小说鉴赏——003.格拉米格纳的情人

003.格拉米格纳的情人 （意大利）乔万尼•维尔加 著 亲爱的法里娜， 我现在寄给你的并不是一篇完整的小说，而是一篇小说的梗概。因此，它至少具有简洁、真实的优点——按现时的说法，它是一篇人类的记录。也许，这会引起你，以及那些想研究人心这部巨著的人的兴趣。故事是我在乡间小路上偶然听到的。我深信，与其要你从书本的字里行间，或者从作者的角度去探索它，还不如让你面对赤裸裸的事实。所以，我多少打算按照我听到的那样，用讲给我听的那些人的朴实而生动的语言来叙述它。简单的充满人性的事实，总会引起我们深思，它的价值就在于它永远是真实的，真诚的眼泪，兴奋激动，真情实感。种种激情交织在一起，以它们隐蔽、曲折，有时又似乎是互相抵触的方式融合、成熟、发展。这个神秘的过程在未来很长时期内还会构成一种心理现象的诱惑力，而这种心理现象正是现代科学分析试图极为精确地注意着的，我们则称之为小说的主题。今天的这篇故事，我仅仅讲个开头和结尾；对你，这已经足够了，或许有朝一日对其他的人也会很够了。如今，由于采用了不同的艺术方法，我们在艺术上取得了许许多多极其辉煌的成就。我们对细节比过去更为讲究、更为重视。为了使故事发展符合逻辑，我们情愿牺牲过去的艺术大师们凭着几乎是超人的直觉构思出来的悲剧性结局与心理危机的巨大效果。这样，我们就必然没有过去那么惊人，那么具有戏剧性，虽然也同样是劫数难逃的。我们即便不是太自卑，也是太谦虚了，不过我们在描写真实心理上的维尔加这封信的收信人。 收获，将使未来的艺术同样获益匪浅。难道我们在研究感情方面，就永远不能达到这样一个尽善尽美的境界，使得进一步去考察人的内心世界成为没有必要的了吗？难道人类心灵的科学，这门新的艺术的硕果，就不能把想象力的种种源泉开发到这样的深度和广度，使得未来的小说和故事仅仅成为这种现象的各个不同事实的记载吗？ 同时，我也相信，当小说的各部分圆满地联结起来，使整个创作过程同人类感情的发展过程一样神秘莫测，小说的形式完美一致，小说的内容真实可信，小说的方法与存在 如此吻合，使小说具有真人真事的效果，不露一丝人工雕琢 的痕迹，艺术作品似乎自行变得成熟，一点儿不必依赖作者， 就像自然事件那样本能地表现出来。到那时，小说就会获得 巨大的成功，就会成为所有艺术作品中最完美、最富有人性的创作。这样，在小说的各个现行形式中，我们就看不出任何构思的迹象，任何想象的幻影，任何吐出第一句话，如 同造物主的命令那样的痕迹。小说像它应该也必须做到的那样，自成一种体裁。它像一尊巍然常存的铜像，经常洋溢着生活，而它的作者则以非凡的勇气把自己隐藏起来，消失在他的不朽著作之中。 几年前，人们在那儿沿着西莫内托河追捕一名强盗。如果我没记错的话，那是一个名叫格拉米格纳的家伙。这个名字和它所代表的那种莠草一样，受到人们的诅咒。它使全省的人一听到就恐怖万分。骑兵、步兵和民兵骑警队跟踪了他两个月，始终没有能逮住他：他孤身一人，却抵得上10条汉子。这棵莠草甚至扬言要扎下根来。再说，收获的季节即将来临，田野里堆满了一垛垛干草，沉甸甸的麦穗正催着人们去收割。虽然割禾的人们早已镰刀在手，但依然没有一个地主胆敢到自己的田里去一下，因为他们生怕碰上格拉米格纳蹲伏在垄沟里，两腿夹着枪，准备把第一个下田来窥探他的人的脑袋轰掉。人们因此怨声载道。省长于是把所有的警官、骑兵军官和民兵骑警队长全召集拢来，向他们训话，使他们全凝神静听。第二天，他们展开了全面行动：每条沟渠里，每堵石墙后，到处都布满了巡逻队、小股的武装人员和岗哨。他们通过电报传递消息，骑马、步行，日以继夜地追捕着他，就像去追赶一只可恶的野兽那样跑遍了全省。格拉米格纳一次次从他们手中溜掉。假如他们追赶得太近，他就用子弹回敬他们。在旷野，在村间，在农庄上，在小酒馆的树荫下，在俱乐部和大会堂里，格拉米格纳和这次疯狂的搜捕以及他的拼死的逃窜，成了人们唯一的话题。骑兵的马精疲力竭，倒了下去；民兵疲惫不堪，横七竖八地躺在马厩里；巡逻兵站着就打盹；只有他，格拉米格纳，永不感到疲乏，从不合眼打盹，他不停地逃窜，攀下悬崖峭壁，偷偷地溜过庄稼地，匍匐着爬过满是仙人掌的丛林，像一条狼似的从干涸的河床里脱身出去。在俱乐部和村里的门阶上，交谈的主要话题就是，被追捕的人在6月毒日晒得焦干的广阔平原上，必定会感到口干舌燥。闲聊的人们说到这个，不由得把眼睛睁得大大的。 那时，佩帕，利科迪亚的美貌姑娘之一，正打算和绰号叫“蜡烛”的邻居菲努结婚。他自己有一小块土地，马房里还有一头栗色的骡子。“蜡烛”是个个儿高高的小伙子，像太阳那样漂亮，他不用弯腰就能像一根柱子似的把圣玛格丽特的旗子高高擎起。 佩帕的母亲因为女儿交上了好运，高兴得流下了眼泪。她花了好多时间去翻看新娘箱子里的嫁妆：全都是白色的四件一套，“可以和一个皇后媲美”，垂肩的耳环，能戴满十个手指的金戒指。她拥有的金子和圣玛格丽特一样多。婚礼就定在圣玛格丽特节举行，恰好在6月干草收获以后。每天晚上，“蜡烛”从田里归来，把骡子拴在佩帕家门口，然后进屋对她说，今年的收成好极了，假如格拉米格纳不来放火的话，那间打开了门正对着床的小谷仓，无论如何也放不下今年的收获。他觉得似乎还要等上一千年，才能让自己的新娘坐在骡背上他自己的身后，接回家去。 随后，在一个晴朗的日子里，佩帕对他说：“那头骡子你也用不着了，我现在不想结婚了。”可怜的“蜡烛”简真像遭了雷打似的。那个老女人听到自己的女儿回绝了村里最好的一门亲事，急得动手揪自己的头发。 “我喜欢的是格拉米格纳，”姑娘对母亲说，“除了他，我谁也不嫁。” “啊！”母亲像一个女巫似的披散着花白头发，尖叫着满屋乱撞，“啊，这个魔鬼居然跑到这儿来迷惑我的女儿啦。” “不，”佩帕回答说，眼神就像钢铁一般坚定，“不，他没来过这儿。” “你在哪儿见到他的？” “我没见到过他，只是听人说起过他。可是，听呀！在我被烧死之前，我可以感觉到他就在这儿。” 尽管他们试图瞒住这件事，可村里还是议论纷纷了。那些原先因为丰产的麦田、栗色的骡子，以及不用弯腰就能举起圣玛格丽特大旗的那个漂亮小伙子而忌妒佩帕的主妇们，四处散布流言蜚语，说格拉米格纳和她夜晚在厨房里幽会，说她们有人看见他躲在床底下等等。可怜的母亲给在炼狱里涤罪的灵魂点了一盏灯，甚至神父也来到佩帕的家里，用自己的圣衣去碰她的心房，好把盘踞在她心头的那个格拉米格纳魔鬼驱赶走。她始终坚持说，自己确实连看也没看见过他，只是在晚上梦见过，早上起来嘴唇干裂，似乎她自己的身体也感到了他必然经受着的那种干渴。因此，老女人只得把她关在家里，不让她听到任何有关格拉米格纳的议论。她甚至用圣像把门上的裂缝都遮挡住。佩帕站在圣像后面偷听着外面的街谈巷议，脸上红一阵、白一阵，好像魔鬼把一切痛苦都赶到了她面前。最后，她听说格拉米格纳已经被赶进了帕拉戈马的仙人掌丛中。“他们交火了两小时，”主妇们说，“死了一个骑兵，三个以上的民兵负了伤。但密集的子弹像阵雨一样朝他射击。这会儿，他们在他待过的地方发现了一摊血。”于是佩帕在老女人的床头对着自己身上画了一个十字，就从窗口逃出去了。 格拉米格纳藏在帕拉戈马的霸王树丛中，尽管身负重伤，十分痛苦，他们仍旧没能把他从野兔的藏身之地赶出来。两天来，他没吃过一点儿东西，脸色苍白，发着高烧，却仍然牢牢地握着枪，当他在朦胧的晨光中看见她穿过仙人掌丛，果敢地朝他走来时，他犹豫了一下，不知是否应该开枪——“你想要什么？”他问她，“你到这儿来干吗？” “我来和你待在一起。”她对他说，眼睛坚定地望着他，“你是不是格拉米格纳？” “是的，我是格拉米格纳。