“By the heart of Mary!” he said, “this shall stop. I will go to him and tell him you are my wife.”
“No, no! Don’t do that. Wait—wait until you are rid of him—until you are your own padrone—until the bust is here and you have sold it and are a free man.”
“The bust?” he said hopelessly. “It is here, but as well might it have remained in Armando’s studio.”
“What?” she said. “It is here? Where? Let me see it.”
“No; I can not. The Government has it, and will keep it until I pay one hundred and forty dollars. Seven hundred lire! Gesù Bambino! Where shall I get them?”
As they walked on he recounted the distress that had overtaken the supposed First Lady of the Land; her captivity in the hands of revenue officials, and his inability to pay the kingly ransom demanded. This news was a cut and thrust at the hope whereon Juno’s crude self-love had fed for many a month, and it killed the solitary motive that made her hold to Bertino. By neither word nor sign, however, did she betray her disgust and anger; she even feigned sympathy, and bade him be of good cheer, saying tenderly that ill fortune would not dog them forever; that by luck or pluck they should get possession of the bust, and carry out his plan for money-making. These were the first heartening words she had ever spoken to him—the first kindness he could recall as coming from her lips. Despite the black cloud that had risen so suddenly from behind the customhouse, a sweet rapture filled his soul. What mattered it all?—his wife loved him. Their joys and griefs were one. The loneliness that had burdened his spirit since the day of his marriage departed, and his heart lost its bitterness.
“True, my precious,” he said, pressing her hand, “we love each other, and shall know how to manage in spite of the Government.”
At the same time Juno said to herself, “How can I get rid of the fool and marry his uncle?”
They came to a halt at the mouth of the Alley of the Moon, a wide passage between two tenements that led to a rear court heaped with push-carts laid up for the night. Halfway up the alley a large gas lamp with a sputtering light hung over a doorway. On its green glass showed the words, Restaurant of Santa Lucia. In three dingy rooms above, Luigia the Garlic Woman lived with a lodger known to the public of Mulberry as Chiara the Hair Comber. The latter had her shop and living apartment in the “front” room, looking on the alley, and directly over the green light, which shed its rays on her sign, Hair Combing in Signora Style, Two Cents. The remaining room of the trio had been engaged that day by Juno, who had merely fibbed when she told Bertino that she had been in town only an hour. It was the same humble chamber she had occupied during her brief career of starhood on the stage of La Scala.
“I have come here because it costs only twenty soldi a day,” she said to Bertino, “and here I shall remain until—until we can do better. Good night, my dear husband. Courage. Be allegro, and our fortune will sing.”