They had all heard that Costantino was ill, and there was a report that his lungs were affected.
In order to appear agitated,—and possibly she really was so to some extent,—Giovanna now hid her face in her hands and said brokenly:
"Besides—if it is only to be a civil ceremony—it is—it is because——" Then she stopped.
"Well, why don't you go on?" cried Paolo. "You are to be married by civil ceremony because the priests won't give you any other! They don't understand, and they never will understand; just as you will never understand, Mamma Porredda. What is marriage, after all? It is a contract made between men, and binding only in the sight of men. The religious ceremony really means nothing at all——"
"It is a sacrament!" cried Aunt Porredda, beside herself.
"Means nothing at all," continued Paolo. "Just as some day the civil ceremony will mean nothing at all. Men and women should be at liberty to enter spontaneously into unions with one another and to dissolve them when they cease to be in harmony. The man——"
"Ah, you are no better than a beast!" exclaimed Aunt Porredda, though it was, in fact, not the first time that she had heard her son express these views. "It is the end of the world. God has grown weary; and who can wonder? He is punishing us; this is the deluge. I have heard that there have been terrible earthquakes already!"
"There have always been earthquakes," observed Uncle Efes Maria, who did not know whether to side with his wife or his son. Probably, in the bottom of his heart his sympathies were with the former, but he did not want to say so openly for fear of being looked down upon by the gifted Paolo.
The latter made no reply. Already he regretted having said so much, being too truly attached to his mother to wish to give her needless pain. Giovanna now took her hands from her face, and spoke in a tone of gentle humility:
"Listen," said she. "When I was married before—to that unfortunate—I had only the civil ceremony, and if he had not been arrested, who knows when we ever would have had the religious marriage! And yet, were we not just as much man and wife? No one ever said a word, and God, who knows all, was not offended——"