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Read Ebook: Ashes (Cenere): A Sardinian Story by Deledda Grazia Wylde Katharine Translator
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Ebook has 1664 lines and 78960 words, and 34 pages
PART I
Everywhere in the country round, the wild Sardinian spring was on its death-bed; the flowers of the asphodel, the golden balls of the broom were dropping; the roses showed pale in the thickets, the grass was already yellow; a hot odour of hay perfumed the heavy air. The Milky Way and the distant splendour of the horizon, which seemed a band of far off sea, made the night clear as twilight. The dark blue heaven and its stars were reflected in the scanty waters of the river. On its bank, Ol? found two of her little brothers looking for crickets.
"Go home this moment!" she said, in her beautiful, still childish voice.
"No!" replied one of the little fellows.
"Then you won't see the heavens burst to-night. Good children on the night of St John see the heavens open, and then they can look into Paradise, and see the Lord, and the angels, and the Holy Spirit. What you'll see is a hobgoblin if you don't go straight back home!"
"All right," said the elder, impressed; and though the other protested, he allowed himself to be led away.
Ol?, however, went on; beyond the river, beyond the path, beyond the dark copse of wild olive. Here and there she stooped over some plant, which she tied with her scarlet ribbons; then straightened herself and scanned the night with the sharp gaze of her cat-like eyes, her heart beating with anxiety, with fear, and with joy.
The fragrant night invited to love, and Ol? was in love. She was fifteen, and on the excuse of "signing the flowers of St John," she was making her way to a love-tryst.
"Then what?" asked Ol? half sceptical, raising her eyes, which reflected the green of the surrounding landscape.
Ol? laughed softly. She was still a little ironical, but flattered and happy. Behind the ruin, hidden in the thicket, her two little brothers were whistling to lure a sparrow. No other human voice, no human step was heard in the whole green immensity. The young man's arm slipped round Ol?'s waist. He drew her to him and closed her eyes with kisses.
The girl's mother had, it seemed, been just such another ardent and fantastic woman.
"She was of well-to-do family," explained Ol?, "and had titled relations. They wanted to marry her to an old man who had a great deal of land. My grandfather, my mother's father, was a poet. He could improvise three or four songs in one evening, and the songs were so beautiful that when he sang them in the street everybody got them by heart. Oh yes! my grandfather was a very great poet! I know some of his poetry myself. My mother taught it to me. Let me repeat some to you."
Ol? recited a few verses in the dialect of Logudoro; then went on: "My mother's brother, Uncle Merzi?ro Desogos, used to do painting in the churches, and he carved pulpits. But at last he killed himself because he had got into prison. Yes, my mother's relations belonged to the nobility and were educated people. But she didn't choose to marry that rich old man! She had seen my father, who at that time was as handsome as a banner in a procession." She fell in love with him and they ran away together. I remember her saying, "My father has cast me off, but I don't care! Some folk love riches; I love my Micheli, and that's enough for me!"
"Ol?, mind yourself. Ol?!" he said, threatening his daughter with his finger, "bad luck to that farm-servant if he sets foot in here again! He has deceived us, even as to his name. He told us his name was Quirico; but it isn't, it's Anania. He comes from Argosolo. The people of Argosolo are a race of goshawks, of thieves and jail-birds! Mind yourself, young woman! He's a married man."
Ol? wept, and her tears fell with the wheat into the great coffer of black wood. But scarcely was the coffer shut down and Uncle Micheli gone away to his work, than the girl was off to her lover.
"Your name is Anania! You are married!" she said, her eyes flashing with rage.
Anania had just completed his sowing and still carried his grain-bag. Blackbirds sang, swinging on the olive branches. Great white clouds made the blue of the sky more intense. All was sweetness, silence, oblivion.
"Listen," said the young man; "it's unfortunately true I have a wife--an old woman. They forced her upon me , because I was poor and she had a great deal of money. What does it matter? She's quite old and will soon die. We are young, Ol?, and I care for no one but you I If you give me up, it will kill me!"
Ol? was touched, and she believed all he said.
"But what are we to do?" she asked; "my father will beat me if we go on loving each other."
"Have patience, my little lamb. My wife will die very soon. And even if she doesn't, I am sure to find the treasure and then we'll go off together to the continent."
Ol? protested; wept. She had no great faith in the treasure, but she let the love-making continue.
