed to go. And now, here he was crossing the sea; but how different from his dreams! Yet, so splendid was his conception of Jerusalem that if it had been thither that he was bound, even a chained and condemned prisoner on his way to expiate a crime, he would, nevertheless, have been content to go.

The pitching and rolling of the ship was accompanied by the ceaseless rush of the water from the bows. Some of the convicts chattered among themselves, laughing and cracking jokes. Costantino fell asleep and dreamed, as he always did, that he was at home again. He had been set free almost immediately⁠—he dreamed⁠—and had gone home without letting Giovanna know a word about it so as to give her the unutterable joy of the surprise. She kept saying: “But this is a dream, this is a dream⁠—” The expenses of the trial had stripped the little house bare of everything, even the bed was gone; but nothing made any difference. All the riches in the world could not compare with the bliss of being free and of living with Giovanna and Malthineddu. But he was terribly tired, so he curled himself up in the baby’s cradle; the cradle rocked, harder and harder all the time. Giovanna laughed and called out: “Be careful not to fall out, Costantino, my dear, my lamb!” And the cradle rocked more than ever. At first he laughed as well, but all at once he found he was suffering, then he fell head foremost on the ground, and woke up.

There was a heavy sea on, and Costantino was sick. The ship struggled up to mountain-heights and then plunged swiftly into bottomless gulfs of water, the waves breaking even over the third deck.

All the convicts were ill; some still attempted to joke, while others swore, and one, with a yellow, cunning face⁠—he was Costantino’s companion⁠—moaned and lamented like a child.

“Oh!” he groaned, cowering down, gasping and frightened. “I was dreaming that I was at home, and now⁠—now⁠—oh! dear St. Francis, have pity on me!”

Notwithstanding his own misery, both physical and mental, Costantino felt sorry for him. “Patience, my brother, I was dreaming too about being at home.”

“I feel,” cried another, “as though my soul were melting away. What the devil is the matter with this ship! It seems to be trying to dance the Sardian dance!” Whereat some of the others still had sufficient spirit left to laugh.

The storm was increasing. At times Costantino thought he was dying, and was frightened; yet, on the other hand, he felt an unutterable weariness of life. His soul seemed to be steeped in the same bitter fluid that his stomach was casting up. Never, not even at the moment when the sentence of condemnation had been passed upon him, had he experienced anything like his present condition of hopeless misery. He too began to swear and groan, doubling his fists, and twisting his chilled toes. “May you die just as I am dying now, you murderous dogs, who brought all this on me!” he muttered, while tears as bitter as gall welled up into his eyes.

Towards dawn the wind subsided, but even when the sickness had passed, Costantino found no relief; he felt as though he had been beaten to the point of death, and he was shaking with cold, and exhaustion, and dread. The steamer relentlessly pursued its way. Oh, if it would only stop for just one moment! A single moment of quiet, it seemed to Costantino, would suffice to restore his strength; but this continuous forging ahead, the constant rolling, the never-ceasing roar of the waves as they lashed the sides of the vessel, kept him in a state of nervous tremor. On, and on, and on; the long hours of agony dragged slowly by; night came again; and all the time his subtle-faced, yellow-visaged companion hardly ceased to sigh and lament, driving Costantino into a perfect frenzy of irritation. Sleep came at length, and then, strange to relate, he had the same dream as on the previous night, only this time it was Giovanna who was in the cradle, and the cradle was rocking quite gently.

When Costantino awoke, the boat seemed hardly to move; in the silence that precedes the dawn, he heard a voice say: “That is Procida.”

He was shaking with cold, and wondered if they were to land there, where, he thought he remembered to have heard, the galleys were.

Presently his companion awoke, shivering and yawning prodigiously.

“Are we there?” asked Costantino. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty well. Are we there?”

“I don’t know; we are near Procida; is that where the galleys are?”

