Night had fallen; the deserted tanca, stretching away beneath a clear sky sparkling with big, yellow stars, glowed with the red light of the brush fires.
Giacobbe could not get to sleep again; he turned and twisted from one side to the other, but the intoxicating effects of the brandy had passed, leaving his mouth dry and feverish. He got up and drank; then he remembered that he had taken nothing to eat that evening. For a long time he stood leaning against the door of the hut, his face lighted up by the glow of the fires. "Shall I get something to eat or not?" he asked himself, hardly conscious that he did so. Then he looked up at the stars. Almost midnight. What had that little beast—his master—accomplished? he wondered, and his anger rose again, but chiefly against Aunt Bachissia. What impudence to come all the way to this distant spot just to further the little proprietor's outrageous plans! For he knew perfectly well that the loan was merely an excuse of that old harpy to draw Brontu on, to bring him to a decision, to make him commit himself. Ah, what a low creature that woman was! Had she no conscience at all? Did she not believe in God? At this point Giacobbe grew thoughtful, and presently he threw himself down again, still debating whether or no he were hungry, and whether it were worth while to get something to eat. No, he decided; he was not hungry, nor thirsty, nor sleepy; nor could he rest; lying down, or sitting up, or standing. He yawned noisily and began talking aloud, mumbling foolish, disconnected things, in a vain effort to distract his thoughts, which, however, continued to dwell persistently upon that thing. It was horrible, horrible! Marry a woman who had another husband already! And suppose Costantino should come back? Who knows? Everything is possible in this world. And even if he were never to return, there was the boy, how about him? What would he think when he grew up and found that his mother had two husbands? What a law that was! "Ha! the men who make the laws are pretty queer!" And Giacobbe laughed mirthlessly, for, down in the bottom of his heart, his inclination was to do anything else but laugh.
Getting up, he seized the brandy-flask, saying to himself that if Brontu should display any curiosity as to who had drunk his brandy, why so much the worse for him. "I'll tell him it was the spirits! Ha, ha!" He laughed again, took a deep draught, and, throwing himself down, quickly fell into a heavy sleep, and dreamed that he was telling a sister of his all about his other dream of Costantino, and the yellow dog, and the chain.
When he awoke the sun was already above the horizon, pushing through a bank of bluish cloud. The morning was cold, with light, drifting clouds, and the thickets, bushes, stubble, every spear of grass, sparkled with dew in the slanting rays of the sun. Once more the birds bustled in and out among the bushes, burst into song, rushed together in little groups, or poised gracefully in the misty air. Now and then the chorus of chirps and twitters would swell into something so acute and piercing that it was almost like the patter of metal raindrops: sometimes a shrill whistle, or the strident note of a crow, would break into this silvery harmony; then all would die away, swallowed up in the vast silence of the uplands.
Giacobbe came out of the hut yawning and stretching. He yawned so violently that his jaws cracked, and his smooth-shaven face folded into innumerable tiny wrinkles about the round, open mouth; and his little, oblique eyes, yellow in the sunlight, watered like those of a dog. "Well," he thought, pressing both hands to his stomach, "I have cramps here. What did I do last evening?"
He threw open the folds; a ram with curved horns came out, snuffing the ground, closely followed by a yellowish bunch of sheep, all trying to tread in his tracks, and all likewise snuffing the ground; others came, and still others; the folds were empty; still Giacobbe stood close to the enclosure—motionless—buried in thought.
"Yes, last evening I had nothing to eat. I drank the little master's brandy, and then I had dreams. Yes, yes, that was it—Costantino—and the dog—and my sister Anna-Rosa. Well, damn him! Why didn't he come back, the little toad? I got drunk, just like a beast. Yes,"—he moralised, walking towards the hut,—"a drunken man is like a beast; he does not know what he is doing, and brays out everything in his mind. A dangerous thing that, Giacobbe Dejas, you bald-pate! Get that well into your head; it's dangerous. No, no, I'll never get drunk again; may the Lord punish me if I do."
A little later the young master returned. Giacobbe, intent and smiling, watched him closely. "Ah!" said he, stepping forward solicitously, "you look like a man who has had a whipping; what has happened?"
"Nothing. Get away."
But nothing was further from the other's intention. He began to circle around his master, fawning upon him and making little bounds towards him like a dog, teasing persistently to be told what had occurred. At last Brontu, who really longed to unburden himself, yielded.