如果你是冲着这20个沾满血污的几尼来的，你可打错了算盘。” “不，我是来和你待在一起的。”她回答道。 “回去！”他说，“你不能和我待在一起，我不要什么人和我待在一起。如果你想来弄点钱，那你可找错了人啦！看见吗？我告诉你，我身无分文！两天来我连一片面包也没吃过！” “可现在我没法回家去，”她说，“路上尽是兵。” “走开！这不干我的事！人人都必须当心保护他自己。” 当她像一条被人用脚踢开的狗那样转身打算离去时，格拉米格纳又叫住了她：“听着！到那边的小溪里去给我打一瓶水来。如果你真要和我待在一起，你不得不冒生命的危险。”佩帕一声不吭地走了。格拉米格纳听到枪声，便尖刻地大笑起来，一面自言自语道：“这些可都是为我准备的啊！”但是不一会儿，当他看见她脸色苍白，鲜血淋淋，腋下夹着一个瓶子跑回来时，他猛地扑上去，一把夺过瓶子，直到喝得喘不过气来后，才问她道： “这么说，你躲开了他们？你是怎样逃脱的？” “士兵们都在那边，这边的仙人掌又很密。” “不过他们还是在你身上打了个窟窿？衣服底下在流 血吗？” “是的。” “你哪儿受了伤？” “肩上。” “这没关系，你能走。” 就这样，他答应让她留下。她追随着他，衣服划破了，身子因为那个伤口而发着烧，还要光着双脚去给他弄一瓶水或是一片面包。每当她冒着枪林弹雨空手回来时，她的情人由于受不住饥渴的煎熬，就会揍她。后来，有一天晚上，月光照在仙人掌丛上，格拉米格纳对她说：“他们过来了。”他叫她在石缝的底部躺下，随后自己就逃到另一个地方。仙人掌丛中响起了经久不息的枪声，东一点西一点的火光一闪一闪地划破了漆黑的夜空。突然，佩帕听到身旁响起了一阵脚步声，抬眼一看，格拉米格纳拖着一条断腿走了回来，正靠在仙人掌宽阔的茎叶上往枪里装子弹。“全完了！”他对她说，“现在他们要抓住我了。”然而，最使她恐惧不安的是他那闪闪发光的眼睛，就像疯了一般。接着他像一捆木柴似的倒在干枯的树枝上，许多民兵一拥而上。 第二天，他被放在一辆马车上，从村里的街上慢慢走过，浑身上下伤痕累累，血迹斑斑。围观的人们蜂拥而上。当他们看到他这样瘦小，像傀儡戏中的丑角那样苍白、难看时，他们止不住大笑起来。佩帕正是为了他才离开那个“蜡烛”的！可怜的“蜡烛”跑去躲了起来，好像这是他的耻辱。佩帕的金子虽然和圣玛格丽特一样多，却戴着手铐，被两个士兵押走了，像是另一个强盗那样。为了使自己的孩子获释，可怜的老母亲不得不卖掉嫁妆中“所有那些洁白的什物”，金耳环和十个手指上戴的戒指，去请律师，随后还得把她带回家去。佩帕这时候贫病交加，受了耻辱，简直和格拉米格纳一样丑陋，怀里还抱着格拉米格纳的孩子。等审讯结束，他们把女儿交还给那个可怜的老女人时，她在朦胧的暮色笼罩着的光秃秃兵营里，当着骑兵反复念诵着“圣母玛利亚”，仿佛得到的是一件无价之宝，因为女儿就是她的一切，可怜的老东西。宽慰的泪水如同泉水似的涌了出来。与此相反，佩帕的眼泪似乎已经枯竭，她什么话也没说，也从没见她在村里走动，尽管母女俩从此不得不靠辛勤的劳动来维持生活。人们说佩帕在灌木丛中学会了晚上出去偷东西的本领。事实上，她像一只野兽一样被悄悄地关起来待在厨房里，直到她的老母亲因为操劳过度而死去，不得不把房子卖掉。这时，她才重新露面。 “你瞧！”仍在爱着她的“蜡烛”说，“每当我想到你给自己和别人带来的不幸时，我真想一头撞死在石头上。” “是的，”佩帕回答说，“这我知道！这是上帝的旨意。” 她把房子和留下给她的几件家具卖掉，然后同上次回来时一样，在夜里离开了村庄，一次也没回头看看自己居住了那么多年的家。她遵循着上帝的旨意，带着她的男孩到城里去，在关押格拉米格纳的监狱附近住了下来。在高大死寂的监狱正面，除了窗子的铁栅，什么都看不见。倘若她目光炯炯地站在那儿寻觅着他的“家”时，看守总把她赶走。最后，他们告诉她，他已经不在那儿了。他们给他戴上手铐，脖子上套上篮子，从海上带走不少时候了。她什么也没说，也没有搬走，因为她不知道去哪儿是好，也没有人可以投奔。她似乎已经成了这幢阴暗寂静的高大建筑物的一部分，靠着给士兵和监狱的看守干一些零星活儿勉强糊口。 后来，她又对那些在仙人掌丛中用子弹打断了格拉米格纳的腿、把他从她身边带走的骑兵产生了一种恭敬而体贴的心情，一种对蛮力的兽性的崇拜。每逢节日，当她看见骑兵们帽子前面插着那簇鲜红的羽毛，穿着镶有红条纹的深蓝军礼服，佩戴着耀眼的肩章，结实而挺直地站在那儿时，她总目不转睛地看着。她老是在兵营各处走动，打扫一间间公用的大房间，给他们擦皮靴，后来他们干脆叫她“骑兵们的擦鞋布”。只有在黄昏时分，当她看到他们佩带好武器，卷起裤腿，腰间插着手枪，一对对地出发，或者看到在路灯下，他们骑着马，步枪被照得闪闪发光，听着马刀的铿锵声和马蹄声渐渐远去，只有到这时，她才会脸色惨白，哆嗦着把马厩的门关上。她的孩子和一些小顽童一起在监狱前的平地上玩，在士兵们的胯下窜来窜去。当那些孩子跟在他后面，叫他“格拉米格纳的小崽子，格拉米格纳的小崽子”时，她就勃然大怒，用石头把他们赶走。 003.Gramigna’s Lover By Giovanni Verga DEAR Farina， I’m sending you here not a story, but the outlines of a story. So it will have at least the merit of being brief, and of being true—a human document, as they say nowadays, interesting, perhaps, for you and for those who would study the great book of the heart. I’ll tell it you just as I picked it up in the lanes among the fields, more or less in the same simple and picturesque words of the people who told it to me, and you, I am sure, will prefer to stand face to face with the naked, honest fact rather than have to look for it between the lines of the book, or to see it through the author’s lens. The simple human fact will always set us thinking; it will always have the virtue of having really happened, the virtue of real tears, of fevers and sensations which have really passed through the flesh. The mysterious process by which the passions knot themselves together, interweave, ripen, develop in their own way underground, in their own tortuous windings that often seem contradictory, his will still constitute for