“No; they’re at Nisida,” said the other. “But we are not galley-birds!” he added, with a touch of pride, and then fell to yawning again. “Oh, how I was dreaming!” he said, and then stopped, overcome by the memory of his dream.

The prisoners were landed at Naples and immediately placed in a black-and-yellow van, something like a movable sepulchre. Costantino caught a brief glimpse of a wide expanse of smooth green water, a quantity of huge steamers, and innumerable small craft filled with gaily dressed men who shouted out all manner of incomprehensible things. All around the boats, on the surface of the green water, floated weeds, scraps of paper, refuse of all kinds. Enormous buildings were outlined against a sky of deepest blue. At Naples, the convicts were separated; Costantino was taken off to the prison at X⁠⸺ and saw his yellow-visaged companion no more.

On reaching his destination, Costantino was at once consigned to a cell where he was to pass the first six months of his term in solitary confinement. This cell measured hardly two metres in length by six palms in breadth: it was furnished with a rude folding bed, which, during the day, was closed and fastened against the wall. From the tiny window nothing could be seen but a strip of sky.

Of the entire term of his imprisonment this was the dreariest period. He would sit immovable for hours with his legs crossed and his hands clasped about his knee⁠—thinking; but strangely enough he never either lost hope or rebelled against his fate. He was persuaded that what he was enduring was in expiation of that mortal sin, as he regarded it, of having lived with a woman to whom he had not been married by religious ceremony, and he felt an absolute certainty that, this sin atoned for, his innocence would some day be established and he would be set free. At the same time, although he did not despair, he suffered acutely, and passed the days, hours, minutes in a state of nervous expectation of some change that never came, and a prey to a devouring homesickness. Thus day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, he lived in his thoughts close to Giovanna and the child, recalling with minute precision every little unimportant detail of the cottage life, his past existence, and the happiness that had once been his. In addition, moreover, to his own misery, he suffered at the thought of what Giovanna was enduring: now and again an access of passionate tenderness, having her far more than the child for its object, would seize him and arouse him from his usual state of pensive melancholy; then, leaping to his feet, he would stride back and forth⁠—two, or at most three, steps bringing him to the opposite wall, where he would presently stop, and, throwing himself against it, would beat his head as though trying to dash out his brains. These were his moments of utmost desperation.

Hope always returned, however, and then he would begin to weave fantastic dreams of an immediate and romantic restoration to freedom, and the guard never entered his cell that his heart did not begin to beat violently, fancying that he was the bearer of some joyful tidings.

Sometimes he played morra with himself, and he cared so much whether he lost or won that he would laugh aloud like a child. At other times he would sit for hours looking at his outstretched palm, imagining that it was a plain divided into tancas, with walls, rivers, trees, herds of cattle, and shepherds; and weaving stories about them all, full of exciting adventures. And sometimes he prayed, counting on his fingers, and repeating the lauds aloud, trying even to improvise new verses. In this way it came about that he actually did compose a laud of four strophes, dedicated to St. Costantino, in which the saint’s aid was particularly invoked in behalf of all prisoners wrongfully condemned. The refrain ran:

“Saint Costantino, we implore thee
For thy condemned innocent!”

The composing of this laud completely occupied him for many days, and made him, for the time being, almost happy. When it was finished he was wild with joy, but instantly an overpowering desire to tell someone about it seized him; whom was there, though, to tell? The guard was a little Neapolitan; bald, clean-shaven, with a flat, snub nose like that of a skeleton; he talked to him sometimes, but he was not sufficiently intelligent to understand the laud; then there were the other prisoners whom he saw during the exercise hour, but to them he was not allowed to speak; finally he bethought him of the chaplain, and asked to confess in order that he might have the opportunity to repeat the laud to him. The chaplain was a Northerner, a young man, tall and lean, with quick, nervous movements, and great flashing black eyes filled with intelligence. He listened patiently while Costantino repeated his laud, and then enquired if he did not think that, in asking to confess for the purpose of reciting it, he had been guilty of the sin of vanity.