He spoke seriously, his eyes shining with golden dreams. But he could not have told what exactly he intended to do with the treasure when he had found it. He looked no further than to the flight with Ol?. Beyond that all was vague.
About Easter the girl herself had occasion to go to Nuoro. She sought information about Anania's wife, and learned that the woman was elderly but by no means old, and not rich at all.
"Well," he said, when Ol? reproached him for having deceived her, "she's poor now, but when I married her she had money. After the wedding I had to go to my military service, and I got ill and spent a lot. My wife was ill too. Oh you don't know how expensive a long illness is! Besides, we lent money and couldn't get it back. And I'll tell you what I suspect! While I was away my wife sold some land and has hidden the money she got for it. There! I'll take my oath that's it!"
He spoke seriously, and again Ol? believed. She believed because she wished to believe, and because Anania had got her into the habit of believing anything. He was carried away himself by his imaginations. For instance, in his master's kitchen-garden he found a big ring of reddish metal, and at once concluded it was gold.
"There must be a treasure here also!" he thought, and hurried to tell his new fancy to Ol?.
Spring now reigned over the wild country. Elderflowers were reflected in the blue river; voluptuous fragrance rose from the warm grass. In the clear moonlit nights, so soft, so silent, it seemed as though the vibrating air were an intoxicating love-philtre. Ol? roamed hither and thither, her eyes misty with passion. In the long luminous twilight, in the dazzling noons, when the distant mountains melted into the sky, her pensive look followed her little brothers, who, half naked and dark as bronze statuettes, made the meadows merry with their bird-like pipings; and she thought of the day when she must leave them to go forth with Anania. For she had seen the gold ring of his finding, and she was filled with hope, and her blood boiled with the poison of the spring.
"Ol?!" called Anania from the depths of the thicket. She trembled, advanced cautiously, fell into the young man's arms. They seated themselves on the warm grass, beside bushes of pennyroyal and wild laurel which exhaled strong perfume.
"I was almost prevented coming!" said the youth; "the mistress has been brought to bed of a daughter; and my wife has gone up to help, and wanted me to stay at home. 'No,' I told her, 'I've got to pick the pennyroyal and the laurel to-night. Have you forgotten it's Midsummer Eve?' So here I am."
He fumbled at his breast, while Ol? touched the laurel and asked what it was good for.
"Don't you know? Laurel gathered to-night is for medicine, and has other virtues too. If you strew leaves of laurel here and there round the wall of a vineyard or a sheepfold, no wild animal can get in to gnaw the grapes or to carry off the lambs."
"But you aren't a shepherd, are you?"
"I want it for my master's vineyard; for the threshing-floor too, or the ants will steal the grain. Won't you come when I'm beating out the grain? There'll be lots of people: it's a holiday, and at night there'll be singing."
"Oh, my father wouldn't let me go," she said with a sigh.
"How stupid of him! it's clear he doesn't know my wife. She's decrepit--worn out like these stones! Wherever have I put it?" said Anania, still fumbling.
"Put what? your wife?" laughed Ol?.
"A cross. I've found a silver cross this time."
"A silver cross? Where you found the ring? And you never told me?"
"Ah, here it is! See, it's real silver!" He drew a packet from his arm hole. Ol? opened it, touched the little cross, and asked anxiously--
"Is it really silver? Then the treasure must be there!"
She looked so pleased that Anania, who had found the cross in quite a different place, thought it best to leave her to her illusion.
"Yes, there in the garden. Who knows all the precious things there may be! I shall have a search at night."
"But won't the treasure belong to your master?"
"No, it belongs to any one who finds it," replied Anania, and as if to enforce his argument, he folded Ol? in his arms and kissed her.
"When I find the treasure, then you'll come?" he asked, trembling. "Say you will, my flower! It's clear I must find it at once, for I can't go on living without you. When I look at my old wife, I'd like to die; but when I'm with you, Ol?, then I want to live a thousand years. My flower!"
Ol? listened, and she also trembled. Around them was deepest silence; the stars shone like pearls, like eyes smiling with love; ever sweeter on the air was the scent of the laurel.
"My wife must die very soon," said Anania; "what's the good of old people in the world? In a year we shall probably be married."
"San Giovanni grant it!" sighed Ol?. "But it's wrong to wish any one's death. And now let me go home."
"Ah, stay a little longer!" he supplicated. "Why should you go so soon? What's to become of me without you?"
But she rose, all tremulous.
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