Part 13

When the chapter was finished Zacchiele laid aside the book, and, gazing at the woman, smiled with one of those simple smiles of his, which had a way of wrinkling his temples and the corners of his mouth. Then he began to speak to her vaguely, with the timidity of one who does not quite know how to arrive at the desired point. Finally he was filled with ardour. Had she never thought of matrimony? Anna did not reply to this question. Both remained silent and both felt in their souls a confused sweetness, almost an astonished reawakening of buried youth and a reclaiming of love. They were excited by it as if the fumes of a very strong wine had mounted to their weakened brains.

VIII

But a tacit promise of marriage was given many days later, in October, at the first birth of the oil in the olive, and at the last migration of the swallows. With Donna Cristina’s permission, one Monday Zacchiele took Anna to the factory on the hills where his mill was located. They left by the Portasale, on foot, took the Salaria road, turning their backs on the river. From the day of the fable of Galeana and Mainetto, they had experienced, the one toward the other, a kind of trepidation, a mixture of bashful timidity and respect. They had lost that beautiful familiarity of previous times; now they spoke seldom together and always with a hesitating reserve, avoiding each other’s face, with uncertain smiles, becoming confused at times through a sudden blush, dallying thus with timid, childish acts of innocence.

They walked in silence, at first, each following the dry and narrow path which the footsteps of travellers had marked on both sides of the road, and between them ran the road, muddy and indented with deep ruts from the wheels of vehicles. The unrestrained joy of the vintage filled the country; the songs at the crushing of the wine resounded over the plain. Zacchiele kept slightly in the rear, breaking the silence from time to time with some remark on the weather, the vines, the harvest of olives, while Anna examined curiously all of the bushes flaming with berries, the tilled fields, the water in the ditches; and, little by little, a vague joy was born in her soul, like one who, after a long period of fasting, is rejoiced by pleasant sensations experienced long ago. As the road took a turn up the declivity through the rich olive orchards of Cardirusso, clearly arose to her mind the remembrance of Saint Apollinare and the ass and the keeper of the herds. She felt her blood suddenly surge toward her heart. That episode, buried with her youth, now revived in her memory with a marvellous clearness; a picture of the place formed itself before her mind’s eye and she saw again the man with the hare-lip and again heard his voice, while experiencing a new confusion without knowing why.

As they approached the factory the wind among the trees caused the mature olives to fall and a patch of serene sea was revealed from the heights. Zacchiele had moved to the side of the woman and was looking at her from time to time with a pious supplicating tenderness. “What was she thinking of now?” Anna turned with an air almost of fright, as if she had been caught in a sin. “She was thinking of nothing.” They arrived at the mill where the farmers were crushing the first harvest of olives fallen prematurely from the trees. The room for the crushing was low and dimly lighted; from the ceiling sparkling with saltpetre hung lanterns of brass which smoked; a cart-horse, blindfolded, turned with even steps an immense mill-stone; and the farmers, clothed in a kind of long tunic similar to a sack, with legs and arms bare, muscular and oily, were pouring the liquid into jugs, jars and vats.

Anna watched the work attentively, and as Zacchiele gave orders to the workers and wound in and out among the machines, observing the quality of the olives with great decision of judgment, she felt her admiration for him increase. Later, as Zacchiele standing before her took up a great brimful pitcher and on pouring the oil, so pure and luminous, into a vat, spoke of God’s abundance, she made the sign of the cross, quite overwhelmed with veneration for the richness of the soil.

There came at length to the door two women of the factory, and each held at her breast a nursing child and dragged at her skirts a luxuriant group of children. They fell to conversing placidly, and, while Anna tried to caress the children, each talked of her own fertility, and with an honest frankness of speech told of her various deliverances. The first had had seven children; the second eleven. It was the will of Jesus Christ, for working people were needed. Then the conversation turned upon familiar matters. Albarosa, one of the mothers, asked Anna many questions. Had she never had any children? Anna, in answering that she was not married, experienced for the first time a kind of humiliation and grief, before that chaste and powerful maternity. Then, changing the subject of their discourse, she rested her hand on the nearest child. The others looked on with wide-open eyes that seemed to have acquired a limpid, vegetable colour from the continuous sight of green things. The odour of the crushed olives floated in the air, penetrating the throat and exciting the palate. The groups of workers appeared and disappeared under the red light of the lamps.

