Читать книгу Ashes (Cenere) - Grazia Deledda - Страница 7

No one reported to the police that a child had been deserted. Olì was able to disappear unhindered. It was never exactly known whither she had gone. Someone said he had seen her on the steamer from Sardinia to Civita Vecchia. Later, a Fonni shopkeeper, who had been to the continent on business, declared he had met Olì in Rome, smartly dressed and accompanied by other women of obvious character.

These things were told at the olive-mill, the child being present. He listened eagerly. Like some little wild animal which has apparently been tamed, he continually meditated escape. At Fonni, while living with his mother, he had thought of running away to find his father; now he was with his father and he thought of running away to look for Olì. She might be far off, she might be beyond the sea—no matter; he felt capable of finding her by himself. Not that he loved her! No, he could not love one who had given him more blows than kisses, one who had deserted him! Instinctively he felt that was shameful. But then neither did he love his father. Anania could not forget his first impression, the terror and repulsion with which the dark, oily, angry man had inspired him, the man who had kissed him in secret while before the world he stormed at and insulted him.

But Aunt Tatàna—ah, she loved him! She washed and brushed and dressed him; she taught him prayers and the precepts of King Solomon. She took him to church, and gave him nice things to eat, and let him sleep with her. Little by little Anania gave her his affection. In a short time he was another boy. He grew fat and gave himself airs; he had forgotten his rough Fonni costume, and wore a nice little suit of dark fustian. He acquired the Nuoro accent, and was knowing and sharp like Bustianeddu.

Yet his little heart remained unchanged. It could not change. Dreams of flight, of adventure, of wondrous accidents, were blended in his childish soul with nostalgic yearning for his native place, for the people and the things he knew, for the liberty he had enjoyed, for the unkind mother who had become to him an object of pity and of shame. Though he was better off, the little wild creature suffered under the dislocation of all his habits. He wanted he knew not what. He thought he wanted his mother—because everyone had a mother! because to have lost his mother was not so much grief as humiliation. He understood that his mother could not be with the olive-miller, because he had another wife; well, then, he would rather be left with his mother. He belonged to her; perhaps also he instinctively felt her the weaker and became her champion.

As time passed, all these thoughts, these instincts grew fainter, but they did not disappear from his little soul; so also her physical image was transformed in his memory, never obliterated.

One day he learned something unexpected about Bustianeddu, whose friendship he had so far endured rather than courted.

"My mother's not dead," said this boy, almost boastingly, "she's away on the continent like yours. She ran away one time when my father was in prison. When I'm grown up, I'll go and find her. I swear it. I've an uncle on the continent too. He's a schoolmaster. He wrote that he'd seen my mother in a street and was going to beat her, but the people held him off. It was my uncle gave me this red cap."

This story was quite comforting to Anania, and drew him into intimacy with Bustianeddu. For years they were companions, at the olive-mill, in the streets, beside Aunt Tatàna's fire. Bustianeddu was much the age of Zuanne, Anania's lost brother. At bottom he was warmhearted and generous. He said he attended school; but often the schoolmaster asked the boy's father for his invisible pupil. The father was a small dealer in skins and fleeces; when these inquiries reached him, he tied his son up with a rope of undressed leather, locked him in, and bade him learn his lessons. Like older criminals, Bustianeddu came out of prison more reckless and cunning than before. But his father was often away from home; and then the boy, weighted with responsibility, became very serious. He swept the house, washed the linen, cooked the dinner. Anania was delighted to help him. In return Bustianeddu gave him advice and taught him many things good and evil. They were often at the olive-mill where "Big Anania" (so called to distinguish him from his son) worked for his master the rich Signor Daniele Carboni. Big Anania called Signor Carboni "Master," because he had served him for years—as olive-miller, field-labourer, gardener, vine-dresser, according to season; he was, however, very independent, and his work though well paid was not without its risks.

On one side of the olive-mill was the courtyard through which Anania had entered that first night; on the other a garden which sloped down to the high road. It was a beautiful garden, partly orchard, partly wild, with rocky boulders among which straggled bushes of white thorn, Indian figs, almond trees, and peaches. There was one oak tree with rugged stem, harbouring nests of great locusts, caterpillars, and all sorts of birds. The garden belonged to Signor Carboni, and was the envy of all the boys in the neighbourhood. The old gardener, Uncle Pera Sa Gattu (the cat), carried a cudgel to keep them out. From this garden the strong, beautiful Nuoro girls could be seen going to the fountain, amphoras on their heads, like the women of the Bible. Uncle Pera ogled them while he sowed his peas and beans, putting three peas in each hole, and shouting to scare the sparrows.

