After the Divorce Part 14

During the winter that followed, he suffered intensely from cold; his face and nails were livid, and during the exercise hour, even when he stood in the sun, his teeth chattered like those of an old man. He asked often to confess, and confided all his troubles to the young chaplain.

"Who puts such ideas as these into your head, my son?" asked the confessor, his dark eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

"A fellow-countryman of mine, the ex-marshal--Burrai. The _King of Spades_ they call him."

"May G.o.d bless and protect you!" said the other, becoming thoughtful; he knew the _King of Spades_ well. Then he administered what comfort he could, and asked what Giovanna had written herself, and when.

Alas! she wrote but seldom now and never more than a few lines at a time. It seemed almost as if, after the child's death, she had nothing to write about. In her last letter she had told him that the weather was bitterly cold; there had been two snow-storms, in one of which a man, while attempting to cross the mountains, had been frozen to death. And then she had added that they were having a famine.

These accounts, of course, preyed upon Costantino's mind. He would dream constantly that he had been taken to Nuoro and given his liberty; from thence he would set forth on foot for home; it was cold, bitterly cold; he could go no further--he was dying, dying--then he would wake up s.h.i.+vering, and with a heavy weight on his heart.

"You are so weak, my brother," said the confessor. "It is bodily weakness that makes you imagine all these things. Your wife is a good Christian; she would never wrong you in the world. Come, put all such ideas out of your head. You should try to get back your strength; you must eat more, and drink something now and then. Are you earning anything?"

"A little; but I send it all to my wife, she is so terribly poor. Oh! I eat plenty, and I don't like to take anything to drink; it gives me nausea."

"Well, take heart. I will talk to Burrai; he shall not bother you any more."

He did, in fact, have an interview with the _King of Spades_, and took him severely to task for putting such wicked ideas into Ledda's head.

"The poor fellow is far from strong as it is," said he. "If you don't let him alone, he will be ill."

Burrai regarded the priest calmly out of his shrewd little pig-eyes, then he gave a puff and shook his head.

"I only do it for his own good," he said confidently.

"But what good, what possible good? You----"

"I tell you, my dear fellow--I beg your pardon--but here it is, for the present--as long as the cold weather lasts--there is very little to be feared, so far as the young woman is concerned; that is, I fancy that now it is only the old one, Costantino's mother-in-law, who is at work, advising and tormenting her daughter not to let her chance slip by. But when the spring comes--then you'll see; that's all."

The chaplain's face fell; he was disturbed and puzzled. The other, watching him out of his sharp, little eyes, concluded that the present would be a good time to explain himself more fully, and accordingly began to enlarge upon the mother-in-law's grasping disposition, the youth of her daughter, the dangers of the spring season, and so forth.

The chaplain now became really angry.

"This is too much!" he exclaimed, as he strode up and down, striking the palms of his hands together, and his eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "How dare you imagine all this string of things that may possibly happen, and then repeat them to that poor creature as though they were actual occurrences? Because the young woman once had another suitor, you mean to say----"

"My dear friend, there is no need to get so angry," said the other.

"Here, look at this," and he showed him the anonymous letter.

The chaplain saw at once that the matter was more serious than he had supposed; he read the letter, and then asked if Ledda paid him money.

"Of course, a trifle now and then. Perhaps you think it wrong? Well, don't I take the risk of being put in a cell in order to serve him?"

"And you consider that you are doing right when you act in this manner?"

"What is doing right? If it is helping your neighbour, then I most certainly think that I am."

The chaplain re-read the letter attentively.

"Yes," pursued the other. "I certainly am. And what is more, if, when I get out of here, they don't reinstate me in my position, I intend to arrange a system of correspondence for all the prisons in Italy. It will be a sort of agency----"

"I see, my friend, that it will not be long before we have you back again."

"Eh! eh! I shall know how to manage the thing; a secret agency, and----"

"Pardons too!" said the priest, folding the letter and returning it.

"How can you have the heart to fool those poor creatures so?"

"Yes, pardons too," replied Burrai calmly. "Well, and suppose they are fooled; if it gives them any comfort to hope, is not that an act of kindness in itself? What is there for any of us, but hope?"

"Well," said the other more mildly, "at least do me the favour to leave that poor fellow alone. Allow _him_ to enjoy the pleasures of hope, otherwise he will certainly fall ill."

The ex-marshal promised, though with bad grace. It seemed to him a poor method.

"He will die of heartstroke, I verily believe," he said to himself.

"Wait till the spring; then we will see whether a man of the world knows what he is about or no." And he laid one hand on his breast.

When they next met, Costantino asked with a smile if he had seen _Su Preideru_, as they called the chaplain between themselves, and what he had said to him.

The ex-marshal was leaning against the damp and dingy wall, softly cursing some individual unknown, in the Sardinian dialect.

"_Balla chi trapa.s.set sa busacca, brasciai!_" (I wish a ball would hit him in the pouch, the he-wolf!) he murmured, as Costantino approached.

"What is it? Who?"

"Oh! nothing."

"You want to know if I have seen the priest? Yes, and he scolded me like a child. What a child it is! A little pig, really and truly, a little pig! But the lard is yellow and rancid. Do you know, I read somewhere that in Russia they think very highly of rancid lard?"

"But tell me what he said."

"What he said? Let me see, what did he say? I don't remember; oh! yes, he told me that I had imagined all that--what we have been talking about. Yes, that was it, my dear fellow; I have, it seems, a vivid imagination, and your wife will never wrong you in the world! Never, as surely as we are standing here!"

Costantino looked at him eagerly. No, the man was not chaffing; he was perfectly serious, and evidently meant what he said.

"Ah, ha! he scolded you, did he? Good enough!" he cried.

"This wall," said the _King of Spades_, straightening himself, and regarding his hands, which were red and scarred from contact with the rough stones, "this wall looks as though it were made of chocolate; it is warm and damp. Ah! if it only were, there would be two advantages: we could eat it, and then escape! Have you ever eaten any chocolate?"

"Why, of course, and Giovanna too; she is very fond of it, but it is fearfully dear. Well, and what then?"

"What then?" exclaimed the other impatiently. "My dear fellow, you drive me crazy. Oh! she will wait for you twenty-three years--never fear!"

"No, not that long; I shall be out of here long before that," replied Costantino confidently. "Then too," he added with a gleam of humour, "there is the pardon; you were to see the King, you know, about a pardon for me."

"Precisely," said the other. "I was to see the King. You don't believe me? I shall, however, go to him at once; he receives every official, and what am I if not an official? He is fond of the army; he is young; I hear he is getting fat. Ah! not as fat as I, though"--and he laughed.

From then on, whenever Costantino tried to bring the conversation around to the old subject, the other contrived to head him off; but at all events he was no longer tormented.

One day about this time, Costantino was informed that five francs had been paid in to his account. "He did it!" he exclaimed. "I am sure it was the priest. What a kind man he is! But I don't need it; no, indeed, I don't need the money at all."

"You stupid," said the _King of Spades_. "Take it; if you don't he will be offended. 'I don't want it!' A pretty way that to acknowledge a present!"