Costantino reddened and said “No,” whereupon the confessor smiled indulgently, reassured him, praised his verses, and sent him off in a state of beatification.

A few days later the prisoner again asked to confess. “Well, have you written another laud?” asked the chaplain.

“No,” said the other, looking down, “but I want to ask a favour.”

“What is it? Let us hear.”

Costantino held his breath a moment, frightened at his own temerity; then he said quickly: “Well, this is it: I want to send the laud home!”

“Ah!” said the chaplain, “I can’t do that; how could you write it, anyhow?”

“Oh, I know how to write!” exclaimed the prisoner, raising his clear eyes to the other’s face.

“Yes; but the trouble is, my brother, that you are not allowed to write.”

“Oh, I can manage that!”

“Well, well, but I can’t; I can’t do it.”

Costantino looked extremely dejected and all but wept; then he confessed; asked whether it might not be better to dedicate the laud to S.S. Peter and Paul, since they too had been in prison, and begged to be forgiven if he had presumed too much in making such a request. The young chaplain gave the absolution and prayed for some moments aloud, the prisoner, meanwhile, praying to himself; then, laying one hand on the other’s head, the priest said in a low voice: “Listen; write out your laud if you can manage it, and⁠—keep a brave heart.”

A wave of joy swept over Costantino, and from that moment he had no other thought than of how he might contrive to transcribe his verses. “I have been a student,” he said one day to the guard. “But I know how to make shoes as well. Would you like to have me make you a pair? Oh, I can fit you!”

“You want something,” said the man in Neapolitan. “But it’s no use, I will do nothing.”

“Now, Uncle Serafino, be kind! Remember your immortal soul!”

“I remember my immortal soul well enough, and I’ve told you before that I’m not your uncle; you killed your uncle.”

“All right; it does not signify; only in our part of the country we always call all the important people ‘uncle.’ ”

Don Serafino, however, wanted his own title, which Costantino, for his part, could not bring himself to employ, since in Sardinia it is used only in addressing people of noble birth; so for that day nothing was accomplished.

On the following morning the prisoner returned to the charge: he recounted how he was of good family, had received an education, and fallen heir to a fortune; this, his uncle, he whom he had been accused of murdering, had spent, and had then shut him up in a dark little room, and forced him to make shoes; and once he had torn almost the entire skin off one of his feet. He even offered to show the foot, but Don Serafino declined with an expression of horror, and cursed the dead man’s cruelty under his breath.

The result was that Costantino presently found himself in possession of a sheet of paper, and by means of blood and a small stick, he succeeded in writing out the laud for condemned prisoners. Thus the winter wore away.

One March day a visit of inspection was made to Costantino’s cell; it was under the direction of a big man, with two round, staring, pale-blue eyes, and so little chin that what he had was completely hidden by a heavy light moustache.

“Hello! you there,” he cried to the prisoner. “What can you do?” Don Serafino was with the party, and as his eye fell upon him, Costantino suddenly recalled the fancy sketch he had once given him. “I can make shoes,” he replied.

“Hello!” said the big man with the staring blue eyes. “You can? Well, you murdered your uncle.”

As the remark seemed to call for no reply, Costantino merely moved his lips, as though to say: “Certainly, I murdered my uncle; may it please your mightiness!”

The party moved on, but before long Don Serafino returned and informed the prisoner that his term of solitary confinement had been shortened by more than a third, and that he would soon be released from his cell. Costantino supposed that he owed this favour to his good behaviour, but Don Serafino explained that it was because he had interceded for him with the authorities, telling them that the prisoner was of good family, that one of his feet had been flayed, and that he could make shoes.