Anania and Bustianeddu watched him from the mill window, anxious themselves to get into the sunny orchard, and waiting till the gardener should take himself off. Uncle Pera, a dried-up little man, clean-shaven, his face the colour of brick-dust, was too fond of his vegetables to desert them often. Not till nightfall did he go up to the mill to warm himself and to gossip.

This was a good olive year and the press was at work night and day. Two ettolitri of olives produced about two litri of oil. Near the door stood a tin for oil to feed the lamps of this or that Madonna; pious persons poured into it a few drops from each load of olives. All round the press the floor was crowded with barrels and tubs, with sacks of black, shining olives, with heaps of steaming refuse. The whole place was dark, hot, dirty. The cauldron was always boiling, the wheel turned by the big bay horse was always in motion, always distilling oil. The smell of the husks, though too strong, was not exactly disagreeable. The furnace sent out a fine heat, and round it in the long chilly evenings were gathered all the coldest persons of the neighbourhood. Beside the miller and his staff, five or six people came regularly. Efès Cau, once a man of means, now reduced by drink to extreme poverty, slept almost nightly at the mill, contaminating the corner where he lay, to the great annoyance of cleaner persons.

Anania and Bustianeddu sat in a corner on a heap of hot husks, amused by the talk of their elders, delighted by the absurdities of the drunken Efès.

Uncle Pera offered him wine; but Franziscu Carchide, the handsome young shoemaker, interposed.

"No, no, Efès, if you don't dance, you don't drink. You must sing too. Come!"

"'When Amelia so pure and so pale——'"

Anania and Bustianeddu laughed till their sides ached, squatting on the husks like a pair of chickens.

"Let's put pins where he sleeps," suggested Bustianeddu.

"What for?" asked the more kindly Anania.

"To prick him, of course. Then he'll dance with a vengeance. I've brought the pins."

"All right," said the other, unwillingly.

The sot was still dancing, singing, reeling, stretching his hand to the glass. The people and the children laughed.

Then came Nanna, the drunken woman, cleaner and more sober than usual.

"Aren't you ashamed?" she said, seizing Efès by the arm; "don't you see all these beggars, these filthy persons are mocking you? And what are they laughing at me for? I've been out working to-day. Good Lord, how I have worked! Ah, Efès, Efès! have you forgotten how rich your house used to be? Your mother had gold buttons as big as my fist. Your house was like a church, so clean, so full of fine things. If you had kept from the drink, everyone would have treasured you like a sugar plum. Now you're a laughing-stock, like a dancing bear. What are they laughing at now? By the Lord, they must be all drunk! Come, miller, spare me a drop of oil to eat with my supper. Your wife is a saint, miller, but upon my word you are a devil. When are you going to find that treasure you talk about?"

Meanwhile Efès, seated on a sack, wept, thinking of his mother and the rich home of his youth. Carchide strove to console him with another glass, but Efès wept on, even while he drank.

A farmer from a neighbouring village, and Bustianeddu's father, a young man with blue eyes and red beard, conspired together to make Nanna drunk. She told scandalous stories of Uncle Pera, and Uncle Pera swore at the two men who worked the screw of the olive press, and told them they were lazy good-for-nothings.

Maestro Pane, the humpbacked carpenter, who wore his grey moustache at one side only of his toothless mouth, sat under the window beating his fist on his knee and talking very loud. No one, however, listened, for he was in the habit of talking to himself.

Under the influence of the wine. Nanna was becoming loquacious.

"Yes, that old gardener waits every morning till the girl comes down to the fountain. Then he calls her in, promising to give her some lettuce——"

"Ah, you tipsy wretch!" cried Uncle Pera, jumping up with his cudgel.

"Well, what harm am I saying? I say that when she comes in for the lettuce you teach her the Ave Maria."

They all laughed, even little Anania, though he could not imagine why Uncle Pera should teach the Ave Maria by force to the girl who was going to the fountain.

That night when Anania was safe in Aunt Tatàna's big bed he could not sleep, but turned and twisted as if pins were pricking him.

"What's the matter, child?" asked Aunt Tatàna in her gentle way, "have you the stomachache?"

"No, no."

"Then what is it?"

After a few minutes he revealed his remorse.

"We put pins in the place where Efès sleeps."

"You naughty boys! Why did you do that?"

"Because he gets drunk——"

"Holy Saint Catharine!" sighed the good woman, "how wicked boys are nowadays! Suppose someone put pins in your bed? Would you like it? No? Wouldn't you? Then you are more wicked than Efès. All people in the world are wicked, my little lamb, but we must have pity on one another. If we don't pity each other we shall be like the fishes in the sea which devour their brothers. King Solomon said no one must judge but God. Do you understand?"

Anania thought of his mother, his mother who had been so wicked and had deserted him; and he felt sad—so sad!