IX

Nineteen Hundred and Ten. In the “strangers’ room” of the Porru house, Giovanna was looking over some purchases made that day in Nuoro. She was stouter than ever, and had lost something of her girlish look, but, nevertheless, she was both fresh and handsome still. She examined the pieces of linen and woollen stuff attentively, turning them over and over and feeling them with a preoccupied air, as though not altogether satisfied with the selection; then, folding them carefully, she wrapped them in newspaper and laid them away in her bag.

These things were the materials for her wedding outfit, for, having at last obtained her divorce, she was shortly to marry Dejas. She and her mother had come to Nuoro for the express purpose of making the purchases. The money had been borrowed with the utmost secrecy from Aunt Anna-Rosa Dejas, Giacobbe’s sister, who had always taken a particular interest in Giovanna because of having been for a short time her foster-mother. It was the dead of winter, but the two women had courageously defied the fatigues and discomforts of the journey in order to lay in a supply of linen, cotton, kerchiefs, and woollen stuffs. The ceremony, a purely civil one, was to be conducted in the strictest privacy, more so, even, than on the occasion of a widow’s marriage. But this made no difference to Aunt Bachissia, who was determined that her daughter should enter her new home fitted out in every respect like a youthful bride of good family.

The countryside was still wondering and gossipping over the scandalous affair, and it was rumoured that another couple contemplated applying for a divorce⁠—by mutual consent. A great many people already looked askance at the Eras, and some said that Brontu had evil designs upon Giovanna. Giacobbe Dejas, Isidoro Pane, and a number of other friends had stopped going to the house after making final scenes that were almost violent. Giacobbe had snarled like a dog, and had used prayers and even threats in a last, vain effort to dissuade Giovanna from the step, until Aunt Bachissia had, at length, driven him out. Even Aunt Porredda at Nuoro, although it was her son who had obtained the divorce for Giovanna, had received her friends with marked coolness. The “Doctor,” as she called her son, was, on the contrary, most cordial and attentive in his manner towards their guests.

So Giovanna was folding up her possessions in a thoughtful mood, her preoccupation having, however, to do solely with those bits of stuff. The linen, it appeared, was somewhat tumbled; the fringe of the black Thibet kerchief, with its big crimson roses, was too short; one piece of ribbon had a spot on it⁠—worrying matters, all of them.

Night was falling⁠—like that other time⁠—but the surroundings, and the weather, and⁠—her heart, were all, quite, quite different. The “strangers’ room” now had a fine window, through whose panes shone the clear, cold light of a winter evening. The furniture, all entirely new, exhaled a powerful smell of varnished wood, while its surface glistened like hoarfrost. The door opened on the same covered gallery, but new granite steps now led down to the courtyard. The “Doctor’s” practice was growing, and the entire house had been done over. He now had an office in the busiest part of the town, and was much in demand both for civil and penal processes. The most desperate cases, the worst offenders, all that class of clients who have the least to hope from the law, entrusted their affairs to him.

Giovanna folded, wrapped, and packed her possessions, and then, the bag being somewhat over-full, she shook it vigorously to make the contents settle down; this accomplished, she turned with knitted brows, and slowly descended the outer stair, both hands thrust deep in the pockets always to be found just below the waist in the skirt of a Sardinian costume.

It was an evening in January, clear but extremely cold. Some silver stars, set in the cloudless blue of the sky, seemed to tremble in the frosty atmosphere. Crossing the courtyard Giovanna could see, through the window of the lighted dining-room, Grazia’s pale face and great, eager eyes as she sat turning over the leaves of a fashion paper. The child had developed into a tall and pretty girl; she was dressed in the latest fashion, with great lace wings extending from the shoulders behind the arms; they obliged their wearers to walk sideways through any narrow aperture, but made them look, by way of compensation, like so many angels before the fall.

Grazia, seeing the guest, smiled at her without getting up, and the latter entered the kitchen.