Zacchiele, who up to that moment had been watching carefully the measuring of the oil, approached the women. Albarosa welcomed him with a merry expression. “How long were they to wait for Don Zacchiele to take a wife?” Zacchiele smiled, slightly confused by this question, and gave a stealthy glance at Anna who was still caressing the rustic child and feigning not to have heard. Albarosa, through a kindly pleasantry, characteristic of the peasant, embracing Anna and Zacchiele significantly with a wink of her bovine eyes, pursued her comment. They were a couple blessed by God. Why were they delaying? The farmers, having suspended their work to attend to their meal, made a circle around them. The couple, even more confused by these witnesses, remained silent in an attitude bordering between tremulous smiles and shame-faced modesty. One of the youths among the onlookers, inspired by the affectionate compunctions in the face of Don Zacchiele, nudged his companions with his elbows. The hungry horse neighed.

The meal was prepared. A strenuous activity invaded the large rustic family. In the yard, in the open air, among the peaceful olives and within sight of the sea beneath, the men sat at their meal. The plates of vegetables, seasoned with fresh oil, smoked; the wine scintillated in the simple vases of liturgical shape, while the frugal food disappeared rapidly into the stomachs of the workers.

Anna now felt herself filled by a tumult of joy, and she seemed suddenly almost united by a kind of friendly domesticity with the two women. They took her into their houses where the rooms were large and light, although very old. On the walls sacred images alternated with pasqual palms; joints of pork hung from the rafters; the posts, ample and very high, rose from the pavement with cradles beside them; from all emanated the serenity of family concord. Anna, beholding these arrangements, smiled timidly at some inward sweetness, and at a certain point was seized by a strange emotion, almost as if all of her latent virtues of the domestic mother and her instincts to succour had escaped and suddenly risen up.

When the women descended again to the yard, the men still remained around the table and Zacchiele was talking to them. Albarosa took a small loaf of corn-bread, divided it in the middle, spread it with oil and salt, and offered it to Anna. The fresh oil, just pressed from the fruit, diffused in the mouth a savoury, sharp aroma, and Anna, allured, ate all of the bread. She even drank the wine. Then as the evening was falling, she and Zacchiele began the descent of the hill on their return. Behind them the farmers were singing. Many other songs arose from the fields and pervaded the evening air with the soft fullness of a Gregorian chant. The wind blew moistly through the olive trees, a dying splendour between rose and violet suffused the sky. Anna walked in front with swift steps, grazing the tree-trunks. Zacchiele called the woman by name; she turned to him humbly and palpitatingly. “What did he wish?” Zacchiele said no more; he took two steps and arrived at her side. Thus they continued their walk, in silence, until the Salaria road no longer divided them. As in going, each had taken the marginal road, on the right and left. At length they re-entered the Portasale.

IX

Through a native irresolution Anna continually deferred her matrimony. Religious doubts tormented her. She had heard it said that only virgins would be admitted to the circle around the mother of God in Paradise. What then? Must she renounce that celestial sweetness for an earthly blessing? An ardour for devotion even more compelling seized her. In all of her unoccupied hours she went to the church of the Rosario; knelt before the great confessional of oak and remained motionless in the attitude of prayer. The church was simple and poor; the pavement was covered with mortuary stones and a single shabby metal lamp burned before the altar. The woman mourned inwardly for the pomp of her basilica, the solemnity of the ceremonies, the eleven lamps of silver, the three altars of precious marbles.

