"Of course they have. My wife says there is no need to send her anything more now."
"Ah! I knew that already, my dear fellow."
The ex-marshal hardly knew what to think; he was almost annoyed to find that his forebodings were not being verified.
One day, however, Costantino failed to put in an appearance at the "exercise," and when the ex-marshal was told that his friend had been taken to the infirmary, he felt a strange tightening at the heart. Presently the old magpie came fluttering about, and, settling down with a shake of its half-bald, rumpled head, croaked out dismally: "Cos-tan-ti, Cos-tan-ti."
"'Costanti' has had a stroke, my friend," said the King of Spades. The other convicts began to crowd around him curiously. But he waved them all off. "I know nothing about it," he said. "Let me alone." Up to nine o'clock, Bellini told them, Costantino had been at work with the rest as usual. Then a guard had said that he was wanted, no one knew what for; he had gotten quickly up, and gone off with him, as white as a sheet, and his eyes starting out of their sockets; he had not returned.
To the last day of his life Costantino never forgot that morning. It was hot and overcast; the shadows of the clouds seemed to hang over the workroom, throwing half of it into deep gloom. The convicts all looked livid by this light, the leather aprons exhaled a strong and very disagreeable odour, and every one was out of humour. A man who was afraid of ghosts had been telling how in his part of the country, long, white, flowing forms could be seen on dark nights, floating on the surface of the river; he asked Bellini if he had ever seen them.
"I? No; I don't believe in such foolishness."
"Ah! you think it's foolishness, do you?" said the other in a dull, monotonous tone, and staring into the shoe he was at work on.
"Calf!" murmured another, without looking up from his work.
The believer in ghosts thereupon raised his head with an angry movement, and was about to reply in kind, when the first broke in, protestingly: "Oh, really," said he, "can't I talk to myself? If I choose to say—calf,—or ram,—or sheep,—or dog,—what business is it of yours? Can't I say things to my shoe, I'd like to know?"