"It may be better so," said the fisherman, beginning to moralise. "Life is full of suffering; better to die innocent, to go--to fly--up there, above the blue sky, to the paradise that lies beyond the clouds, beyond the storms, beyond all the miseries of human life. Drink something, Costantino; this wine is not very good, but there is still some left.--Well, I remember last year on Assumption Day, Giacobbe Dejas asked me to take dinner with him. He was afraid of me; he thought I knew, and he wanted his sister and me to get married. Oh! if you could just see that little woman you wouldn't laugh. She went with the priest and me to Nuoro. May the Lord desert me in the hour of death, if ever I saw a more courageous woman in all my life! She hardly seemed to touch the ground! Well, she's gone all shrunken and shrivelled now, don't you know--like a piece of fruit that dries up on the tree before it is ripe. I go all the time to see her, and just to amuse her I say: 'Well, little barley-grain! Shall we two get married? She smiles and I smile, but we feel more like crying! Who could ever have imagined such a thing?--I mean, here was Giacobbe Dejas, seemingly happy and contented; he was getting rich, and he talked of being married. And then--all of a sudden--pum!--down he comes, like a rotten pear! Such is life! Bachissia Era sold her daughter, thinking to improve her condition, and now she is hungrier than ever. Giovanna Era did what she did, imagining that she was going to have a heaven upon earth, and instead of that, she's like a frog with a stick run through it!" "But does he _beat_ her?" asked Costantino heavily. "No, he doesn't do that; but there are worse things than beating. She's treated just like a servant, or, rather, like a slave. You know how they used to treat their slaves in the old times? Well, that's the way she's treated in that house." "Well, let her burst! Here's to her damnation!" cried Costantino, raising his glass to his lips. It gave him a cruel pleasure to hear of Giovanna's misery, such pleasure as a child will sometimes feel at seeing an unpopular playmate receive a whipping.