But in Holy Week of the year 1857 a great event happened. Between the Confraternity commanded by Don Fileno d’Amelio and the Abbot Cennamele, who was aided by the parochial satellites, broke out a war; and the cause of it was a dispute about the procession of the dead Jesus. Don Fileno wished this ostentation, furnished by the congregation, to issue from the parochial church. The war attracted and enveloped all of the citizens as well as the militia of the King of Naples, residing in the fortress. Popular tumult arose, the roads were occupied by assemblies of fanatical people, armed platoons went around to suppress disorders, the Archbishop of Chieti was besieged by innumerable messages from both parties; much money for corruption was spent everywhere and a murmur of mysterious plots spread throughout the city. The house of Donna Cristina Basile was the hearth of all the dissensions. Don Fiore Ussorio shone for his wonderful stratagems and his boldness in these days of struggle. Don Paolo Nervegna had a great effusion of bile. Don Ignazio Cespa exercised, to no purpose, all of his conciliative blandishments and mellifluous smiles. The victory was fought for with an implacable violence up to the ritualistic hour for the funeral ostentation. The people fermented with expectation; the captain of the militia, a partisan of the abbey, threatened punishment to the instigators of the Confraternity. Revolt was on the point of breaking forth. When, lo, there arrived at the square a mounted soldier, bearer of an episcopal message, that gave the victory to the congregation.

The ostentation then passed with rare magnificence through the streets scattered with flowers. A chorus of fifty child voices sang the hymn of the Passion and ten censers filled the entire city with the smell of incense. The canopies, the standards, the tapers, which made up this new display, filled the bystanders with wonder. The Abbot, although discomfited, did not intervene, and in his place Don Pasquale Carabba, the Great Coadjutor, clothed in ample vestments, followed with much solemnity the bier of Jesus.

Anna, during the contest, had made offerings for the victory of the Abbot. But the sumptuousness of this ceremony blinded her; a kind of rapture overcame her at the spectacle, and she felt gratitude even toward Don Fiore Ussorio, who passed bearing in his hand an immense taper. Then as the last band of celebrators arrived before her, she mingled with the fanatical crowd of men, women and children and thus moved along as if scarcely touching the earth, while always holding her eyes fixed on the surmounting wreath of the Mater Dolorosa. On high, from one balcony to another, were stretched, consecutively, illustrious flags; from the houses of the stewards hung rude figures of lambs fashioned from corn, while at intervals, where three or four streets met, lighted brasiers spread fumes of aromatics.

The procession did not pass under the windows of the Abbot. From time to time a kind of irregular fluctuation ran the length of the line, as if the band of standard-bearers had encountered an obstacle. The cause of it was a struggle between the bearer of the Crucifix of the Confraternity and the lieutenant of the militia, both having received the command to follow a different route. Since the lieutenant could not use violence without committing sacrilege, the Crucifix conquered. The Congregation exulted, the Commanding General burned with wrath, and the people were filled with curiosity. When the ostentation, in the vicinity of the Arsenale, turned again to enter the church of Saint John, Anna took an oblique path and in a few steps reached the main door. She kneeled. First there arrived before her a man bearing the enormous cross, while the standard-bearers followed him, balancing very tall banners on their foreheads or chins, and gesticulating with a clever play of muscles. Then, almost in the centre of a cloud of incense, came the other bands, the angelic choruses, men in cassocks, the virgins, the gentlemen, the clerics, the militias. The sight was grand. A kind of mystic terror seized the soul of the woman.

There advanced in the vestibule, according to custom, an acolyte carrying a large silver plate for receiving tapers. Anna watched. Then it was that the Commander, crunching between his teeth bitter words for the Confraternity, threw his taper violently upon the plate and turned his back with a threatening shrug. All remained dumbfounded. And in the sudden silence one heard the clash of the sword of the officer as he left the church. Don Fiore Ussorio only had the temerity to smile.