Here, too, everything was new; the white walls, the stove of glistening bricks, the petroleum lamp hanging from the ceiling. It was all so gorgeous that Aunt Bachissia could not refrain from gazing about her the whole time, her shining, little, green beads of eyes, snapping and sparkling in the sallow, hawklike face, set in the folds of a black scarf. She at least, was unchanged⁠—the old witch! She was seated beside the servant-maid, a dirty, dishevelled young person, whose loud and frequent laugh displayed a set of protruding teeth. Aunt Porredda was cooking, and scolding the maid for this annoying habit of hers. Only fancy! Here was the mistress doing the cooking, while the servant sat by the stove and⁠—laughed! What kind of way to do was that? And, moreover, the good woman could never have one single moment’s peace, and she the mother of a famous lawyer!

Giovanna seated herself at some little distance from the stove, stooping over with her hands still buried in the pockets of her skirt.

“Just look!” exclaimed Aunt Bachissia in a tone of envy. “This kitchen might be a parlour! You must do your kitchen up like this, Giovanna.”

“Yes,” said the young woman absentmindedly.

“Yes? Well, upon my soul, I should say so! Godmother Malthina is close, but you have got to make her understand that money is meant to spend. A kitchen like this⁠—why, it is heaven⁠—upon my soul! This is living.”

“What do you always say ‘upon my soul’ for?” asked the giggling servant-maid.

“If she doesn’t choose to spend her money, how am I to make her?” said Giovanna with a sigh.

The servant was still laughing, but Aunt Porredda, who wanted to keep out of her guests’ conversation, turned on her, and sharply ordered her to grate some cheese for the macaroni. The girl obeyed.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Aunt Bachissia as Giovanna sighed again.

“She remembers!” said Aunt Porredda to herself. “After all, she is a Christian, not an animal, and she can’t help herself!”

But Giovanna spoke up crossly:

“Well, it’s just this; they’ve cheated us. That is not good linen, and the ribbon is spotted. Oh! it is too much.”

“Upon my soul!” said the maid, mimicking Aunt Bachissia’s voice and accent, and grating away vigorously on the cheese.

Aunt Porredda thereupon let out upon her all the vials of wrath she would fain have emptied upon her guests, calling her by all the names which, in her secret heart, she was applying to Giovanna⁠—“shameless,” “vile,” “ungrateful,” “despicable,” and so on, and threatening to strike her over the head with the ladle. In her terror, the girl grated the skin off one finger, and she was in the act of displaying it with the blood streaming down when the lawyer-son limped briskly into the room. He was enveloped in a long, black overcoat, so full that it looked like a cloak with sleeves. His smooth, fresh-coloured little face beamed with the self-satisfied expression of a nursing child. Asking immediately what there was to eat, he dropped into a seat beside Aunt Bachissia, and sat there chatting until supper was ready. After him the little Minnia came running in, rosy, breathless, and dishevelled, and threw herself down by the servant-maid. The boy had died three years earlier. The little girl’s dress, of black and red flannel, was pretty enough, but her shoes were torn and her hands dirty. She had spent the entire day tearing around in a neighbouring truck-garden, and began to pour out confidences to the servant in an eager undertone.

“Upon my soul!” repeated the servant, in the same tone as before.

Next Uncle Efes Maria’s big face, with its thick, wide-open lips, appeared in the door, wanting to know why they could not have supper right away.

The dining-room was now furnished with two tall, shining cupboards of varnished wood, and the whole apartment had quite an air of elegance⁠—strips of carpet on the stone floor, a stove, and so on. Poor Aunt Porredda, with her big feet and hobnailed shoes, never felt really at home there; while Uncle Efes Maria had not yet cured himself of the habit of staring proudly around him. Grazia, tall and elegant, always withdrew into herself when her relations came into this room, where she passed most of her time eagerly devouring the Unique Mode, the Petite Parisienne, and the fashion articles of a family journal⁠—sufficiently immoral in its tone, since it fomented such unhealthy dreams in her foolish head. Ah, those low-cut gowns, covered with embroidery; those scarfs worked in gold; those bodices with their great wings of silver lace, the rainbow hues, the spangles glittering like frost! Ah, those hats covered with artificial fruits, and the long flower boas, and petticoats trimmed with lace at thirty lire a yard, and the painted gloves, and fans made of human skin! How beautiful it all was⁠—horribly, terrifyingly beautiful! Merely to read about these things gave her a sort of spasm, they were so beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful. And afterwards, how ugly and common and flat everything seemed⁠—the simple old grandmother, with her fat, wrinkled face; and the dull grandfather, gazing about him with such ignorant satisfaction and pride! It was all simply stultifying.