a long time to come the attractive power of the psychological phenomenon which we call the theme of a story, and which modern analysis seeks to follow with scientific exactitude. I shall only tell you the beginning and the end of the story I am sending you today, but for you that will be enough, and perhaps one day it will be enough for everybody. Nowadays we work out differently the artistic process to which we owe so many glorious works of art, we are more particular about trifles, and more intimate; we are willing to sacrifice the grand effect of the catastrophe, or of the psychological crisis, which was visioned forth with almost divine intuition by the great artists of the past, to the logical development, and hence we are necessarily less startling, less dramatic, but not less fatal; we are more modest, if not more humble; but the conquests in psychological truth made The recipient of Verga’s letter, in which form the story is cast by us will be not less useful to the art of the future. Shall we never arrive at such perfection in the study of the passions, that it will be useless to prosecute further that study of the inner man? The science of the human heart, which will be the fruit of the new art, will it not develop to such a degree and to such an extent all the resources of the imagination that the novels and stories of the future will merely record the various facts of the case? But in the meantime I believe that the triumph of the novel, that most complete and most human of all works of art, will be reached when the affinity and the cohesion of all its parts will be so complete that the process of the creation will remain a mystery, a mystery as great as that of the development of the human passions; and that the harmony of its form will be so perfect, the sincerity of its content so evident, its method and its raison d être so necessary, that the hand of the artist will remain absolutely invisible, and the novel will have the effect of real happening, and the work of art will seem to have made itself, to have matured and come forth spontaneously like a natural event, without preserving any point of contact with its author; so that it may not show in any of its living forms any imprint of the mind in which it was conceived, any shadow of the eye which visioned it, any trace of the lips that murmured the first words, like the fiat of the Creator; let it stand by itself, in the single fact that it is as it must be and has to be, palpitating with life and immutable as a bronze statue, whose creator has had the divine courage to eclipse himself and to disappear in his immortal work. Several years ago, down there along the Simoneto, they were in pursuit of a brigand, a fellow called Gramigna, if I’m not mistaken; a name accursed as the grass〖ZW(〗A rootspreading grass, used as cattle feed by poor peasants. which bears it, and which had left the terror of its fame behind it from one end of the province to the other. Carabiniers, soldiers, and mounted militia followed him for two months, without ever succeeding in setting their claws in him: he was alone, but he was worth ten men, and the