X

For a long time these deeds aroused the vocal activity of the citizens and were a cause for quarrels. As Anna had been a witness of the last scene, several came to her to get the facts. She recounted her story with patience, and always in the same way. Her life from now on was entirely expended in religious practices, domestic duties, and in loving ministrations for her turtle. At the first signs of spring, it awoke from its condition of lethargy. One day, unexpectedly, it unsheathed from its shield the serpentine head and swung it weakly, while its feet remained in torpor. The little eyes were half covered with the eyelids. The animal, perhaps no longer conscious of being a captive, pushed by the need to find food, as in the sand of its native wood, moved at length with a lazy and uncertain effort, while feeling the ground with its feet.

Anna, in the presence of this reawakening, was filled with an ineffable tenderness, and looked on with eyes wet with tears. Then she took the turtle, laid it upon her bed, and offered it some green leaves. The turtle hesitated to touch the leaves, and in opening its jaws showed its fleshy tongue, like that of a parrot. The covering of the neck and claws seemed to be the flaccid and yellowish membrane of a dead body. The woman, at this sight, felt herself overcome with a great tenderness; and to restore her beloved she caressed it as would a mother a convalescent child. She greased with sweet oil the bony shield, and as the sun beat down upon it the polished sections shone with beauty.

Among such cares passed the months of spring. But Zacchiele, counselled by the spring season to greater pursuit of love, beset the woman with such tender supplications that he had at last from her a solemn promise. The nuptials should be celebrated the day preceding the nativity of Christ.

Then the idyl reblossomed. While Anna attended to her needlework for her trousseau, Zacchiele read in a loud voice the story of the New Testament. The marriage at Cana, the miracles of the Redeemer, the dead of Nain, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, the liberation of the daughter of Cainan, the ten lepers, the blind-born, the resurrection of the Nazarene, all of those miraculous narrations ravished the soul of the woman. And she pondered long on Jesus who entered into Jerusalem riding on an ass, while the people spread in His path their garments and waved palms.

In the room, the herb of thyme shed odour from an earthen vase. The turtle came sometimes to the seamstress and caught in its mouth the hem of the cloth, or chewed the leather of her shoe. One day Zacchiele, while reading the parable of the Prodigal Son, feeling suddenly something soft under his feet, through an involuntary motion of fright, gave a kick, and the turtle, struck against the wall, fell back upside down. Its dorsal shell burst in many places, while a little blood appeared on one of its claws, which the animal waved fruitlessly in an effort to regain its correct position.

In spite of the fact that the unhappy lover showed himself contrite and even inconsolable, Anna, after that day, locked herself in a kind of diffident severity, scarcely spoke, and no longer wished to hear his reading. And thus the Prodigal Son was left forever under the trees with the acorns to watch his master’s pigs.

XI

Zacchiele lost his life in the great flood of October, 1857. The dairy farm where he lived, in the neighbourhood of the Cappuccini Convent, beyond the Porta-Giulia, was inundated by the flood. The waters covered the entire country, from the hill of Orlando to the hill of Castellammare; and, since it had flown over vast deposits of clay, it looked bloody as in the ancient fable. The tops of the trees emerged here and there from this blood, so miry and extensive. At intervals passed enormous trunks of trees with all of their roots, furniture, unrecognisable materials, groups of beasts not yet dead who bellowed and disappeared and then reappeared and were lost sight of in the distance. The droves of oxen, especially, presented a wonderful sight; their great white bodies pursued one another, their heads reared desperately from out the water, furious interlacings of horns occurred in their rushes of terror. As the sea was to the east, the waves at the mouth of the river overflowed into it. The salt lake of Palata and its estuaries also joined with the river. The fort became a lost island. Inland the roads were submerged, and in the house of Donna Cristina the water-line reached almost half way up the stairs. The tumult increased continuously, while the bells sounded clamorously. The prisoners, within their prisons, howled.