A few days after this Costantino was taken from the cell and set to work, in company with a number of others, at making shoes; he had, moreover, the privilege of writing once every three months to Giovanna. All of these concessions made him quite happy. Then the spring came, and the convicts, who had suffered intensely from cold, became gay and cheerful, keeping up a continual flow of chaff during working hours. Two brothers from the Abruzzi, however, who had asked as a special favour to be allowed to work together, quarrelled so incessantly over the division of a piece of property that was to be settled on their release⁠—that is to say, in ten years’ time⁠—that, after falling upon one another one day, they had to be separated and confined for two weeks in cells. Even then, the very first time they encountered each other during the exercise hour, they began fighting again.

It was during this hour of comparative freedom, when the prisoners took their exercise in the courtyard, that Costantino made the acquaintance of a compatriot, another Sardinian. This man, who had received the nickname of the King of Spades, on account of his triangular-shaped face, his big body, and spindle legs, was white and puffy, and so closely shaven as to look quite bald; he was an ex-marshal of carbineers, convicted of peculation, and, according to his own account, was related to a Cardinal who was secretly in friendly relations with the King and Queen. This personage, he declared, might shortly be expected to procure his pardon, and not alone his but that of any among his friends whom he should recommend; those, for instance, who supplied him with cigars, money, or stamps. He had been assigned for duty in the clerk’s office, and thus had many opportunities to communicate with persons outside, to arrange clandestine correspondences between the prisoners and their families, and to smuggle in money, tobacco, stamps, and liquor; all greatly to his own profit and advantage. It was not long before he asked Costantino if he did not wish to send a letter home.

“Yes,” replied the young man, “but I am poor; I have nothing to give you.”

“Never mind,” said the other generously; “that makes no difference, we are compatriots!” and forthwith he launched into an account of his exploits as a marshal. He had, it appeared, killed ten or more bandits in the course of his career, and had received ten medals; once when he happened to be in Rome the King had invited him to his box at the theatre! He was, in short, a hero; but of his crowning exploit he never spoke, merely observing that he had been sent to prison through the machinations of powerful enemies.

At first, in spite of his equivocal appearance, Costantino believed it all, and felt deeply sympathetic; but gradually, as day by day the accounts of the marshal’s adventures grew more varied and marvellous, he became sceptical, and ended by placing as little faith in what he said as did the others, though they all pretended to be greatly impressed in order to obtain favours.

Every member, indeed, of the little community, not excepting the guards, was both a liar and a hypocrite. The prisoners all tried to make out that they were something quite different from what they appeared to be, and each one had some remarkable explanation of how he happened to be there; while the very fact of their being compelled, quite against their will, to associate closely and intimately together, destroyed every spark of mutual regard that might, under different circumstances, have sprung up among them.

Costantino noted with surprise that those who were held for the more serious charges, while they were the greatest braggarts and boasters, seemed in other respects to be better than the rest. The minor delinquents were, almost without exception, cowardly, surly, and treacherous; fawning upon anyone who could do them a service, and betraying their friends without hesitation, when the occasion arose.

“There is hardly a man in this place,” remarked the King of Spades one day to Costantino, “but what is utterly corrupt; most of them are hardened criminals, versed in every form of vice. Why, the very air we breathe is contaminated, and a man, suddenly deprived of his liberty and cut off from society, quickly goes to decay in such a place; he loses all moral sense, becomes deceitful, cowardly, and violent, and soon grows so depraved that he cannot even realise his own depravity.” And he gave some startling instances in illustration of his point. “It is my belief,” he continued, “that among all who are here now, we two, the Duck-neck and the Delegate, are the only honest ones; all the others are criminals. Be very wary with them, Costantino, my dear fellow-countryman; this place is nothing but a den of bandits, of a worse class even than those whom I put an end to!”

Sometimes Costantino felt quite depressed, reflecting that if his own honesty made no better impression than that of the King of Spades there was little to be proud of.

The Duck-neck was a Sicilian student, a consumptive with white hair, a long neck, and the body of a child. Though he spent most of his time reading, was timid and shrinking, and rarely spoke, he would occasionally fly into such violent rages that he was obliged to submit to the embraces of Ermelinda, as the prisoners called the straitjacket. In one such paroxysm he had once killed a professor.

