The battle opened in ominous calm, each side marshalling its forces in silence and secrecy. Aunt Martina's efforts were directed to allaying Giovanna's suspicions in the hope that she might some day surprise her and her lover together. Giovanna, perfectly awake to her mother-in-law's tactics, pretended not to notice anything, but at the same time proceeded with great caution in her relations with Costantino. He had entirely altered his mode of life; he now worked regularly, and was doing very well; but underneath everything was a sense of unutterable melancholy, which he was never able wholly to throw off. "I am doing everything I can to provoke Brontu to break with me," said Giovanna one day. "I want him to apply for a divorce, so as to be rid of me; then I will go back to you, beloved, and nothing shall ever part us again. I will be your servant, your slave--and make you forget all your past sorrows." But Costantino only smiled wearily. It was true that he still loved Giovanna, but it was a very different kind of love from that which she had formerly inspired in him. Now, there was more of passion, perhaps, but it did not go so deep, and he knew, though he could not tell her so, that even were she free to return to him as his wife, he could never be happy again as in the old days. She was not the woman to whom he had given his heart, but another and a very different person. One who, having been false to both husbands in succession, was now, perhaps, deceiving them simultaneously. Often Costantino was seized with an access of rage against the entire human race, Giovanna included. He would have liked to murder some one--Brontu, or Aunt Bachissia, or even Giovanna, in order to avenge himself for what he had been made to suffer. And yet, all the time, he knew himself to be quite incapable of doing anything brutal or violent, and raged and fumed the more at his own weakness. His heart seemed to have sunk into a state of torpor, and to have lost the power to enjoy acutely. Uncle Isidoro was now constantly urging him to marry again, much as such an act would be contrary to his own principles. "I have one wife already," Costantino would reply. "What could I do with another? Have her betray me too? All women are exactly alike." Then Uncle Isidoro would sigh, and remain silent. He was in constant dread lest some new tragedy should befall. He was aware, partly from intuition and partly because Costantino himself allowed him to have an inkling of the truth, that the young man was holding secret intercourse with his former wife, and his daily fear was of some explosion. Thus, he argued to himself that if Costantino could only be induced to marry some gentle, affectionate young woman, who would bear him children, he would come in time to forget the other one, and find rest and peace. To these suggestions, however, Costantino only gave the same weary smile that had now become habitual.