Anna, believing in some supreme chastisement from the Most High, took recourse in prayers for salvation. The second day, as she mounted to the top of the pigeon-house, she saw nothing but water, water everywhere under the clouds, and later observed, terrified, horses galloping madly on the ridge of San Vitale. She descended, dulled, with her mind in a turmoil, and the persistency of the noise and the mists of the air blurred in her every sense of place and time.

When the flood began to subside, the country people entered the city by means of scows. Men, women and children carried in their faces and eyes a grievous stupefaction. All narrated sad stories. And a ploughman of the Cappuccini came to the Basile house to announce that Don Zacchiele had been washed out to sea. The ploughman spoke simply in telling of the death. He said that in the vicinity of the Cappuccini certain women had bound their nursing children to the top of an enormous tree to rescue them from the waters and that the whirlpools had uprooted the tree, dragging down the five little creatures. Don Zacchiele was upon a roof with other Christians in a compact group, and as the roof was about to be submerged the corpses of animals and broken branches beat against these desperate ones. When at length the tree with the babies passed over them, the impact was so terrible that after its passage there was no longer a trace of roof or Christians.

Anna listened without weeping, and in her mind, shaken by the account of that death, by that tree with its five infants, and those men all crouched upon the roof while the corpses of beasts beat against it, sprang up a kind of superstitious wonder like the excitement she had felt in hearing certain stories of the Old Testament. She mounted slowly to her room, and tried to compose herself. The sun shone upon her window, and the turtle slept in a corner, covered with his shield, while the chattering of swallows came from the tiles. All of these natural things, this customary tranquillity of her daily life, little by little comforted her. From the depths of that momentary calm at length her grief arose clearly, and she bent her head upon her breast in deep depression.

Her heart was stung with remorse for having preserved against Zacchiele that strange, silent rancour for so long a time; recollections one after another came to mind, and the virtues of her lost lover shone more brightly than ever in her memory. As the scourgings of her grief increased, she got up, went to her bed, and there stretched herself out upon her face. Her weeping mingled with the chattering of the birds.

Afterwards, when her tears were dried, the peace of resignation began to descend upon her soul, and she came to feel that everything of this earth was frail and that we ought to bend ourselves to the will of God. The unction of this simple act of consecration spread in her heart a fulness of sweetness. She felt herself freed from all inquietude, and found repose in her humble but firm faith. From now on in her law there was but this one clause: The sovereign will of God, always just, always adorable, established in all things praised and exalted through all eternity.

XII

Thus to the daughter of Luca was opened the true road to Paradise. The passing of time was not marked by her except in ecclesiastical occurrences. When the river re-entered its channel, there issued in consecutive order for many days processions throughout the cities and country. She followed all of them, together with the people, singing the _Te Deum_. The vineyards everywhere had been devastated; the earth was soft and the air pregnant with white vapours, singularly luminous, like those rising from the swamps in spring.

Then came the feast of All Saints; then the solemnity for the dead. A great number of masses were celebrated for the assistance of the victims of the flood. At Christmas Anna wished to make a manger; she bought a Christ-child, Mary, Saint Joseph, an ox and an ass, wise men, and shepherds, all made of wax. Accompanied by the daughter of the sacristan she went to the ditches of the Salaria road to search for moss. Under the glassy serenity of the fields, the lands were covered with lime, the factory of Albarosa appeared on the hill among the olives, and no voice disturbed the silence. Anna, as she discovered the moss, bent and with a knife cut the clod. On contact with the cold verdure her hands became violet coloured. From time to time, at the sight of a clod greener than the others, there escaped from her an exclamation of contentment. When her basket was full, she sat down upon the edge of the ditch with the girl. She raised her eyes thoughtfully and slowly to the olive-orchard, and they rested upon the white wall of the factory that resembled a cloisteral edifice. Then she bowed her head, tormented by her thoughts. Later she turned suddenly to her companion—”Had she never seen the olives crushed!” She began to picture the work of the crushing with voluble speech; and, as she spoke, little by little arose in her mind other recollections than those she was describing, and they showed themselves in her voice by a slight trembling.