ill weed threatened to take root. Add to this that harvest time was approaching, the hay was already spread in the fields, the ears of wheat were already nodding yes! to the reapers who had the sickle already in their hand, yet none the less there was not a proprietor who dared poke his nose over the hedges of his own land, for fear of seeing Gramigna crouching between the furrows, his gun between his legs, ready to blow the head off the first man who came prying into his affairs. Hence the complaints were general. Then the Prefect summoned all the officers of the police, of the carabiniers, and of the mounted militia, and addressed a few words to them that made them prick up their ears. The next day there was a general upheaval: patrols, small bands of armed men, outposts everywhere, in every ditch and behind every dry stone wall; they drove him before them like an accursed beast across all the province, by day and by night, on foot, on horseback, by telegraph. Gramigna slipped through their hands, and replied with bullets if they got too close on his heels. In the open country,in the villages, in the farmsteads, under the bough shelter of the inns, in the clubs and meeting places, nothing was spoken of but him, Gramigna, and of that ferocious hunt, of that desperate flight; the horses of the carabiniers fell dead tired; the militiamen threw themselves down exhausted in every stable; the patrol slept standing; only he, Gramigna, was never tired, never slept, always fled, scrambled down the precipices, slid through the corn, ran on all fours through the cactus thicket, extricated himself like a wolf down the dry beds of the streams. The principal theme of conversation in the clubs, and on the village door steps, was the devouring thirst which the pursued man must suffer, in the immense plain dried up under the June sun. The idlers widened their eyes when they spoke of it. Peppa, one of the handsomest girls of Licodia, was at that time going to marry Neighbour Finu,“Tallowcandle”as they called him, who had his own bit of land and a bay mule in his stable, and was a tall lad, handsome as the sun, who could carry the banner of Saint Margaret as if he were a pillar, without bending his loins. Peppa’s mother wept with satisfaction at her daughter’s good fortune, and spent her time turning over the bride’s trousseau in the chest, all white goods, and four of each, “good enough for a queen,” and earrings that hung to her shoulders, and golden rings for all the ten fingers of her hands; she had as much gold as St. Margaret herself, and they were going to get married just on St. Margaret’s day, that fell in June, after the hay harvest. Tallow candle left his mule at Peppa’s door every evening as he returned from the fields, and went in to say to her that the crops were wonderful, if Gramigna didn’t set fire to them, and that the little cornchamber that opened its gate door opposite the bed would never be big enough for all the grain this harvest, and that it seemed to him a thousand years, till he could take his bride home, seated behind him on the bay mule. But one fine day Peppa said to him: “You