The Delegate, who looked like a gentleman, was likewise a Southerner; he, it appeared, had been sent to prison out of pure envy! He had a swelling chest and a noble head; his nose was large and Grecian, and there was a cleft in the middle of his lower lip; his expression was haughty and repellent, but as soon as he was approached he became extremely affable, even servile. Notwithstanding the “powerful influence” that was being exerted in his favour, certain lofty personages, a minister in particular, were persecuting him unrelentingly. The student had lent him some scientific books, and he was now bent upon writing a great scientific work himself. Being also assigned to the clerk’s office, he was able secretly to devote a good deal of time to this splendid undertaking, of which the King of Spades gave glowing accounts.

“See here,” said he one day to Costantino; “that man will make all our fortunes. We work every day on the book and have a set of phrases of our own, referring to it; but the utmost caution is necessary, otherwise⁠—beware!⁠—everything may be ruined, and it is a real scientific discovery. I will run over the main heads for you. How the atmosphere was formed⁠—that is, the air. How the ocean was formed⁠—that is, all bodies of water. Origin of the organic world. A rational demonstration of the existence of a primordial continent in the central tract of the Pacific Ocean. Upon this continent human life first made its appearance, passing the period of infancy in those tropical regions. Immigration into Africa and Asia. The continent disappears by reason of a great cataclysm. Identification of this cataclysm with the flood of the Bible. The other continents emerge. Then⁠—End of atmosphere⁠—End of oceans⁠—End of the heavenly bodies⁠—End of the earth!”

“And end of imprisonment?” enquired Costantino with a smile. He had understood very little of the other’s discourse, only taking it for granted that, as usual, he was relating fiction. The King of Spades had to have a listener, however, so he continued tranquilly: “Just wait a moment, the other chapters are: Amplification of the accepted doctrine of evolution. Evolution of our species from the anthropomorphic apes. Causes of the inclination of the axis of the planets⁠—but not Saturn. Reasons for this anomaly. Sun spots, etc.⁠—”

“Oh, go to the devil!” said Costantino to himself, yawning prodigiously. He was staring across the bare courtyard, with its fountain playing in the middle. “And how about the magpie?” he presently asked, pointing to one that had domesticated itself in the establishment. The convicts gorged him with food, and he had become fat and somnolent. If by any chance he felt hungry, he called certain of them by name in a queer, shrill voice.

“Oh, let him burst!” said the King of Spades fretfully. “You are nothing but a child, Costantino; more interested in that silly bird than in a scientific work of the very first importance. Indirectly I can lay claim to the magnum part of the discovery, as it was I who brought the Delegate and the Duck-neck together. We have already succeeded in despatching an abstract of the work, together with a letter addressed to the King, to the Prime Minister. But remember⁠—not a word of this to any one! One eminent scientist, on reading the abstract, exclaimed: ‘This is the loftiest manifestation we have yet had of Italian genius!’ Take my word for it, Costantino, my dear compatriot, the Delegate has reached a dizzy height. He has some powerful friends who are now in Rome for the express purpose of working for his pardon; but then, he has powerful enemies as well! However, he will be liberated before long on account of this book.”