Just as on that other, faraway evening, Aunt Porredda came in, bearing triumphantly the steaming dish of macaroni, and all the members of the party seated themselves around the table. Aunt Bachissia, finding herself in the shadow, so to speak, of Grazia’s wings, forthwith broke anew into loud exclamations of wonder and admiration, this time apropos of those glorious objects:

“No, we have never seen anything like that in our neighbourhood, but then, we have no ladies there. Here they all look like angels, the ladies.”

“Or bats,” said Uncle Efes Maria. “Eh, it’s the fashion, my dears. Why, I remember when I was a child the ladies were all big and round; they looked like cupolas. There hardly were any ladies in those days⁠—the Superintendent’s wife, the family⁠—”

“And then that thing behind,” interrupted Aunt Porredda. “Oh! I remember that, it looked like a saddle. Well, if you’ll believe me, upon my word and honour, I remember one time someone sat down on one of them.”

“The last time we were here,” said Aunt Bachissia, “those wings were little things; now they are growing, growing.”

Grazia sat eating her supper as though she did not hear a word of what the others were saying. The “Doctor” eat his too⁠—like a gristmill⁠—staring at his niece all the while with the look of a pleased child. “Growing, growing,” said he. “The next thing we know they’ll all take flight.”

Grazia shrugged her shoulders, or rather her wings, and neither spoke nor looked up. She frequently found her uncle⁠—that hero of her first, young dream⁠—very trying, and worse than trying⁠—foolish! It was the common talk of the town that the uncle and niece were going to marry, and he, when interrogated on the subject, would answer neither yes nor no.

The conversation continued for some time on impersonal topics. Every now and then Aunt Porredda would get up and pass in and out of the room, and occasionally the talk would die away, and long pauses ensue that were almost embarrassing. Like that other time everyone instinctively avoided the subject uppermost in the minds of the guests; who, on the whole, were just as well pleased to have it so. But, just as before, it was Aunt Bachissia, this time without intending to, who introduced the unwelcome topic. She asked if the report that the “Doctor” was to marry his niece were true or no.

The Porrus looked at one another, and Grazia, bending her head still lower over her plate, laughed softly to herself.

Paolo glanced at the girl, and, with an irony that seemed a little forced, replied:

“Eh, no! She is going to marry the Very Right Honourable Sub-Prefect!”

Grazia raised her head with a sudden movement and opened her lips, then as quickly lowered it, the blood meanwhile rushing up to her forehead.

“Oh! he’s old,” said Minnia. “I know him; he’s always walking about the station. Ugh! he has a long, red beard, and a high hat.”

“A high hat too?”

“Yes, a high hat⁠—a widower.”

“The high hat is a widower?”

“You shut up!” said the child sharply, turning on her sister.

“No, I’m not going to shut up. He’s a Freemason; he won’t have his children baptised, or be married in church. That’s the way of it; he’ll not marry in church.”

“The young lady is well informed,” said Uncle Efes Maria, polished as usual.

Thereupon Aunt Porredda, who had almost shrieked aloud at the word “Freemason,” waved both arms in the air, and burst out:

“Yes, a Freemason! One of those people who pray to the devil. Upon my word, I believe my granddaughter there would just as leave have him! We are all on the road to perdition here, and why not? There’s Grazia, forever reading bad books, and those infernal papers, till now she doesn’t want to go to confession any more! Ah, those prohibited books! I lie awake all night thinking of them. But now, this is what I want to say: Grazia reads bad books; Paolo⁠—you see him, that one over there, Doctor Pededdu⁠—well, he studied on the Continent where they don’t believe in God any more; now that’s all right, at least, it isn’t, it’s all wrong, but you can understand a little why those two poor creatures have stopped believing in God. But the rest of us, who don’t know anything about books and who have never in our lives ridden on a railroad⁠—that devil’s horse⁠—why should we cease to believe in God, in our kind Saviour, who died for us on the cross? Why? why? tell me why. You there, Giovanna Era, tell me why you should be willing to marry a man by civil ceremony when you already have a husband living?”