can leave your mule out of it; I’m not going to get married.” Poor Tallow’candle was thunderstruck, and the old woman began to tear her hair as she heard her daughter turning down the best match in the village. “It’s Gramigna I care for,”the girl said to her mother,“and I don’t want to marry anybody but him.” “Ah!”The mother rushed around the house, screaming, with her grey hair flying loose like a very witch. “Ah! that fiend has even got in here to bewitch my girl for me.” “No,”replied Peppa, her eyes fixed and hard as steel.“No, he’s not been here.” “Where have you seen him?” “I’ve not seen him. I’ve heard about him. Hark, though! I can feel him here, till it burns me.” It caused a great talk in the village, though they tried to keep it dark. The goodwives who had envied Peppa the prosperous cornfields, the bay mule, and the fine lad who carried St. Margaret’s banner without bending his loins, went round telling all kinds of ugly stories, that Gramigna came to her at night in the kitchen, and that they had seen him hidden under the bed. The poor mother had lit a lamp to the souls in Purgatory, and even the priest had been to Peppa’s house, to touch her heart with his stole, and drive out that devil of a Gramigna who had taken possession of it. Through it all she insisted that she had not so much as set eyes on the fellow; but that she saw him at nights in her dreams, and in the morning she got up with her lips parched as if she were feeling in her own body all the thirst he must be suffering. Then the old woman shut her up in the house, so that she should hear no more talk about Gramigna, and she covered up all the cracks in the housedoor with pictures of the saints. Peppa listened behind the blessed pictures to all that was said outside in the street, and she went white and red, as if the devil were blowing all hell in her face. At last she heard say that they had tracked down Gramigna to the cactus thickets at Palagonia.－“They’ve been firing for two hours!”the goodwives said.“Theres one carabinier dead, and more than three of the militia wounded. But they fired such showers of bullets on him that this time they’ve found a pool of blood, where he was.” Then Peppa crossed herself before the old woman’s bed head, and escaped out of the window. Gramigna was among the prickly’pear cactuses of Palagonia, nor had they been able to dislodge him from that cover for rabbits, torn, wounded though he was, pale with two days fasting, parched with fever, and his gun levelled: as he saw her coming, resolute, through the thickets of the cactus, in the dim gleam of dawn,he hesitated a moment whether to fire or not.－“What do you want?”he asked her.“What have you come here for?” “I’ve come to stay with you,”she said to him, looking at him steadily. “Are you Gramigna?” “Yes, I am Gramigna. If you’ve come to get those twenty guineas bloodmoney, you’ve made a mistake.” “No,I’ve come to stay with you,”she replied. “Go back!”he said.“You can’t stay with me, and I don’t want anybody staying with me.If you’ve come after money, you’ve mistaken your man, I tell you, I’ve got nothing, see you! It’s two days since I even had a bit of bread.” “I can’t go back home now,”she said.