The Church of Solitude

Pages 91 - 120

Grazia Deledda 91 even more foolish. And so it’s almost certain to turn out that in the end they’ll go away together.” Cold and hostile, yet with a vague relief, she said, “Good luck. Have a good trip.” And each time the memory, or as she put it, the temptation , of the young stranger came back to her mind, sometimes in an almost tangible way, swollen with anguish and jealousy, she tried to squash it like you squash a troublesome insect. But the insect was reborn more lively and stinging, and she was totally tormented. She didn’t want to pray anymore; the Hail Marys came out of her mouth all withered while her thoughts wandered far away. She didn’t eat, she grew thin, she wanted to close herself ever more into her circle of death and vanish like the little clouds of summer. Her mother took great pains to make good food for her: sweets, shortbread, and eggnogs. She left it all untouched and ate bitter onions and raw tomatoes. In July there was the feast of the patron saint of the small city, Saint Cyril Martyr.* The peasants had already harvested the barley, and the shepherds had sold their wool and lambs; and so the celebration, which lasted three days, with pealing of bells, processions, fireworks, and sale of wine and ice cream, became a small revel, and everyone competed to cut a good figure. And there were no stingy people; indeed, for the occasion , the poorest became the biggest spenders. People arrived on foot and on horseback by the new road and the old ones, from up on the mountains and down in the valleys, as guests and as pilgrims, and even as people who wanted to entertain themselves in order to commemorate the martyrdom of the saint. And so it happened that Comare Maria Giuseppa also arrived , and Concezione saw with annoyance, if not with fear, *The Feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Greek missionaries to the Slavs, is celebrated in July, but Deledda may be thinking of the child St. Cyril, martyr, whose feast day is May 29. 92 The Church of Solitude that the proud woman had in tow a young man on horseback, well dressed in an almost sporty outfit: a jacket with a belt, pants tucked into gaiters of gray cloth, a new visored cap, also gray, that shaded a ruddy, hairless face with features like a Greek statue. His mouth was also beautiful: protruding, sensual , swollen with blood. But his eyes lay still under black eyebrows, one higher and thicker than the other, they were dark, round, of a muddy brown color, with the whites streaked with red: they looked like the eyes of a dog about to become angry. Giustina, who went to the gate, felt a certain relief that the guests were not to stay with them. They were going to another acquaintance in town and would return in the afternoon for a visit. Concezione hid herself and thought about pretending to be ill to escape persecution. She felt truly ill, from the heat, from boredom, from sadness. Comare Maria Giuseppa had left a box with a honey cake ornamented with flowers and little birds of sugar and gold foil. Concezione intended to send it to Serafino, but in the meantime, she placed it inside the chest on top of the famous blanket that gave her a funereal melancholy every time she smelled the scent of wool colored with vegetable dyes, and reminded her of the Holy Sepulchre. Then she gathered her courage and told herself that it was necessary to be polite to those two out of consideration for her mother, and because of the ancient law of hospitality. But, with the excuse that she had a toothache, she disguised herself as an old woman, with a black kerchief pulled on above her eyes and wrapped up all the way to her mouth. She looked at herself in the mirror, and she would have felt satisfied by her mask, if her eyes had not appeared, in that monastic frame, larger, beautiful with all the mystery of her soul, sad, and in exile on the earth. She lowered her eyelashes and tried to hide herself better, to escape the pernicious ambush; but as the hour passed, she felt an oppression, a poison of hatred against that madwoman Comare Maria Giuseppa and her worthy nephew. She went to pick a bouquet of pink oleanders...