The final clause of Aunt Porredda’s oration fell with startling effect upon her audience. Grazia, who, with a smile upon her lips, had been busily engaged in rolling pieces of bread into little pellets, raised her head quickly, and the smile died away; Paolo, who, likewise smiling, had been fitting the blade of a knife in and out of the prongs of his fork, straightened himself with a brusque movement; and Uncle Efes Maria turned his dull, round face towards Giovanna, and fixed her with an impassive stare.

Giovanna herself, the object of this wholly unlooked-for attack, though she flushed crimson, replied with cynical indifference:

“I haven’t any husband, my dear Aunt Porredda. Ask your son over there.”

“My son!” exclaimed the other angrily. “I have no son. He’s a child of the devil!”

It almost seemed as though Giovanna had succeeded in throwing the responsibility of her act upon Paolo, because he had won her case for her!

Every one laughed at Aunt Porredda’s outbreak, even Minnia, and the servant who entered the room at that moment, carrying the cheese. Notwithstanding her wrath, Aunt Porredda took the dish and handed it politely to her guests.

“Upon my soul,” said Aunt Bachissia, carefully cutting herself a slice, and speaking in a tone of gentle melancholy, “you are as good as gold, there is no doubt about that, but⁠—you live at your ease, you have a house like a church, and a husband like a strong tower (Uncle Efes Maria coughed), and you have a circle of stars about you⁠—motioning towards them⁠—so it is easy enough to talk like that. Ah! if you knew once what it meant to be in want, and to look forward to having to beg your bread in your old age! Do you understand? In your old age!”

“Bravo!” cried Paolo. “But I would like to have a clean knife.”

“What difference does that make, Bachissia Era?” answered Aunt Porredda. “You are afraid to trust in Divine Providence, and that means that you have lost your faith in God! How do you know whether you will be poor or rich when you are old? Is not Costantino Ledda coming back some day?”

“Yes, to be a beggar too,” said Aunt Bachissia coldly.

“And God alone knows whether he ever will come back,” observed the young lawyer brutally, taking the knife which the servant held out to him, blade foremost.

They had all heard that Costantino was ill, and there was a report that his lungs were affected.

In order to appear agitated⁠—and possibly she really was so to some extent⁠—Giovanna now hid her face in her hands and said brokenly:

“Besides⁠—if it is only to be a civil ceremony⁠—it is⁠—it is because⁠—” Then she stopped.

“Well, why don’t you go on?” cried Paolo. “You are to be married by civil ceremony because the priests won’t give you any other! They don’t understand, and they never will understand; just as you will never understand, Mamma Porredda. What is marriage, after all? It is a contract made between men, and binding only in the sight of men. The religious ceremony really means nothing at all⁠—”

“It is a sacrament!” cried Aunt Porredda, beside herself.

“Means nothing at all,” continued Paolo. “Just as some day the civil ceremony will mean nothing at all. Men and women should be at liberty to enter spontaneously into unions with one another and to dissolve them when they cease to be in harmony. The man⁠—”

“Ah, you are no better than a beast!” exclaimed Aunt Porredda, though it was, in fact, not the first time that she had heard her son express these views. “It is the end of the world. God has grown weary; and who can wonder? He is punishing us; this is the deluge. I have heard that there have been terrible earthquakes already!”

“There have always been earthquakes,” observed Uncle Efes Maria, who did not know whether to side with his wife or his son. Probably, in the bottom of his heart his sympathies were with the former, but he did not want to say so openly for fear of being looked down upon by the gifted Paolo.

The latter made no reply. Already he regretted having said so much, being too truly attached to his mother to wish to give her needless pain. Giovanna now took her hands from her face, and spoke in a tone of gentle humility:

“Listen,” said she. “When I was married before⁠—to that unfortunate⁠—I had only the civil ceremony, and if he had not been arrested, who knows when we ever would have had the religious marriage! And yet, were we not just as much man and wife? No one ever said a word, and God, who knows all, was not offended⁠—”

“But he punished you,” said Aunt Porredda quickly.

