After the Divorce, Grazia Deledda [the giving tree read aloud .txt] 📗

“Tomorrow morning at daybreak.”

“Not really? Oh! you had better stay longer,” he said indifferently, as he struggled into his huge overcoat. When it was on, Aunt Bachissia⁠—watching him out of her sharp green eyes⁠—thought that the little Doctor looked like a magia, that is, one of those grotesque and frightening figures whom wizards evoke by their arts.

He departed, and immediately afterwards Miss Grazia, who had hardly spoken throughout the entire meal, arose and left the room as well. Uncle Efes Maria settled himself back in his chair, and began to read the New Sardinia. Bursts of laughter came from the two girls in the kitchen, and the women sat, each eating a pear, in perfect silence. A weight hung over them; upon Aunt Porredda as well as upon the others, for she was realising in her simple untutored mind that the disease that had attacked the souls of her ignorant guests was one and the same as that from which her sophisticated son and granddaughter were suffering.

The next morning, just as on that day so long before, Giovanna was the first to stir, while Aunt Bachissia, who like most elderly people usually lay awake until late into the night, still slept, though lightly and with laboured breath.

The light of the early winter morning, cold but clear, shone through the curtained windowpanes. Giovanna had fallen asleep the night before feeling sad⁠—though Aunt Porredda’s outbreak had annoyed rather than distressed her⁠—but now, as she looked out and saw the promise of a bright day for the journey, she felt a sensation of joyous anticipation.

Yes, she had felt quite melancholy on the previous evening before falling asleep, thinking of Costantino, and eternity, and her dead child, and all sorts of depressing things. “I have not a bad heart,” she had reflected. “And God looks into our hearts and judges more by our intentions than by our actions. I have considered everything, everything. I was very fond of Costantino, and I cried just as long as I had any tears to shed. Now I have no more; I don’t believe he will ever come back, and if he does it will not be until we are both old; I can’t go on crying forever. Why should it be my fault if I can’t cry now when I think of him? And then, after all, I am just a creature of flesh and blood, like everyone else; I am poor and exposed to sin and temptation, and in order to save myself from these I am taking the position which God has provided for me. Yes, my dear Aunt Porredda, I do remember eternity, and it is to save my soul that I am doing what I am doing⁠—no, I am not bad; I have not a bad heart.” And so she very nearly persuaded herself that her heart not only was not bad, but that it was quite good and noble; at least, if this was not the conviction of that innermost depth of conscience, that depth which refused to lie, and from whence had issued the disturbing veil of sadness that hung over her, it was of her outer and more practical mind, and at last, quite comforted, she fell asleep.

And now the frosty daybreak was striking with its diaphanous wings⁠—cold and pure as hoarfrost⁠—against the window-panes of the “strangers’ room,” and Giovanna thought of the sun and her spirits rose. The older woman presently awoke as well, and she too turned at once to the window.

“Ah!” she exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction. “It is going to be fine.” They dressed and went down. Aunt Porredda, polite and attentive as usual, was already in the kitchen. She served her guests with coffee, and helped them to saddle the horse. To all appearances she had quite forgotten the discussion of the previous evening, but no sooner had the two women passed out the door than she made the sign of the cross, as though to exorcise the mortal sin as well. “Very good,” she said to herself, closing the door after them. “A pleasant journey to you, and may the Lord have mercy on your souls!”

Through the crystalline stillness of the morning came the sound of shrill cock-crowing⁠—close at hand, further away, and further still; but the little town still slept beneath its canopy of china-blue.

This time the Eras were to make the journey alone. They had to descend into the valley, cross it, and then climb the mountain-range which they could see beyond, showing grey in the early light, its snowcapped peaks standing out boldly against the horizon.

It was very cold; there was no wind, but the air cut keenly. As they descended into the wild valley the intense stillness seemed only to be intensified by the monotonous murmur of a mountain stream. The short winter grass, bright green in colour, and shining with hoarfrost, showed here and there in vivid patches along the edges of the winding path. From the rocks came a smell of damp moss, and the green copses sparkled with a glittering layer of frost. The whole valley was radiantly fresh and sweet and wild, but here and there gnarled outlines of solitary trees stood out like hermits penitentially exposing their bent and naked forms to the cold brilliance of the winter’s morning.

In the fields the earth showed black and damp; and long lines of dilapidated wall, climbing the hillsides and descending into the hollows, looked, with their coating of green moss, like huge green worms. On, and on, and on, journeyed the two women, their hands and feet and faces numb and stiff with cold. They crossed the stream at a ford where the water ran broad and shallow and quiet, then they reascended the valley and began to climb the mountain at its further end. The sun, now well above the horizon, was shining with a cold, clear radiance, and the mountains of the distant coast-range