V
No, Biagio Speranza had not gone to the café, as Carolinona had imagined.
Annoyed by the jokes of his friends, he had gone home, with the firm determination of setting out for Barcelona the next day, and making an end of it.
He had begun preparing what he needed for the journey, when he thought that he had not enough money for this hastened departure. And then, confronted with this material obstacle, he agreed that, on the whole, flight was not worthy of him. Yes, yes; he had really done wrong to be annoyed, to sneak away thus. And he must not abandon to the wrath of Cocco Bertolli that poor woman who had nothing to do with these pranks, who would keep to her agreement, and would never annoy or molest him; of that he was sure.
“Poor Carolinona!” he thought with a smile. “With what a look she pronounced that 'yes’ with a glance at the official, as much as to say: 'You see what value that can have! For my part, I do not think that one should jest thus, but these young fellows thought that there was no harm in it, and here I am to satisfy them. What else could I do? I must write too? Sign my name?’”
He went to bed, and was not long in falling asleep. He had bad dreams! Carolinona would not listen to reason; was she or was she not his wife? And she wished to enjoy all her rights—ready, oh, most ready, to take upon herself all her duties. She seized him by the arm and did not intend to let him go. But how about their agreement? It was all a joke! Joke? She had really signed the contract. And therefore he must stay here with her. Infamy, treachery! All the doors closed? Kicks, pinches, blows at each door. In vain! Oh, what grief, what rage, what agony! Behind those closed, bolted doors the friends laughed as though they would split their sides: Cariolin, Scossi, Cedebonis, and even Martinelli. Trunfo sneered. An infamous conspiracy! Did they then wish his death? No, no, even if it cost him his life, no; he would not be made to sleep in that bed. Ah, they would take him by force? They were binding him? Cowards! So many against one! Softly, softly! There at the throat, no—Ah, they were suffocating him—
He rose late, and in the worst of humors. He would go to the pension as usual that day, and by his manner would make his friends understand that it was time to be done with the whole affair.
That evening all the other boarders, including Trunfo, arrived at the house. Then Biagio Speranza arrived, and was at once assailed with questions.
“Why, of course! Naturally!” he answered with a gay face. “When did I return? Exactly at midnight. The hour of fantasy. The door was closed, and she, the very one who has been denying it, threw me down the key from her window. Why deny it, my wife? We owe this satisfaction to our friends who are so interested in our conjugal felicity. And this evening you will see me remain here at my post, as master of the house; and I hope that this will satisfy you, and that from now on you will allow me to enjoy the pleasures of married life in peace. Is it agreed?”
He seated himself beside Carolinona; during the meal he ostentatiously displayed, amid general merriment, all the attentions, the manners of an enamored monkey which a newly married man should show to his bride, and Carolinona let him have his way, and laughed too.
At a certain point Trunfo gruffly asked Biagio Speranza: “Will you permit me to continue correcting my papers here?”
“No, no!” Biagio hastened to reassure him. “You, dear maestro, are free to suit your own convenience here by day or night. Am I not right, Carolinona?”
“The maestro,” said she, somewhat quietly, “has never caused me the least annoyance.”
“Very well then!” concluded Trunfo, rising.
He made a quick, slight bow, with his hands resting on the back of his chair, and left the room, suffocated with bile.
“My friends,” remarked Biagio Speranza, a little later, “in the interest of my wife, I advise you to stop, if you do not wish to make her lose a client. A joke is all very well, but it should not be allowed to injure the pocket—”
“Oh, as for you, joking aside,” declared Cariolin, rising from the table with the others, “keep your promise, and do not take this excuse. We are going, and wish you a pleasant evening.”
“I,” added Scossi, “shall remain with Cedebonis outside the door on guard; and you may be sure that I will not let you escape.”
“You may all be sure that I shall not escape,” replied Biagio Speranza, accompanying his fellow boarders to the door.
Carolinona began to feel uneasy, not knowing what this crazy fellow would do next.
“What fools, eh?” said Biagio, once more entering the dining-room. “And they are really capable of waiting outside in the street, do you know it?”
Carolinona tried to smile and look at him, but she lowered her eyes promptly.
