"Oh! you mean to be funny, do you? Well, it is time this was put a stop to! Tell your master that he has got to bring this business to an end. The whole neighbourhood has heard about it, and people are talking."
"My dear friend, we have only just begun! And here are you talking of ending it! I have had enough of it, I assure you, for morn, noon, and night, that brandy-bottle does nothing but talk to me about it! I had to promise him at last that I would see you, so here I am! But I can tell you not to talk on his side! There is only one person, Uncle Isidoro, who can really put a stop to this scandalous business, and that is Giovanna herself. You must go to her, and tell her to make that beast shut up. I can do nothing more."
Isidoro gazed at him with wide, unseeing eyes; he appeared not to be listening. Presently he resumed his work, murmuring: "Poor Costantino! poor lamb! What have they done to you?"
"Yes, indeed, he is innocent," said Giacobbe. "And any day at all he may come back! This craze of Brontu's has got to be stopped. Then there is Aunt Bachissia as well, hovering over her like a vulture over its prey!"
"Poor Costantino! poor lamb! What have they done to you?" repeated Isidoro, paying not the smallest heed to anything that Giacobbe said. The latter became annoyed. Raising his voice until it echoed through the surrounding silence and solitude, he shouted: "What have they done to him? What are they going to do to him? Why don't you listen to what I am telling you, you old rag-heap? You must go and talk to her, right away! There she is, cheerful and rosy, and ready to fall at the first touch, like a ripe apple! At heart, though, she is not bad, and if you will predispose her against it—make her see what she ought to do—the whole thing may be prevented. Get up! get along! move! do something! Here is your chance to perform miracles, if you really are a saint, as the sinners seem to think!"
"Ah! ah! ah!" sighed the old man, rising to his feet. His tall figure, majestic even in its rags, stood out in the crimson light, against the background of dark hedge and distant, misty horizon, like that of some venerable hermit. "I will go," he said, sighing heavily. And at the words Giacobbe felt as though a great weight had been rolled from his breast.
From then on, the two men worked, steadily together in the interest of the far-away prisoner, finding themselves opposed, however, by three active and united forces, as well as by the passive resistance of Giovanna. The three forces against which they had to contend were: the brute passion of Brontu, the grasping greed of Aunt Bachissia, and Aunt Martina's self-interest, she being now wholly in favour of Brontu's scheme. Giovanna, she argued, was, though poor, both healthy and frugal, and she knew how to work like a beast of burden. A woman in good standing coming into the house as a bride, might entail all manner of extravagance and outlay, and the wedding alone would be sure to mean a heavy expense. Whereas, in the case of Giovanna, the marriage would be conducted almost in secret, and she would steal into the house like a slave! Shrewd Aunt Martina!
Thus the months rolled over the little slate-stone village, the desolate mountains, the yellow stretch of uplands. Autumn came—soft, melancholy days, when the sea lay beneath a veil of mist on the horizon, and dark clouds, like huge crabs, travelled slowly across the pale sky, trailing long lines of vapour behind them. Sometimes, though, it would turn cold, and the atmosphere would be like a spring of limpid water, fresh, clear, and sparkling.
On such an evening as this, when a long, violet-coloured cloud hung in the eastern heavens like an island in a crystal sea, and the scent of burning thyme came from the fields which the peasants were making ready for sowing, Brontu would swallow great gulps of brandy to take off the evening chill, and then, throwing himself down in the back of the hut, would lie dreaming, as warm and happy as a cat, his eyes fixed on the violet-coloured cloud on the distant horizon. All about the cabin, in every direction, as far as the eye could reach, stretched the broad tancas of the Dejases, billowy undulations, losing themselves in the fading daylight. Here and there amid the golden-brown stubble were dark squares of newly-turned earth, swollen by the rain, and patches of fresh grass and purple, autumnal flowers sending out a damp perfume. Clouds of wild birds, and large crows as black and shining as polished metal, poured out of the clumps of assenzio, which, half-hidden among the wild roses and the clustering arbute with its shining leaves and yellow berries, looked like tumuli of ashes.
In one of the tancas two peasants, farm hands of the Dejases, were burning brush preparatory to ploughing for the wheat and barley crops. The flames crackled as the wind blew them hither and thither, pale yet, in the evening light, and transparent as yellow glass, the smoke hanging over them in low, light clouds, like fragrant incense, then melting away. Along the tops of the hedges enclosing the sheepfolds, each bare, thorny twig seemed to stand out separately in the crystal atmosphere, like a tracery of amethyst-coloured lace. The animals had all been herded for the night, except a few horses which could be seen here and there, with noses to the ground, cropping the short grass.