"Afterwards, though, he tried to make his peace with him, and succeeded too. But now listen to this, Paolo Porru——"
"Dr. Porru! Dr. Porreddu!" shouted the small nephew, correcting the guest. The latter, turning on the boy angrily, started to box his ears, whereupon Giovanna laughed. On beholding their heartbroken guest—she who up to that moment had been surrounded by a halo of romance and tragedy—actually laughing, the pale, lank Grazia broke into a nervous laugh as well, and then Minnia laughed, and then the boy, and then the student.
Aunt Bachissia glared about her, and, lifting one lean, yellow hand, was about to bring it down on some one—she had not quite decided whether her daughter or the boy—when Aunt Porredda appeared in the doorway, bearing a steaming dish of macaroni.
She was followed by Uncle Efes Maria Porru, a big, imposing-looking man, whose broad chest was uncomfortably contracted in a narrow blue velvet jacket. He was a peasant, but affected a literary turn; his large, colourless face resembled a mask of ancient marble; he wore a short, curling beard, and had thick lips always parted, and big, clear eyes.
"Come, sit down at once," said Aunt Porredda, planting the dish in the centre of the table. "What! laughing, are you? The little doctor is making you all laugh?"
"I was just about to give your grandson a box on the ear," said Aunt Bachissia.
"And why were you going to do that, my soul? Come now, sit down, all of you; Giovanna, here; Dr. Porreddu, over there."
The student threw himself back full-length on the bed, stretched out his arms, lifted his legs high in air, dropped them again, sat up, and jumped to his feet with a yawn.
The children and Giovanna began to laugh again.
"A little gymnastic exercise does one good. Great Lord! how I shall sleep to-night! My bones feel as though they had lost all their joints. How tall you have grown, Grazia; you look like a bean-pole."
The girl reddened and dropped her eyes; while Aunt Bachissia thrust out her lips, annoyed at the student's lack of interest, as well as at the general indifference to Costantino's fate. To be sure, Giovanna herself had apparently forgotten, and it was only when Aunt Porredda placed before her a bountiful helping of macaroni covered with fragrant red gravy, that she suddenly recollected herself; her face clouded over, and she refused to eat.
"There now! what did I tell you?" cried Aunt Porredda. "She is crazy, absolutely crazy! Why can't you eat? What has eating your supper to-night to do with the sentence to-morrow?"
"Come, come," said Aunt Bachissia crossly. "Don't be foolish, don't go to work and spoil these good people's pleasure."
"A brave heart," said Uncle Efes Maria pompously—fastening his napkin under his chin and seeing an opportunity for a learned observation—"a brave heart defies fate, as Dante Alighieri says. Come now, Giovanna, prove yourself a true flower of the mountains; more enduring than the rocks themselves. Time softens all things."
Giovanna began to eat, but with a lump in her throat that made swallowing a difficult matter.
Paolo, meanwhile, had not spoken a word, but sat bowed over his plate, which, by the time Giovanna had managed to get down her first mouthful, was entirely clean.
"Why, you are a perfect hurricane, my son!" said Aunt Porredda. "What a ravenous appetite you have, to be sure! Do you want some more—yes?—and more still—yes——?"
"Well done!" cried Uncle Efes Maria. "It looks as though you had found very little to eat in the Eternal City!"
"Eh, that is precisely what I was saying just now," said Aunt Porredda. "Beautiful streets, if you will; but—when it comes to buying anything—the pennies have to be counted down! I've been told all about it! On my word, they say that there are no provisions stored in the houses as there are here, and you all know for yourselves that with no provisions in the house it is not easy to satisfy one's appetite!"
Aunt Bachissia nodded affirmatively; she knew only too well what happens when there is nothing in a house to eat.
"Is that true or not, Dr. Porreddu?"
"True, perfectly true," said he, laughing, and eating, and waving his large, white hands with their long nails, in the air.
"It is that that makes him such a leech, a regular vampire," said Uncle Efes Maria, turning to his guests. "I'll not have a drop of blood left in my veins. Body of the devil! how the money must go in Rome!"
"Ah, if you only knew!" sighed Paolo. "Everything, every single thing is so frightfully dear. Twenty centimes for a single peach! There, I feel better now."
"Twenty centimes!" exclaimed all the company in chorus.
"Well, Aunt Bachissia, and then? After Costantino came back?" asked Paolo.
"Well, Paolo Porru—you see I go on addressing you familiarly, even though you will be a doctor soon; when you were a little chap I used to go so far as to give you a cuff now and then——"
"I have no recollection of it, but go on with your story," said the young man, while Grazia's nostrils fairly dilated with anger.
"Well, as I said, Costantino disappeared for three years, and——"
"He was working in the mines, all right; then he came back and was reconciled to his uncle. What then?"
"He met my Giovanna here, and they fell in love with each other; but the uncle made objections because my girl was poor. Then they began to hate one another worse than ever. Costantino was working for the Vulture, and he would never let him have a centime. So, then, one day Costantino came to me and said: 'I'm a poor man; I haven't got any money to buy trinkets for the bride, or to provide a feast and all the rest for a Christian wedding; and you are poor, too. Now then, suppose we do this way: we will have the civil ceremony, and all live and work together; then, when we have saved enough, we will be married by God. A great many do it that way, why shouldn't we?' So we did; we had the civil ceremony very quietly, and afterwards we all lived together and were happy enough. But the Vulture was furious; he used to come and yell things at us even in our own street, and he tried to interfere with Costantino in every way he could. But we just kept on working. So at last, when the vintage was over last autumn, we began preparing the sweets and things for the wedding, and then Basile Ledda was found dead one day, murdered in his own house! The evening before, Costantino had been seen going in there; what he went for was to tell his uncle about the wedding, and to try to make his peace with him. Ah, poor boy! he would not run off and hide somewhere as I begged and implored him to do, so of course they arrested him."
"He would not go because he was innocent, mamma, my——"
"There you go, you simpleton, beginning to cry again! If you don't stop, I'll not say another word, so there! Well, then, Costantino was arrested, and now the trial is just over, and the public prosecutor has asked to have him sent to the galleys; but he's a dog, that public prosecutor! They have evidence, to be sure; Costantino was seen on the night of the murder entering his uncle's house, where he lived all by himself, like the wild beast that he was; and then their relations in the past—all true enough, but there are no proofs. Costantino was very contradictory, and full of remorse about something; he kept repeating: 'It is the mortal sin'; for you must know that he is a good Christian, and he thinks that this misfortune has been sent as a punishment because he and Giovanna lived together before they were married by religious ceremony."
"But tell me one thing——"
"Just wait a moment. I should add that now they have been married by religious ceremony—in prison! Yes, my dear, in prison; fancy what a horrid thing that was! Now don't begin crying again, Giovanna; if you do, I'll throw this salt-cellar at your head. There she is, the goose!