A tiny gleam flashed out from Aunt Bachissia's cottage; by its light the old woman was endeavouring, with the aid of a rough broom, to sweep out the water that had poured over her threshold. The sky, beyond the yellow fields, looked like a stretch of still, green water; and in the foreground the almond-tree, glossy and dripping, dominated everything around it. Beneath the almond-tree, in the last gleam of daylight, Brontu appeared on horse-back; horse and rider alike black and steaming, and lagging along as though sodden and weighted by the deluge that had poured over them.
The two women came running out to meet him, uttering many expressions of horror, possibly a trifle exaggerated in tone, but he paid no attention to them.
"The devil! the devil! the devil!" he muttered, drawing his feet heavily out of the stirrups, and lifting first one and then the other. "Go to the devil who sent you!—My shoes are water-logged! Why don't you get to work?" he added crossly, marching off to the kitchen.
The two women began at once to unload the horse, and when Giovanna followed him a little later, he at once demanded something to drink, "to dry him." "Change your clothes," she told him.
But no, he did not want to change his clothes; he only wanted something to drink,—"to dry him"—he repeated, and grew angry when Giovanna would not get it for him. He ended, however, by doing precisely as she said,—changed his clothes, took nothing to drink, and, while waiting for supper, sat carefully rubbing his wet hair on a towel, and combing it out.
"What a deluge! what a deluge!" he said. "A regular sea pouring straight out of heaven. Ah, I got my crust well softened this time!" He gave a little laugh. "How are you, Giovanna? All right, eh? Giacobbe Dejas sent all kinds of messages. You act like smoke in his eyes."
"You ought to stop his tongue," said Aunt Martina. "He's only a dirty serving-man; if you didn't let him take such liberties he would respect you more."
"I stopped more than his tongue; he wanted me to let him come in to-night. 'No,' I said; 'you'll stay where you are, and split.' He's coming in to-morrow, though."
"To-morrow? and why to-morrow? Ah, my son, you let yourself be robbed quite openly; you don't amount to anything!"
"Well, after all, to-morrow is the Assumption," said he, raising his voice, and putting the finishing touches to his hairdressing. "And Giacobbe is a relation, so let it rest. There, Giovanna, see how handsome I am!" He smiled at her, showing his splendid teeth.