“The road is full of soldiers.” “Clear out! What do I care! Everybody must be looking out for their own skin.” While she was turning away from him, like a dog driven off with kicks, Gramigna called to her.－“Listen! Go and fetch me a bottle of water from the stream down there.If you want to stay with me,you’ve got to risk your skin.” Peppa went without a word, and when Gramigna heard the firing he began to laugh bitingly, saying to himself:“That was meant for me!”－But when he saw her coming back, a little later, with the flask under her arm, herself pale and bleeding, he first threw himself on her and snatched the bottle, and then when he had drunk till he was out of breath, he asked her: “You got away then? How did you manage?” “The soldiers were on the other side, and the cactuses were thick this side.” “They’ve made a hole in you, though. Is it bleeding under your clothes?” “Yes.” “Where are you wounded?” “In the shoulder.” “That doesn’t matter. You can walk.” Thus he gave her permission to stay with him. She followed him, her clothes torn, her body burning with the fever of her wound, shoeless, and she went to get him a flask of water or a hunk of bread, and when she came back empty handed, in the thick of the firing, her lover, devoured by hunger and by thirst, beat her. At last, one night when the moon was shining on the cactus grove, Gramigna said to her: “They are coming!” and he made her lie down flat, at the bottom of the cleft in the rock, and then he fled to another place. Among the cactus clumps continual firing was heard, and the darkness flushed here and there with brief flames. All at once Peppa heard a noise of feet near her and she looked up to see Gramigna returning, dragging a broken leg, and leaning against the broad stems of the cactus to load his gun.“It’s all up!”he said to her.“They’ll get me now”－and what froze her blood more than anything was the glitter in his eyes that made him look like a madman. Then when he fell on the dry branches like a bundle of wood, the militiamen were on him in a heap. Next day they dragged him through the streets of the village on a cart, all torn and blood stained. The people who pressed forward to see him began to laugh when they saw how little he was, pale and ugly like a figure in a Punch and Judy show. And it was for him that Peppa had left Neighbour Finu, the“Tallow candle”! Poor Tallowcandle,he went and hid himself as if the shame was his, and Peppa was led away between the soldiers, handcuffed, as if she were another robber, she who had as much gold as Saint Margaret herself. Peppa’s poor old mother had to sell “all the white goods” of the trousseau, and the golden earrings, and the rings for the ten fingers, to pay the lawyers to get off her child; then she had to take her back into the house, poor, sick, disgraced, and herself as ugly now as Gramigna, and with Gramigna’s child at her breast. But when they gave her back her daughter, at the end of the trial, the poor old woman repeated her Ave Maria, there in the darkening twilight of the naked barracks, among all the