VI
Neither the next evening nor the following ones did Biagio Speranza come to the pension.
Momo Cariolin and Dario Scossi ceased teasing Carolinona after the first evening, and, truth to say, she was somewhat distant with them. Trunfo tried to take his revenge by reminding them how he had warned them not to joke stupidly in a matter that had no joke in it. Cedebonis gave himself no peace, thinking that with this marriage had been celebrated the funeral of mirth, and for several evenings he repeated this phrase, which seemed to him particularly felicitous. He alone, with his Calabrian obstinacy, continued fuming; he fumed because the fire would not once more burst forth with the fine witticisms of former days. But no one paid any attention to him, and he consoled himself after a fashion, thinking that a renewal of this huge joke was inevitable, in one way or another, as soon as Cocco Bertolli should leave the hospital.
Trunfo, meanwhile, who had resumed his former habits, between one note and another of his hissed opera, instigated Carolinona to avenge herself.
At these vindictive exhortations of his a desire for vengeance flamed in the heart of the Pentoni; but soon after, suffocated, as though the flame had suddenly become smoke—a slow, dense smoke—she buried her face in her hands, and shook her head bitterly.
“Make good your rights,” said Trunfo. “A woman never lacks for means.” But she really recognized no rights of hers, and saw no means. He had made the terms of the agreement plain to her in advance. It was true, they were injurious, even shameful for her, but had she not accepted them? And if there arose in her heart a sentiment she had never before felt, and which she was not capable of explaining to herself, but which tormented her, and which she blushed for without respite, what fault was it of his? He had given her but a single cause for offense; he did not wish to believe in her honesty. What vengeance could she take for that? Possibly, if she felt herself capable of it, she might actually deceive him—But no, never! She inclined rather toward the advice of Martinelli, who counseled her to win him by fair means, to soften him.
“Write to him,” finally advised Martinelli. “Ask him to come as before, to do at least—yes, I say—his duty, now that that other—yes, I say—that example of the wrath of God is about to leave the hospital.”
“Have you news of him?” asked Carolinona.
Yes, Signor Martinelli had news, but he gave it to her with compunction, anxiously. Unfortunately, that “wrath of God” would be discharged in two or three days—the beast! One of the nurses had told him that while he was already convalescent he heard of this marriage and had had a relapse. “A dangerous fellow, dangerous!” finished Signor Martino. “So much so that I would almost advise you to go to the police without further delay.” Poor Pentoni stood pondering for a moment, then smiled.
“Signor Martino, do you know what I have decided? I shall not do anything. I will not move even a finger. Let Bertolli come and beat me. Or perhaps he will wish to kill me? It would really be laughable. Let us leave it to God!”
Now that is all very well; God is great, omnipotent, watches over all, protects the good and the oppressed. Nevertheless, Martinelli thought it well to inform Scossi and Cedebonis of the violent designs with which Cocco Bertolli would leave the hospital. It was therefore decided, after a long confabulation, to send Scossi to the home of Biagio Speranza, whom no one had seen since that day he had disappeared; and if he was not at home, a note was to be left, warning him of the Pentoni’s danger; if he was away, Scossi was to learn his address and telegraph him.
He was neither at home nor out of town. Dario Scossi was obliged to hire a cab and repair to a farm belonging to Speranza’s old landlady, some three kilometers outside of the city gates. Yes, Biagio had been there for four days and was to remain until his departure for Barcelona; he had warned his landlady not to tell any one where he had taken refuge, and the landlady, as we have seen, had kept her promise. But it really was a question of something serious?
“Most serious! Most serious!” Scossi reassured her.
Having thus forced the citadel, Scossi began to feel the real necessity for believing in the danger that threatened Carolinona, and in the dreadfulness of Cocco Bertolli, so that he might have courage enough to face Biagio Speranza. The cab finally stopped before a rustic gate, consisting of a single bar, supported on posts not less rustic, behind which rose two tall cypress trees. A narrow path led up from the gate, between the vines, to the little knoll, on the summit of which stood the small house, amid trees. What poetry! What a dream! What quietude!
Before ringing the bell, Scossi glanced up the path for a few minutes; suddenly he heard the shrill squawks of geese, then the voice of Biagio Speranza, calling gaily: “Nannetta! Nannetta!”
Oh, wretch; Oh, renegade! A true idyl! He began to regret having come. “Shall I wait?” asked the driver.
