"Oh! courage; yes, we have plenty of it, thank you," said Aunt Bachissia. "Now leave us in peace." And she continued on her way, as proud and erect as a race-horse. The road was only too familiar already, and she followed it straight to the fateful hall. Behind her came Giovanna, and behind her, the others: heavily bearded, roughly clad men; a handful of idlers; last of all, a near-sighted old woman with no teeth.
The jury, most of them old and fat, were already in their places. One of them had an enormous hooked nose; two others, fierce-eyed, thickly bearded men, looked like bandits; three sat in a little group with their heads close together, laughing over something in a newspaper.
In a few moments the judge appeared, his rosy face surrounded by a straggling white beard. Then came the public prosecutor, a young man with a fair, drooping moustache, flushed and tyrannical-looking. Then the registrar, the ushers—all of these functionaries looking to Giovanna, in their black robes, like so many evil genii come to weave their fatal spells about poor Costantino.
And there he was himself! Erect in the cage, like some frightened animal held in leash by the two stony-faced carbineers. His gaze was fastened upon Giovanna, but now there was no smile; he seemed overpowered by the weight of his misery; and, as his glance fell upon those men, the arbiters of his fate, his clear, childlike eyes contracted and grew dark with terror.
Giovanna, too, seemed to feel the grip of an iron hand on her heart, and at times the sensation was so acute as to give her actual physical pain.
The lawyer for the defence, a little pink-and-yellow man, with a high-pitched, querulous voice, began his speech.
His defence had been sufficiently unfortunate from the first; now he merely repeated what had already been said; and his words seemed to fall into space like drops of water dripping into a great empty vessel. The public prosecutor, with his drooping moustaches, maintained an air of insolent indifference. A few of the jury appeared to take credit to themselves for sitting through it with patience; while the others, so far as could be observed, did not so much as pretend to listen. The only persons present, in fact, who really took any interest in the summing up of the defence were Aunt Bachissia, Giovanna, and the prisoner; and the longer their advocate talked, the more did these feel that their case was hopelessly lost.
From time to time some new arrival would take one of the seats behind Giovanna, and whenever this happened, she would turn quickly to see if it were Paolo. For some reason she found herself ardently wishing for him; she felt as though his mere presence in the courtroom might help them in some way.
At last the lawyer ceased. Instantly, Costantino arose, and, growing very red in the face, asked if he might speak. "The—the"—said he, pointing in the direction of the advocate—"the gentleman-lawyer has spoken—he has defended me—and I thank him kindly; but he has not spoken the way I could have wished; he did not say—well, he did not say——"