“That remains to be seen!” shouted Aunt Bachissia, whose bile was beginning to rise. “Was the punishment for that, or for Basile Ledda’s murder?”

“If it had been for the murder, only Costantino would have been punished.”

“Well,” said the old witch, her green eyes glittering with triumph, “is not that just what I am saying? My Giovanna here is not to be punished any longer for his fault, since God has given her the opportunity to marry a young man who is fond of her, and who will make her forget all her sufferings!”

“And who is also rich,” remarked Uncle Efes Maria, and no one could tell whether he spoke ingenuously or no.

Giovanna, who had quite lost the thread of her discourse, was, nevertheless, determined to continue her role of patient martyr. “Ah, my dear Aunt Porredda,” said she, “you don’t know all, but God, who alone can see into our hearts, he will forgive me even if I live in mortal sin, because he will know that the fault is not with me. I would gladly have the religious ceremony, but it cannot be.”

“Yes, because you are married already to some one else, you child of the devil!”

“But that other one is as good as dead! Just tell me now, can he help me to earn a living? And if the lawyers, who are educated and learned, and who know what life really is, can dissolve civil marriages, why can’t the priests dissolve religious ones? Perhaps they don’t understand about it. There is that priest whom we have⁠—Elias Portolu⁠—the one who is so good, you know him? he talks like a saint, and never gets angry with anyone. Well, even he can’t say anything but ‘No, no, no; marriage can only be dissolved by death⁠—and go and be blessed, if you don’t know what is right!’ Does a body have to live? Yes, or no? And when you can’t live, when you are as poor as Job, and can’t get work, and have nothing, nothing, nothing! And just tell me, you, Aunt Porredda, suppose I had been some other woman, and suppose there had been no divorce, what would have happened? Why, mortal sin, that is what would have happened, mortal sin!”

“And in your old age⁠—want,” said Aunt Bachissia.

The servant brought in the fruit: bunches of black, shining, dried grapes, and wrinkled pears, as yellow as autumn leaves.

The old hostess handed the dish to her old guest, with an indescribable look of compassion. Her anger, and disdain, and indignation had suddenly melted away as she realised the sordid natures of the mother and daughter. “Good San Francisco, forgive them,” she prayed inwardly. “Because they are so ignorant, and blind, and hard!” Then she said mildly: “You and I, Bachissia Era, are old women, and you, Giovanna, will be old some day. Now tell me one thing: what is it that comes after old age?”

“Why, death.”

“Death; yes, death comes after. And after death what is there?”

“Eternity?” said Paolo, laughing softly to himself as he devoured his grapes like a greedy child, holding the bunch close to his mouth, and detaching the seeds with his sharp little teeth.

“Eternity, precisely; eternity comes after⁠—where are you going, Minnia? Stay where you are.” But the child, tired of the conversation, slipped out of the room. “What do you say, Giovanna Era, does eternity follow? yes, or no? Bachissia Era⁠—yes, or no?”

“Yes,” said the guests.

“Yes? and yet you never think of it?”

“Oh! what is the use of thinking of it?” said Paolo, getting up, and wiping his mouth with his napkin; he felt that it was high time for him to be off; he had already wasted too much time on these women, who, after all, were interesting solely from the fact that they had not yet paid him. “There are some people waiting to see me at the office⁠—several people, in fact,” he said. “I will see you again; you are not leaving yet awhile?”

“Tomorrow morning at daybreak.”

“Not really? Oh! you had better stay longer,” he said indifferently, as he struggled into his huge overcoat. When it was on, Aunt Bachissia⁠—watching him out of her sharp green eyes⁠—thought that the little Doctor looked like a magia, that is, one of those grotesque and frightening figures whom wizards evoke by their arts.

He departed, and immediately afterwards Miss Grazia, who had hardly spoken throughout the entire meal, arose and left the room as well. Uncle Efes Maria settled himself back in his chair, and began to read the New Sardinia. Bursts of laughter came from the two girls in the kitchen, and the women sat, each eating a pear, in perfect silence. A weight hung over them; upon Aunt Porredda as well as upon the others, for she was realising in her simple untutored mind that the disease that had attacked the souls of her ignorant guests was one and the same as that from which her sophisticated son and granddaughter were suffering.