Costantino found all this extremely tiresome, but he pretended to listen as he was hoping soon to get an answer to his letter to Giovanna, and wanted to keep in the other’s good graces. The answer did arrive, sure enough, in May, and gave him the most intense happiness. Giovanna wrote that the boy had been unwell, possibly because the anguish she had endured had affected her milk; now, however, he was entirely well again. Isidoro Pane had received the lauds to San Costantino written in blood, and had wept when he read them, and now he sang them in church, the whole congregation accompanying him. No one knew who had written the verses, but Isidoro said an old man with a long, snowy beard, all dressed in white, had appeared one day on the riverbank, and had handed them to him. People said it was San Costantino, or perhaps Jesus Christ himself! And Giacobbe Dejas had hired himself out to his rich relatives. And the Nuoro lawyer had taken possession of the title to their house, allowing the two women to live there for a small rent. The rich Dejases often had work for Aunt Bachissia, and for her, Giovanna, as well; so they managed to get along. Pietro Punia had been ill with carbuncles, and had died. Annicca “with the silver shoulders” was married. An old shepherd had been arrested for stealing beehives. Thus the letter went on, entirely filled with such simple chronicles, which, to Costantino, however, were fraught with the most intense interest. As he read he seemed to breathe again his native air; each item set before him a picture of the rocks and bushes, the people and objects, to which he was bound by the closest ties of habit and affection. Only, it disturbed him a little to learn that Giovanna sometimes worked at the Dejases’. He knew of Brontu’s passion for her, and that she had refused him, and as he read this part of the letter he experienced a first, vague sensation of alarm. Three francs were enclosed, and when he reflected that this money might probably have come from the Dejases, he hated to touch it. Two francs he offered to the King of Spades, rather expecting that his dear compatriot would refuse to take them. His dear compatriot, on the contrary, accepted them with alacrity, remarking that they would serve as part payment for the person who conducted the clandestine correspondence.

Under other circumstances this would have angered Costantino, but just then he was so anxious to write again to Giovanna, to maintain some sort of intercourse with his little, far-off world, that he would have sacrificed the half of his life to secure the good offices of the King of Spades.

He read and reread his letter till he knew every word by heart. During the day he hid it in the sole of his shoe, ripping this open again each night. And always, as he sat silently bending over his work, his mind dwelt continuously on the people and events in that little, distant village, and he identified himself so completely at times with the subjects of his thoughts that he lost sight of his real surroundings. He saw the old shepherd steal cautiously up to the hives, his face and hands wrapped in cloths. The spot is sunny, deserted; all about lie green fields dotted over with flowers, dog-roses, honeysuckle, sweet-peas, undulating lines of colour stretching away in all directions as far as the eye can reach. The warm air is heavy with the odour of pennyroyal and other aromatic herbs, and the brooding silence is broken only by the low hum of the bees.

Anxiously Costantino follows every movement of the old thief as he first detaches the little cork hives from the flat stones on which they stand; then, tying them all together with a stout cord, places them in a bag, and makes off. Just at this point Costantino could not quite make up his mind as to the next act in the drama, and as he was considering, a shrill voice broke in on his reflections: “Cos-tan-ti! Cos-tan-ti!” and arousing himself with an effort he saw the magpie, fat and sleek, hopping lazily about in the courtyard, and stretching its blue wings in the sun.

At night, with the precious letter safely deposited beneath his pillow, he would resume the thread of his thoughts. Now it was the sonorous voice of his friend the fisherman that he would hear, singing the lauds, and sometimes he almost wondered if Isidoro had not in truth seen⁠—on the riverbank, among the oleander bushes bending over with their weight of fragrant pink blossoms⁠—the figure of an old man dressed in white, with a long beard as snowy as the wool of a little newborn lamb! Ah, surely it was the Saint himself, good San Costantino, come to tell Isidoro that he had not forgotten the prisoners unjustly condemned!

Costantino readily accepted this picture of the Saint, although the statue of him in the village church represented a robust and swarthy warrior.

“Good old Saint! Good San Costantino! Soon, soon thou wilt free us all, blessed forever be thy name!”

Then the scene changes. Now it is the portico of the rich Dejas’s house; everyone is busy with the spun wool, dividing it into long skeins preparatory to weaving it. Giovanna comes and goes, carrying huge bunches in her hands. Brontu is there too, seated on the threshold of the kitchen door, with his legs well apart, and between them, laughing and unsteady, stands the little Malthineddu. Ah, intolerable thought! Presently, however, remembering that Brontu is never at home except on holidays, he is somewhat comforted, and then he falls asleep, his heart steeped in a mingled sensation of joy and pain.