Aunt Martina, lying wakeful and alert, heard everything; heard Costantino approach, heard his knock, heard Giovanna open to him; and then she knew it was hopeless. Without doubt Isidoro had faithfully reported his conversation with her, and this was Costantino's reply: he had come directly and defiantly to Giovanna. "No doubt," thought the old woman bitterly, "he argues that since old Martina lacks the courage to make her son unhappy by telling him the truth, he may as well profit by her weakness. Yes; no doubt that is what he thinks. But, he has forgotten to take account of what the poor old mother may be stirred up to do in order to protect her boy! Now, Costantino Ledda, it is between us two!"
One night as Costantino slid down from the shed beneath Giovanna's window, he felt something cold and sharp enter his side; in the darkness he made out the figure of a man, his face covered with a black cloth. He threw himself upon him, and after a brief struggle, breathless, silent, determined, he succeeded in throwing him down and disarming him. Then he let him go without so much as attempting to identify him. What did it signify who the assassin was? Behind that black mask he knew only too well that Aunt Martina's gaunt features looked out, and that it was her hand that had directed the murderous stroke.
He made his way back to Isidoro's hut, and, the fisherman being absent on one of his journeys, dressed the wound himself, hiding away like a stricken animal, and concealing what had happened from every one. He did not even undress, but for three days and nights lay stretched on his pallet, a prey to the bitterest reflections.
The weather had become cold; outside, the wind whistled among the dry hedges, and, forcing its way into the hut, made the long threads of cobweb swing back and forth, and brought down clouds of dust from the roof. Through the window Costantino could see processions of pale blue clouds scudding across the cold, bright background of the sky; and he said to himself that he wanted to die.
Death, death, what else remained for him? The world—his world—was now only a cold and empty void.
His feeling for Giovanna could never be what it once had been; he had, indeed, resumed his relations with her, but she could never mean the same thing to him again after having deserted him in his hour of need. The very pleasure which he felt in their clandestine intercourse was due in part to his hatred of the Dejases. The Dejases! The mere thought of the joy which his death would afford them, even now, aroused him and put new life into his veins!
"They have stolen everything else of mine," he thought, "and now they want to take my life as well. But they shan't have it; I will kill one of them first." He recalled a trial at which he had once been present, where the accused had proved that he had been attacked, and had struck back in order to defend himself; the jury had acquitted him. "Well, they will acquit me; I shall be striking in self-defence. And if they don't acquit me——!" There arose before him the faces of his fellow-convicts. The King of Spades smiled at him lugubriously, and behind him he could see the gloomy walls of the prison courtyard. At least, though, they had been friendly; they might have been murderers, but they had never tried to assassinate him.
On the third day of his seclusion in Uncle Isidore's hut a storm came up. Nothing could exceed the comfortless desolation of the poor little abode. The black clouds travelling overhead seemed to break directly against the small, bare window; presently some big drops fell from the roof; one leak in especial, directly over the black, cold fireplace was so persistent that at last, seeing that the water was forming into a thin stream, the young man reached out and shoved Uncle Isidoro's earthenware saucepan beneath it. Drip, drip, drip, the sound was like the monotonous and melancholy ticking of a clock. Night descended, if anything colder and more dreary than before; the rain came down steadily, and the drops fell into the saucepan with the regularity of a machine. Costantino did not move; he had neither wood wherewith to build a fire, nor any more food, and it did not occur to him to get up, to bestir himself, to go out, to live. Perhaps Uncle Isidoro was stalled in some neighbouring village by the storm, and would not get back.
During the night fever set in, and Costantino was racked by hideous dreams, painful memories of the past, tempests of anger, mingled with physical suffering. How long he lay in this condition he could never remember, only he recollected hearing the steady drip, drip of the water as it fell into the saucepan, the beating of the rain on the roof, and the long sob of the wind as it swept about the deserted house. In the intervals of the fever, when he would arouse from the lethargy that weighed him down, he was conscious of sharp, shooting pains through all his limbs, similar to those he had felt in prison on awaking after a feverish night; and also of a savage, animal desire to do some harm, to fling himself on some one or some thing, and bite, and tear, and destroy. Another day and night went by. The rain was falling more heavily than ever, and that steady, inexorable drip, drip had at last filled and overflowed the saucepan. Between cold and starvation Costantino had almost come to the end of his forces. Once he was visited by a horrid illusion. He thought that a mad dog had thrown him down and bitten him in the stomach. He awoke shaking, and could not throw the idea off; perhaps he had been bitten by a mad dog, and this was hydrophobia! Towards evening the storm died down, though the rain did not cease entirely. Then, suddenly, he felt that he was dying; he had no sense of rebellion now; all that was over; he seemed to have lost even the power to care. To die, to die—Why should he want to go on living? Everything both within him and about him was black and void. Through all his fever-ridden dreams one idea had remained persistently by him—that he was about to commit a crime. Now it was Aunt Martina whom he was on the point of stabbing; then some one else; but in the intervals of consciousness he realised that should he live, should he once more find himself burdened with the dolorous gift of existence, while he would not even attempt to resist the secret force that was urging him on, it would matter little against whom his fury expended itself; it might be Aunt Martina, or Brontu, or some one else. But then—then—deep down in his soul he could never rid himself of a sense of terror of what would happen afterwards. Yes; he wanted to die, so as to suffer no more and to be saved from becoming a murderer.
At last the rain was ceasing; it still fell steadily, but more, now, like a gentle shower, while the wind had died down completely. It was cold, though, and the damp, chill atmosphere hung over the cabin like a heavy wet cloth. So unutterably dreary were the weather and the surroundings that Costantino, recalling the periods of his most acute misery, could never remember being so utterly and hopelessly wretched as now. Not even on the day of the sentence, not even on the day when they had told him of the divorce, nor on that other day of his return: for on every one of those occasions, desperate as the outlook had been, there always remained the hope of better things in the life to come. Then his conscience had been pure; but now, should he go on living, he believed that he would surely forfeit all hope in the life to come. At times, goaded by this horror, he would cry aloud, imploring death to come and save him, as a terrified child cries for its mother.