They continued on their way, staggering along together, arm in arm. On the portico they found Aunt Martina, still spinning. She saw at once that her son was tipsy, but said nothing, knowing by experience that to irritate him when he was in that condition was only to arouse him to a state of fury. When he asked for wine, though, she said there was none. "Ah! there is none? No wine in the Dejas' house! The richest people in the neighbourhood! What a miserly mother you are." Then he began to bluster: "I'm not going to make a scandal, but I can tell you I am going to marry Giovanna Era!" "Yes, yes, you are going to marry her," said Aunt Martina to quiet him. "But in the meantime, go to bed, and don't make such a noise; if she hears you, she won't have you." He quieted down, but made Giacobbe unroll a couple of rush mats and spread them on the floor; then, throwing himself down, nothing would do but the herdsman must lie down as well, and sleep beside him; and rather than have any trouble, Aunt Martina was obliged to agree. Thus it fell out that instead of beginning his term of service on the Monday, Giacobbe entered his new place on Saturday evening. FOOTNOTE: [4] _Che ti morsichi il cane_,--"May the dog bite you." CHAPTER V Sunday morning, a fortnight later, found all the personages of our story assembled at Mass, with Priest Elias officiating. The country people said that when he celebrated he seemed to have wings. Giovanna alone was absent; and this for two reasons. First, her late misfortune required the observance of a sort of mourning; she was expected not to show herself outside the house except when her work made it necessary. Apart from this, however, she had fallen into a state of lethargy, and appeared to be quite unable to move about, to go anywhere, to work, or even to pray. She had, indeed, never been much of a Christian at any time, though before the trial she had made a vow to walk barefoot to a certain church in the mountains, and, if Costantino were acquitted, to drag herself on her hands and knees from the point where the church first came into view to its doors; that is, a distance of about two kilometres. Now, she had ceased praying, or talking, or eating, and even seemed to have lost all interest in her child. Aunt Bachissia had to feed him with bread crumbled up in milk in order to keep the poor little fellow alive. Some of the neighbours said that Giovanna was losing her mind; and indeed it did look so. She would remain for hours at a time in a sort of stupor, crouched in a corner with her glassy eyes fixed on vacancy, and when she aroused it was only to fly into violent paroxysms, tearing her hair, and crying out wildly. After the final interview with Costantino, when she had had the child with her, she could think of nothing else, and described the scene in the prison over and over again, with the monotonous insistence of a monomaniac: