THE MOTHER
_by_
GRAZIA DELEDDA
_Translated from the Italian
by_
MARY G. STEEGMANN
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_
_by arrangement with_
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1923,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1923.
Reprinted August, 1928.
Reprinted October, 1928.
[Contents]
Translator’s Note · Preface ·
Chapter I · Chapter II · Chapter III · Chapter IV · Chapter V ·
Chapter VI · Chapter VII · Chapter VIII · Chapter IX · Chapter X ·
Chapter XI · Chapter XII · Chapter XIII · Chapter XIV
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
_The Mother_[1] is an unusual book, both in its story and its setting
in a remote Sardinian hill village, half civilized and superstitious.
But the chief interest lies in the psychological study of the two chief
characters, and the action of the story takes place so rapidly (all
within the space of two days) and the actual drama is so interwoven
with the mental conflict, and all so forced by circumstances, that it
is almost Greek in its simple and inevitable tragedy.
The book is written without offence to any creed or opinions, and
touches on no questions of either doctrine or Church government. It
is just a human problem, the result of primitive human nature against
man-made laws it cannot understand.
[1] Translated from the Italian novel _La Madre_.
PREFACE
Novelists who have laid the scenes of their stories almost invariably
in one certain country or district, or amongst one certain class of
people, or who have dealt with one special topic or interest, are apt
to be called monotonous by a public which merely reads to kill time or
is always craving for new sensations in its literature. But to another
and more serious class of reader this very fidelity to scene and
steadfastness of outlook is one of the principal incentives to take up
each fresh work of such writers, for it is safe to assume that they are
writing about what they really know and understand and their work may
be expected to deepen and develop with each succeeding book.
Amongst such writers Grazia Deledda takes high rank. One of the
foremost women novelists of Italy, if not the very first, she has
been writing for some five and twenty years, and though almost always
utilizing the same setting for her novels, each succeeding one has
shown a different leading idea, a new variation upon the eternal theme
of more or less primitive human nature.
Madame Deledda is a Sardinian by birth and parentage. She was born at
Nuoro, the little inland town that figures so often in her books, and
there she spent her first youth amongst the shepherds and peasants
and small landed proprietors such as live again in her pages. On her
marriage to a young Lombard she left Sardinia and went with her husband
to Rome, where she still lives and works, with the steadfast aim of yet
further perfecting herself in her art.
As may be expected, the action of her numerous novels takes place
principally in her native island of Sardinia, with its wild and rugged
background of mountain, rock, and wide tracts of thicket and shrub. The
people of Sardinia, chiefly shepherds, agriculturists, and fishermen,
differ considerably from those of the mainland, and a graver and less
vivacious demeanour than most other Italians, a strict sense of honour,
and hospitality regarded as an actual duty, makes them more resemble
the ancient Spanish race with which indeed they are probably distantly
akin.
The life of the poorer islanders is usually one of great privation,
and ceaseless hard work is required to win a subsistence from the soil
in the mountain uplands, exposed alternately to the scorching summer
sun and the fierce gales and icy winds of winter. The native dress is
still worn, though the fashion is dying out, and the old traditional
superstitions and half pagan beliefs in witchcraft and the evil eye
survive side by side with a profound and simple religious faith, a
combination only possible in the islands, as in the remoter parts of
the mainland, where the people never go far from their native districts
and seldom come in contact with outside influences.
Nowhere, perhaps, has Grazia Deledda better portrayed this mingling of
inbred superstition with Church-directed religion than in _The Mother_.
Here the scene is laid in the remote and only half civilized hill
village of Aar, and while the action of the story is dramatic and swift
(it takes place all within the space of two days), the chief interest
lies in the psychological study of the two principal characters,
and the actual drama is so interwoven with the mental conflict, so
developed by outward circumstances, that it is almost Greek in its
simple and inevitable tragedy.
We meet here many of the inhabitants of the mountain district; the old
hunter who has turned solitary through dread of men, the domineering
keeper and his dog, the wholly delightful boy sacristan and his
friends. But the figures in whom the interest centres are, first and
foremost, the mother of the young parish priest of Aar (hence the title
“La Madre” in the original Italian), Paul, the priest himself, and
Agnes, the lonely woman who wrecks the lives of both mother and son.
The love story of Paul is doubtless common enough. As is generally the
case, especially with priests promoted from the humbler ranks of life,
he made his vows whilst still too young to understand all that he was
professing and renouncing. He had been taught that divine love was
all-sufficing, to the exclusion of any other kind, and when human love
overtook him he was too inexperienced and too weak to have any chance
in the struggle for victory—and he desperately trusted to the hazard
of events to save him when his own self-deception and cowardice had
failed—when confronted with the greater strength and moral honesty of
the woman.
It is the fine and consistently drawn character of Maria Maddalena,
however, that claims the reader’s whole sympathy. Poor, ignorant, able
neither to read nor write, she has brought up her boy by her own hard
work and has achieved the peasant’s ambition of seeing him admitted to
the priesthood and given charge of a parish. For a time all goes well,
until the inevitable woman appears on the scene, and then suddenly she
finds her son gone beyond her reach and exposed to perils she dare not
contemplate. In her unquestioning acceptance of the Church’s laws her
simple mind is only filled with terror lest Paul should break those
laws. But while she is inexorable with the priest her heart yearns over
the young man, tender with his grief, and, spurred on by a phantom,
a dream, her love and her intelligence begin for the first time to
regret the natural happiness he is denied and to question the Church’s
right to impose such a denial. And at last the struggle and the
suspense grow more than she can bear and live.
It should be stated emphatically that the book is written without the
least offence to any creed or opinion whatsoever, and touches on no
question of either doctrine or Church government. It is just a human
problem, the revolt of primitive human nature in distress against
man-made laws it suffers from and cannot understand.
M. G. S.
CHAPTER I
To-night again Paul was preparing to go out, it seemed.
From her room adjoining his the mother could hear him moving about
furtively, perhaps waiting to go out until she should have extinguished
her light and got into bed.
She put out her light, but she did not get into bed.
Seated close against the door, she clasped her hands tightly together,
those work-worn hands of a servant, pressing the thumbs one upon
the other to give herself courage; but every moment her uneasiness
increased and overcame her obstinate hope that her son would sit down
quietly, as he used to do, and begin to read, or else go to bed. For
a few minutes, indeed, the young priest’s cautious steps were silent.
She felt herself all alone. Outside, the noise of the wind mingled
with the murmuring of the trees which grew on the ridge of high
ground behind the little presbytery; not a high wind, but incessant,
monotonous, that sounded as though it were enveloping the house in some
creaking, invisible band, ever closer and closer, trying to uproot it
from its foundations and drag it to the ground.
The mother had already closed the house door and barricaded it with
two crossed bars, in order to prevent the devil, who on windy nights
roams abroad in search of souls, from penetrating into the house. As a
matter of fact, however, she put little faith in such things. And now
she reflected with bitterness, and a vague contempt of herself, that
the evil spirit was already inside the little presbytery, that it drank
from her Paul’s cup and hovered about the mirror he had hung on the
wall near his window.
Just then she heard Paul moving about again. Perhaps he was actually
standing in front of the mirror, although that was forbidden to
priests. But what had Paul not allowed himself for some considerable
time now?
The mother remembered that lately she had several times come upon him
gazing at himself in the glass like any woman, cleaning and polishing
his nails, or brushing his hair, which he had left to grow long and
then turned back over his head, as though trying to conceal the holy
mark of the tonsure. And then he made use of perfumes, he brushed his
teeth with scented powder, and even combed out his eyebrows.
She seemed to see him now as plainly as though the dividing wall did
not exist, a black figure against the white background of his room; a
tall, thin figure, almost too tall, going to and fro with the heedless
steps of a boy, often stumbling and slipping about, but always holding
himself erect. His head was a little too large for the thin neck, his
face pale and overshadowed by the prominent forehead that seemed to
force the brows to frown and the long eyes to droop with the burden of
it. But the powerful jaw, the wide, full mouth and the resolute chin
seemed in their turn to revolt with scorn against this oppression, yet
not be able to throw it off.
But now he halted before the mirror and his whole face lighted up, the
eyelids opened to the full and the pupils of his clear brown eyes shone
like diamonds.
Actually, in the depths of her maternal heart, his mother delighted to
see him so handsome and strong, and then the sound of his furtive steps
moving about again recalled her sharply to her anxiety.
He was going out, there could be no more doubt about that. He opened
the door of his room and stood still again. Perhaps he, too, was
listening to the sounds without, but there was nothing to be heard save
the encircling wind beating ever against the house.
The mother made an effort to rise from her chair, to cry out “My son,
Paul, child of God, stay here!” but a power stronger than her own will
kept her down. Her knees trembled as though trying to rebel against
that infernal power; her knees trembled, but her feet refused to move,
and it was as though two compelling hands were holding her down upon
her seat.
Thus Paul could steal noiselessly downstairs, open the door and go
out, and the wind seemed to engulf him and bear him away in a flash.
Only then was she able to rise and light her lamp again. But even this
was only achieved with difficulty, because, instead of igniting, the
matches left long violet streaks on the wall wherever she struck them.
But at last the little brass lamp threw a dim radiance over the small
room, bare and poor as that of a servant, and she opened the door and
stood there, listening. She was still trembling, yet she moved stiffly
and woodenly, and with her large head and her short, broad figure
clothed in rusty black she looked as though she had been hewn with an
axe, all of a piece, from the trunk of an oak.
From her threshold she looked down the slate stairs descending steeply
between whitewashed walls, at the bottom of which the door shook upon
its hinges with the violence of the wind. And when she saw the two bars
which Paul had unfastened and left leaning against the wall she was
filled with sudden wild anger.
Ah no, she must defeat the devil. Then she placed her light on the
floor at the top of the stairs, descended and went out, too.
The wind seized hold of her roughly, blowing out her skirts and the
handkerchief over her head, as though it were trying to force her
back into the house. But she knotted the handkerchief tightly under
her chin and pressed forward with bent head, as though butting aside
all obstacles in her path. She felt her way past the front of the
presbytery, along the wall of the kitchen garden and past the front of
the church, but at the corner of the church she paused. Paul had turned
there, and swiftly, like some great black bird, his cloak flapping
round him, he had almost flown across the field that extended in front
of an old house built close against the ridge of land that shut in the
horizon above the village.
The uncertain light, now blue, now yellow, as the moon’s face shone
clear or was traversed by big clouds, illumined the long grass of the
field, the little raised piazza in front of the church and presbytery,
and the two lines of cottages on either side of the steep road, which
wound on and downwards till it lost itself amidst the trees in the
valley. And in the centre of the valley, like another grey and winding
road, was the river that flowed on and in its turn lost itself amidst
the rivers and roads of the fantastic landscape that the wind-driven
clouds alternately revealed and concealed on that distant horizon that
lay beyond the valley’s edge.
In the village itself not a light was to be seen, nor even a thread of
smoke. They were all asleep by now in the poverty-stricken cottages,
which clung to the grassy hill-side like two rows of sheep, whilst the
church with its slender tower, itself protected by the ridge of land
behind it, might well represent the shepherd leaning upon his staff.
The elder trees which grew along the parapet of the piazza before
the church were bending and tossing furiously in the wind, black and
shapeless monsters in the gloom, and in answer to their rustling cry
came the lament of the poplars and reeds in the valley. And in all this
dolour of the night, the moaning wind and the moon drowning midst the
angry clouds, was merged the sorrow of the mother seeking for her son.
Until that moment she had tried to deceive herself with the hope that
she would see him going before her down into the village to visit some
sick parishioner, but instead, she beheld him running as though spurred
on by the devil towards the old house under the ridge.
And in that old house under the ridge there was no one save a woman,
young, healthy and alone....
Instead of approaching the principal entrance like an ordinary
visitor, he went straight to the little door in the orchard wall, and
immediately it opened and closed again behind him like a black mouth
that had swallowed him up.
Then she too ran across the meadow, treading in the path his feet had
made in the long grass; straight to the little door she ran, and she
put her open hands against it, pushing with all her strength. But the
little door remained closed, it even seemed to repulse her by an active
power of its own, and the woman felt she must strike it and cry aloud.
She looked at the wall and touched it as though to test its solidity,
and at last in despair she bent her head and listened intently. But
nothing could be heard save the creaking and rustling of the trees
inside the orchard, friends and accomplices of their mistress, trying
to cover with their own noises all other sounds there within.
But the mother would not be beaten, she must hear and know—or rather,
since in her inmost soul she already knew the truth, she wanted some
excuse for still deceiving herself.
Careless now whether she were seen or not, she walked the whole length
of the orchard wall, past the front of the house, and beyond it as
far as the big gate of the courtyard; and as she went she touched the
stones as though seeking one that would give way and leave a hole
whereby she might enter in. But everything was solid, compact, fast
shut—the big entrance gate, the hall door, the barred windows were like
the openings in a fortress.
At that moment the moon emerged from behind the clouds and shone
out clear in a lake of blue, illuminating the reddish frontage of
the house, which was partly overshadowed by the deep eaves of the
overhanging grass-grown roof; the inside shutters of the windows were
closed and the panes of glass shone like greenish mirrors, reflecting
the drifting clouds and the patches of blue sky and the tossing
branches of the trees upon the ridge.
Then she turned back, striking her head against the iron rings let into
the wall for tethering horses. Again she halted in front of the chief
entrance, and before that big door with its three granite steps, its
Gothic porch and iron gate, she felt suddenly humiliated, powerless to
succeed, smaller even than when, as a little girl, she had loitered
near with other poor children of the village, waiting till the master
of the house should come out and fling them a few pence.
It had happened sometimes in those far-off days that the door had been
left wide open and had afforded a view into a dark entrance hall, paved
with stone and furnished with stone seats. The children had shouted at
this and thrust themselves forward even to the threshold, their voices
re-echoing in the interior of the house as in a cave. Then a servant
had appeared to drive them away.
“What! You here, too, Maria Maddalena! Aren’t you ashamed to go running
about with those boys, a great girl like you?”
And she, the girl, had shrunk back abashed, but nevertheless she had
turned to stare curiously at the mysterious inside of the house. And
just so did she shrink back now and move away, wringing her hands in
despair and staring again at the little door which had swallowed up her
Paul like a trap. But as she retraced her steps and walked homeward
again she began to regret that she had not shouted, that she had not
thrown stones at the door and compelled those inside to open it and
let her try to rescue her son. She repented her weakness, stood still,
irresolute, turned back, then homewards again, drawn this way and that
by her tormenting anxiety, uncertain what to do: until at last the
instinct of self-preservation, the need of collecting her thoughts and
concentrating her strength for the decisive battle, drove her home as a
wounded animal takes refuge in its lair.
The instant she got inside the presbytery she shut the door and sat
down heavily on the bottom stair. From the top of the staircase came
the dim flickering light of the lamp, and everything within the little
house, up to now as steady and quiet as a nest built in some crevice of
the rocks, seemed to swing from side to side: the rock was shaken to
its foundations and the nest was falling to the ground.
Outside the wind moaned and whistled more loudly still; the devil was
destroying the presbytery, the church, the whole world of Christians.
“Oh Lord, oh Lord!” wailed the mother, and her voice sounded like the
voice of some other woman speaking.
Then she looked at her own shadow on the staircase wall and nodded to
it. Truly, she felt that she was not alone, and she began to talk as
though another person were there with her, listening and replying.
“What can I do to save him?”
“Wait here till he comes in, and then speak to him plainly and firmly
whilst you are still in time, Maria Maddalena.”
“But he would get angry and deny it all. It would be better to go to
the Bishop and beg him to send us away from this place of perdition.
The Bishop is a man of God and knows the world. I will kneel at his
feet; I can almost see him now, dressed all in white, sitting in his
red reception room, with his golden cross shining on his breast and two
fingers raised in benediction. He looks like our Lord Himself! I shall
say to him: Monsignore, you know that the parish of Aar, besides being
the poorest in the kingdom, lies under a curse. For nearly a hundred
years it was without a priest and the inhabitants forgot God entirely;
then at last a priest came here, but Monsignore knows what manner of
man he was. Good and holy till he was fifty years of age: he restored
the presbytery and the church, built a bridge across the river at his
own expense, and went out shooting and shared the common life of the
shepherds and hunters. Then suddenly he changed and became as evil as
the devil. He practised sorcery. He began to drink and grew overbearing
and passionate. He used to smoke a pipe and swear, and he would sit
on the ground playing cards with the worst ruffians of the place, who
liked him and protected him, however, and for this very reason the
others let him alone. Then, during his latter years, he shut himself
up in the presbytery all alone without even a servant, and he never
went outside the door except to say Mass, but he always said it before
dawn, so that nobody ever went. And they say he used to celebrate
when he was drunk. His parishioners were too frightened to bring any
accusation against him, because it was said that he was protected by
the devil in person. And then when he fell ill there was not a woman
who would go and nurse him. Neither woman nor man, of the decent sort,
went to help him through his last days, and yet at night every window
in the presbytery was lighted up; and the people said that during
those last nights the devil had dug an underground passage from this
house to the river, through which to carry away the mortal remains of
the priest. And by this passage the spirit of the priest used to come
back in the years that followed his death and haunt the presbytery,
so that no other priest would ever come to live here. A priest used
to come from another village every Sunday to say Mass and bury the
dead, but one night the spirit of the dead priest destroyed the
bridge, and after that for ten years the parish was without a priest,
until my Paul came. And I came with him. We found the village and its
inhabitants grown quite wild and uncivilized, without faith at all,
but everything revived again after my Paul came, like the earth at the
return of the spring. But the superstitious were right, disaster will
fall upon the new priest because the spirit of the old one still reigns
in the presbytery. Some say that he is not dead and that he lives in an
underground dwelling communicating with the river. I myself have never
believed in such tales, nor have I ever heard any noises. For seven
years we have lived here, my Paul and I, as in a little convent. Until
a short time ago Paul led the life of an innocent child, he studied
and prayed and lived only for the good of his parishioners. Sometimes
he used to play the flute. He was not merry by nature, but he was calm
and quiet. Seven years of peace and plenty have we had, like those in
the Bible. My Paul never drank, he did not go out shooting, he did not
smoke and he never looked at a woman. All the money he could save he
put aside to rebuild the bridge below the village. He is twenty-eight
years old, is my Paul, and now the curse has fallen upon him. A woman
has caught him in her net. Oh, my Lord Bishop, send us away from here;
save my Paul, for otherwise he will lose his soul as did the former
priest! And the woman must be saved, too. After all, she is a woman
living alone and she has her temptations also in that lonely house,
midst the desolation of this little village where there is nobody fit
to bear her company. My Lord Bishop, your Lordship knows that woman,
you were her guest with all your following when you came here on your
pastoral visitation. There is room and stuff to spare, in that house!
And the woman is rich, independent, alone, too much alone! She has
brothers and a sister, but they are all far away, married and living in
other countries. She remained here alone to look after the house and
the property, and she seldom goes out. And until a little while ago my
Paul did not even know her. Her father was a strange sort of man, half
gentleman, half peasant, a hunter and a heretic. He was a friend of
the old priest, and I need say no more. He never went to church, but
during his last illness he sent for my Paul, and my Paul stayed with
him till he died and gave him a funeral such as had never been seen in
these parts. Every single person in the village went to it, even the
babies were carried in their mothers’ arms. Then afterwards my Paul
went on visiting the only survivor of that household. And this orphan
girl lives alone with bad servants. Who directs her, who advises her?
