Down and down, now watching the sandy path, winding between high grass on either side, now gazing at the birds to whom he had compared himself, as they flew hither and thither, at times almost skimming the ground, then darting into the bushes where they would find a roosting-place for the night. He thought of the prison magpie, and felt a sudden tightening at his heart. Yes; it was true he had been sorry, when the time came to leave that place of torment—the companions whom he disliked so heartily, the horrible, enclosing walls, the strip of sky that for all those years had seemed to overhang the prison courtyard like a metal lid.
After the death of the real culprit days and months had elapsed before Justice had completed its leisurely formalities and the innocent man could be liberated. During these months Costantino, informed of the event, had been wild with impatience, and the days had seemed like years; yet, when the moment of departure actually came, he nearly wept.
This emotion, however, which was apparently the outcome of pity and sympathy for the beings whom he was leaving behind, was, in reality, for the things he was leaving behind; for all those inanimate objects that had engulfed and swallowed up his life—both his past and his future. Now this sorrow was done with, everything was done with; even that horrible torture that followed Giovanna's act was all so much a thing of the past that he really fancied that he could laugh at it.
Down, and down; he reached the bottom of the valley and began to skirt the edge of the Isalle. The sunset sky was still bright, and here and there the water shone between the oleanders and rushes, or reflected the rose and yellow lights in the sky. The delicate lace umbrellas of the elder-flower, and the brilliant coral blossoms of the oleanders stood out in the clear atmosphere as though from a setting of silver. Costantino, by this time very tired, began to think that perhaps the valley was not, after all, so small as it had seemed at first.
"I can sleep out of doors perfectly well," he thought, "but it would have been so amusing to walk up to Isidoro's door—Bang, bang—'Who's there?' 'I'—'Who's I?' 'Why, Costantino Ledda!' How astonished old Isidoro would look! Perhaps he would be singing the lauds; may be those lauds, who knows? Why, let's see! I wrote a set of lauds once! How extraordinary that seems!"
He wondered over many incidents of the past as a boy will sometimes be astonished to think of things he did as a child. But the present held many surprises as well. The glory of the springtide amazed him, as did the length of time it took to cross a valley that appeared to be so small. But most of all he wondered to think that he was crossing it on his way back to his own village.
He was walking now between two fields of grain above which the slanting light threw a veil of golden haze, and its surface, rippled by the breeze, seemed stroked by an invisible hand.
He went on picturing his arrival, Isidoro having written to ask him to come straight to his house: "'Come in,' he will say, and then, 'Giacobbe Dejas is dead; it was he who did it!'—'I know that already. The devil! Is that all you have to tell me?' 'Well, then, your wife has married some one else.' 'I know that too.' 'Then why don't you cry?' 'Why on earth should I? I have cried enough; I don't want to any more now. I've crossed the sea; I've seen the world. I'm not a boy any longer; nothing makes much difference to me any more.'" But at the very moment when he was boasting to himself of his indifference and worldly cynicism, an icy grip closed about his heart.
Oh! to be going back to find the little house, Giovanna, his child, his past!
"There is nothing left," he said aloud. "The storm has swept over it and carried everything away, everything, everything——"