“Yes, wait. I will ring.” He rang very softly; the tongue of the bell barely touched the edge, without giving a sound. Suddenly he pulled the chain, and the bell rang furiously. “It is done! Now the deluge! By Jove!”
Up at the end of the path an old peasant shortly afterward presented himself, who, seeing the cab outside the gate, hastened to come down. “What do you wish, sir?”
“Speranza.”
“What do you mean? Oh, yes, sir, you mean the young gentleman. He is here.” He opened the gate, and Scossi entered. Again the geese squawked from above, and the old peasant began to laugh, shaking his head. “Biagio!” exclaimed Scossi. “What is he doing?”
“Oh, he does and thinks of a hundred things,” replied the peasant. “Come and see. He has put soldiers’ caps on the poor geese, and drives them thus toward the lady who stands down there by the garden fountain.”
“Nannetta, Nannetta!” once more cried Biagio from above. “Look at Carolinona, who comes at a run! I have made her corporal.”
“Horrible!” cried Dario Scossi, presenting himself on the level stretch of ground.
“Dario!” exclaimed Biagio Speranza, amazed. “What! You here?” And he came toward him. But Scossi drew back a step, and gazed at him severely.
“You give a goose the name of your wife?”
“Oh, be quiet!” replied Biagio, shaking himself. “Have you come even out here to annoy me? How did you know?”
Scossi then explained the reasons for his coming, told him that it was neither just nor fair for him to leave that poor woman yonder in her embarrassment, and that his presence at the pension was urgently required for three or four days at least. Biagio Speranza grew discouraged.
Suddenly there arrived at a run, her face crimson, a straw hat on her beautiful, ruffled, tawny hair, Nannetta, the same woman whom Signor Martinelli had seen coming out the café that evening.
“Well, Biagio? Oh, pardon me, how do you do, sir—”
“Good day, my dear,” replied Scossi, holding out his hand.
But Nannetta held her own in the air.
“I can not. They are dripping wet. If you like, with his permission, you may give me a little kiss here.” And she offered her flaming cheek.
“Do you permit?” asked Scossi, moved to compunction. “Her hands are wet—”
“One only,” replied Biagio gloomily. “There is nothing to be said. I shall have to go.”
“Is your wife sending for you?” asked Nannetta sadly, her cheek still upturned, upon which Scossi was all the while imprinting a series of soft kisses. “Oh, that is enough, sir; one only, I beg of you. Your wife, then?”
“Oh, do not you too annoy me!” cried Biagio, exasperated. “You may thank your God, Scossi, that I have not a stick in my hand. Get out at once. I shall return to the city to-morrow. This evening I am going to make up for it all by staying here. I shall wring the neck of the goose that looks so like her and eat it all for supper, with the appetite of a cannibal. Get out!”
But Nannetta wished to keep Scossi for dinner. At table Biagio explained to him why he had escaped.
“I do not say that she actually loves me; but it is near, do you know? Who would ever have expected it? Of course I understand that I am a very good-looking fellow, agreeable—” Nannetta protested with a laugh.
“And I assure you that she gave me a veritable lecture like a real wife.”
“Poor woman!” cried Nannetta. “If what you say is true, then all of you, especially you, Biagio, have been cruel beyond comparison. Go, make up to her for it now. Believe me, it is the best thing that you can do.”
Biagio Speranza did not open his lips, but opened his eyes very wide, and stared at Nannetta with such an expression that she smiled, and repeated: “Poor woman!”
“Enough, enough, my dear!” interrupted Scossi. “Or you will keep him from ever returning to the city.”
“No, no,” said Biagio seriously. “I have promised, and I will come. To think of it! For the diversion of humanity, Destiny had contrived a truly ideal marriage: Cocco Bertolli and Carolinona. I, fool, stupid, imbecile, go and interfere with her plans. I must pay for it. That great man loved her, his dove, and now I must show him the door. I feel remorseful, I assure you, but I have promised, and I will keep my word.”
The evening of the same day Dario Scossi related to the friend of the pension what he had done, where he had found Speranza, and in whose company. Cedebonis feigned to be scandalized at such immediate infidelity; but Scossi, who, in relating the affair, had allowed this information to escape him without intending it, replied that Carolinona should not take it amiss in him. Wives were made purposely to be deceived by their husbands, and vice versa, except in the case of the Martinelli couple, of course, who were unique beneath the heavens. Finally he announced that Biagio Speranza would return without fail the evening of the following day. “The sheep will return to the fold.”