Who is there to help her if we do not?”
Then the other woman asked her:
“Are you certain of this, Maria Maddalena? Are you really sure that
what you think is true? Can you actually go before the Bishop and speak
thus about your son and that other person, and prove it? And suppose it
should not be true?”
“Oh Lord, oh Lord!”
She buried her face in her hands, and immediately there rose before her
the vision of her Paul and the woman together in a ground-floor room in
the old house. It was a very large room looking out into the orchard,
with a domed ceiling, and the floor was of pounded cement with which
small sea-shells and pebbles had been mixed; on one side was an immense
fireplace, to right and left of which stood an arm-chair and in front
was an antique sofa. The whitewashed walls were adorned with arms,
stags’ heads and antlers, and paintings whose blackened canvases hung
in tatters, little of the subjects being distinguishable in the shadows
save here and there a dusky hand, some vestige of a face, of a woman’s
hair, or bunch of fruit.
Paul and the woman were seated in front of the fire, clasping each
other’s hands.
“Oh, my God!” came the mother’s moaning cry.
And in order to banish that diabolic vision she evoked another. It was
the same room again, but illumined now by the greenish light that came
through the barred window looking out over the meadow and the door
which opened direct from the room into the orchard, and through which
she saw the trees and foliage gleaming, still wet with the autumn dew.
Some fallen leaves were blown softly about the floor and the chains of
the antique brass lamp that stood upon the mantelshelf swung to and fro
in the draught. Through a half-open door on the other side she could
see other rooms, all somewhat dark and with closed windows.
She stood there waiting, with a present of fruit which her Paul had
sent to the mistress of the house. And then the mistress came, with
a quickened step and yet a little shy; she came from the dark rooms,
dressed in black, her pale face framed between two great knots of black
plaits, and her thin white hands emerging from the shadows like those
in the pictures on the wall.
And even when she came close and stood in the full light of the
room there was about her small slender figure something evanescent,
doubtful. Her large dark eyes fell instantly on the basket of fruit
standing on the table, then turned with a searching look upon the woman
who stood waiting, and a swift smile, half joy, half contempt, passed
over the sad and sensual curves of her lips.
And in that moment, though she knew not how or why, the first
suspicion stirred in the mother’s heart.
* * * * *
She could not have explained the reason why, but her memory dwelt on
the eagerness with which the girl had welcomed her, making her sit
down beside her and asking for news of Paul. She called him Paul as a
sister might have done, but she did not treat her as though she were
their common mother, but rather as a rival who must be flattered and
deceived. She ordered coffee for her, which was served on a large
silver tray by a barefoot maid whose face was swathed like an Arab’s.
She talked of her two brothers, both influential men living far away,
taking secret delight in picturing herself between these two, as
between columns supporting the fabric of her solitary life. And then
at last she led the visitor out to see the orchard, through the door
opening straight from the room.
Big purple figs covered with a silver sheen, pears, and great bunches
of golden grapes hung amidst the vivid green of the trees and vines.
Why should Paul send a gift of fruit to one who possessed so much
already?
Even now, sitting on the stairs in the dim light of the flickering
lamp, the mother could see again the look, at once ironical and tender,
which the girl had turned upon her as she bade her farewell, and the
manner in which she lowered her heavy eyelids as though she knew no
other way of hiding the feelings her eyes betrayed too plainly. And
those eyes, and that way of revealing her soul in a sudden flash
of truth and then instantly drawing back into herself again, was
extraordinarily like Paul. So much so that during the days following,
when because of his manner and his reserve her suspicions grew and
filled her heart with fear, she did not think with any hatred of the
woman who was leading him into sin, but she thought only of how she
might save her too, as though it had been the saving of a daughter of
her own.