carabiniers, and it was as if they had given her a treasure, poor old thing, for this was all she had, and she wept like a fountain with relief. Peppa, on the contrary, seemed as if she had no more tears, and she said nothing, nor was she ever seen in the village, in spite of the fact that the two women had to go and earn their bread labouring. People said that Peppa had learned her trade out in the thickets, and that she went stealing at night. The truth was, she stayed lurking shut up in the kitchen like a wild beast, and she only came forth when her old woman was dead, worn out with hard work, and the house had to be sold. “You see!”said Tallow’candle,who still cared for her.“I could knock my head against the stones when I think of all the misery you’ve brought on yourself and on everybody else.” “It’s true,”replied Peppa.“I know it! It was the will of God.” After she had sold the house and the few bits of furniture that remained to her, she left the village, in the night, as she had returned to it, without once turning back to look at the roof, under which she had slept for so many years; she went to fulfill the will of God in the city, along with her boy, settling near the prison where Gramigna was shut up.She could see nothing but the iron gratings of the windows, on the great mute fade, and the sentinels drove her off, if she stood to gaze searchingly for some sign of him. At last they told her he’d been gone from there for some time, that theyd taken him away over the sea, handcuffed and with the basket round his neck. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t change her quarters, because she didn’t know where to go, and had nobody to go to. She eked out a living doing small jobs for the soldiers and the keepers of the prison, as if she too had been a part of that great, gloomy, silent building; and then she felt for the carabiniers who had taken Gramigna from her, in the cactus thicket, and who had broken his leg with a bullet, a sort of respectful tenderness, a sort of brute admiration of brute force. On feast days, when she saw them with their scarlet tuft of feathers sticking up in front of their hats, and with glittering epaulettes, all standing erect and square in their dress uniforms of darkblue with the scarlet stripes, she devoured them with her eyes, and she was always about the barracks, sweeping out the big general rooms, and polishing boots, till they called her “the carabinier’s shoerag.”Only when she saw them fasten on their weapons after nightfall, and set off two by two, their trousers turned up, the revolver at their stomach; or when they mounted on horseback, under the streetlamp that made their rifles glitter, and she heard the tread of horses lose itself in the distance, and the clink of sabres; then every time she turned pale, and as she shut the stable door she shuddered; and when her youngster was playing about with the other urchins on the level ground in front of the prison, running between the legs of the soldiers, and the other brats shouted after him: “Gramigna’s kid! Gramigna’s kid!”she got in a rage, and ran after them, throwing stones at them.