“Do you know that our position is actually ridiculous?” resumed Biagio, breaking out into his sonorous laughter. “But we must do this in order to have peace. Otherwise they will never have done. I will wait a half hour before I go; you must have patience.”
“Oh, as for me, of course,” said she, without raising her eyes, and faintly.
Biagio Speranza looked at her. He was very calm himself, and thought that she ought to be so, too. But noting Carolinona’s embarrassment he laughed again. Wounded by this laugh, she raised her eyes, and, trying as best she could to hide the bitterness with a smile, said:
“You are a man, and they all know that you are only doing this to make them laugh. Although, if I am to tell the truth, I do not see that it is a joke any longer, now that it has arrived at this point—They are all laughing at you and me—”
“Let us laugh too!” concluded Biagio. “Why not?”
“Because I can not,” promptly replied Carolinona. “Pardon me, but you must understand that it can not please me that you, to make an end to an annoying joke, are forced to make me play a part that does not suit me—”
“What!” exclaimed Biagio. “The rôle of wife! By heavens, you ought to thank me.”
Carolinona took fire. “Pardon me, and am I to thank you also for the words you said to Trunfo on my account? Your wife for a joke I understand; but since you have committed the folly of giving me your name in the eyes of the law, it seems to me, I do not know, but it seems to me that you ought at least to show that you do not believe certain calumnies, and not make a jest of them. Because they are calumnies I would have you to know! The vilest calumnies! I have always attended to my own business. I am poor, yes, but honest, honest! It is well that you should know it. And you may set your mind at rest on this point—”
Biagio looked at her and let his arms fall. “You alarm me, Carolinona! I did not believe you capable of telling the truth with such insistence and such warmth. I believe you, I believe you—but let me look out of this window and see if those tiresome fellows are gone, and we will make an end to this at once.”
He went to the window and looked out into the street. “No one,” said he, turning away. “I am sorry that the joke has finished really badly. Enough; the thing is done, and we must think no more about it. Good-by, eh?”
He held out his hand; the Pentoni hesitatingly laid her own, fat and black, in it, murmuring: “Good-by.” Then, all vibrating with emotion, she shut herself up in her room, and burst into tears.
Biagio Speranza, having taken a few steps, saw, spying in the shadows of the little square opposite the door, instead of Scossi and Cedebonis, Signor Martinelli, who was rubbing his hands with the cold. The good man was quite robbed of breath at hearing his name called. Then a hand smote him sharply on the shoulder.
“What are you doing here, my fine fellow? Tell me, were you perhaps waiting until I should have gone away to—”
“May Heaven forbid! What are you saying, Signor Speranza?” stammered poor Martinelli, so tremblingly that Biagio could not keep from laughing. “I—I was just going—”
“And meanwhile you are here!” replied Biagio, recovering himself, and pretending to be severe. He took him by the arm, and added as they moved away: “Come, let us go, and explain to me—”
“But, sir—” Martinelli hastened to reply, greatly embarrassed, “I confess—since you, yes, I say—since you suspected me—(May Heaven defend me!) I confess that I remained here, not so much out of curiosity, as because—yes, I say—to congratulate myself that finally you had recognized the—the—the sacredness of the bond, because—”
“And am I really to believe you?” Biagio interrupted him, standing still. “You stood there in the shadow like a vile deceiver; you can not deny it.”
“But pray do not say that even in jest!” cried Signor Martinelli, his eyes turned heavenward, and forcing himself to smile. “Pardon me, but at my age? And then she—a thoroughly virtuous woman, I would swear it—And she has always been so—so good to me, has always confided—yes, I say—confided so many things to me, poor thing—And I stood there, believe me, congratulating myself—that—”
“You must excuse me! Good-by!” Biagio Speranza hastily interrupted him, withdrew his arm, and hurried after a flashily dressed woman who at that moment emerged from a café.
Martino Martinelli stood there, abandoned in the middle of the street; involuntarily he raised his hand to his hat, then his eyes followed for a time the couple who went away together laughing loudly, perhaps at him, perhaps at the Pentoni; and he shook his head sorrowfully, wounded.