During the last days of June the ass fell sick. It took neither food
nor drink for almost a week. The daily journeys were interrupted. One
morning Anna, descending to the shed, found the beast all cramped upon
the straw in a pitiable condition. A kind of hoarse, tenacious cough
shook from time to time his huge frame thinly covered with skin, while
above the eyes two deep cavities had formed like two hollow orbits, and
the eyes themselves resembled two great bladders filled with whey. When
the ass heard Anna’s voice he tried to get up; his body reeled upon
his legs, his neck sank beneath the sharp shoulder-blades, and his ears
dangled, with involuntary and ungainly motions, like those of a big toy
broken at the hinges. A mucous liquid dropped from his nose, sometimes
flowing in little sluggish rivulets down to his knees. The raw spots in
the skin turned the colour of azure, and the sores here and there bled.
Anna, at this sight, was inwardly torn by a pitying anguish; and, since
by nature and by habit she never experienced any physical repugnance
on coming in contact with things commonly regarded as repellant, she
drew near to touch the animal. With one hand she held up his lower jaw
and with the other a shoulder and thus sought to help him walk, hoping
that exercise might do him good. At first the animal hesitated, shaken
by new outbreaks of coughing, but at length he began to walk down
the gentle incline that led to the shore. The water before them shone
white in the birth of the morning and the _Calafatti_ near La Penna
were smearing a keel with pitch. As Anna sustained her burden with her
hands, and held the halter rope, the ass through a misstep of a hind
leg fell suddenly. The great structure of bones gave a rattle within
as if ruptured, the skin over the stomach and flanks resounded dully
and palpitated. The legs made a motion as if to run, while blood issued
from the gums and spread among the teeth.
The woman began to call and run toward the house. But the _Calafatti_,
having arrived, laughed and joked at the reclining ass. One of them
struck the dying beast in the stomach with his foot. Another grabbed
his ears and raised his head, which sank heavily again to earth. The
eyes at length closed, a chill ran over the white skin of the stomach,
parting the tufts of hair as a wind would do, while one of his hind
legs beat two or three times in the air. Then all was still, except
that in the shoulder, where there was an ulcer, a slight quivering
took place, like that caused by some insect a moment before in the
living flesh. When Anna returned to the spot she found the _Calafatti_
dragging the carcass by the tail, and singing a Requiem with imitation
brays.
Thus Anna was left alone. Still for a long time she lived on in the
house of her relatives and gradually faded, while she fulfilled her
humble duties and endured with much Christian patience her vexations.
In 1845 her epilepsy returned to her with violence, but disappeared
again after some months. Her religious faith became at the same time
more deep and living. She went up to the church every morning and
every evening, and knelt habitually in an obscure corner protected by
a great pillar of marble where was pictured in rough bas-relief the
flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. Did she not at first choose that
corner because she was attracted by the gentle ass bearing the child
Jesus and His mother from the land of idolatry? A great peace as of
love descended upon her soul when she bent her knees in the shadow,
and prayers rose unpolluted from her breast as from a natural spring,
because she prayed only through a blind passion to adore, and not
through any hope to obtain the grace of happiness in her own life.
She prayed with her head lowered on a chair, and as Christians, in
coming and going, touched the holy water with their fingers and crossed
themselves, she from time to time shivered on feeling on her hair some
welcome drops of the holy water.
V
When in the year 1851 Anna came for the first time to the country of
Pescara, the feast of Rosario was approaching, which is celebrated on
the first Sunday of October.
The woman came from Ortona on foot, for the purpose of fulfilling a
vow; and bearing with her, hidden in a handkerchief of silk, a little
heart of silver, she walked religiously along the seacoast; since at
that time the province road was not yet constructed, and a wood of
pines almost covered the virgin soil. The day was calm, save that the
waves of the sea were ever increasing and at the farthest point of the
horizon the clouds continued to rise in the shape of large funnels.
Anna walked on entirely absorbed in holy thoughts. Towards evening, as
she was approaching Salini, suddenly the rain began to fall, at first
gently, but later in a great downpour; so much so that, not finding any
shelter, she was wet through and through. Further on, the gorge of the
Alento was flooded, and she had to remove her shoes and ford the river.
In the vicinity of Vallelonga the rain ceased, and the forest of pines
serenely revived gave forth an odour almost of incense. Anna, rendering
thanks in her soul to her Lord, followed the shore path with steps more
rapid, since she felt the unwholesome dampness penetrate her bones, and
her teeth began to chatter from a chill.
At Pescara she was suddenly stricken with a swamp-fever, and cared for
through pity in the house of Donna Cristina Basile. From her bed on
hearing the sacred chants, and seeing the tops of the standards wave to
the height of her window, she set herself to praying and invoking her
recovery. When the Virgin passed she could see only the jewelled crown,
and she endeavoured to kneel upon the pillows in order to worship.
After three weeks she recovered and Donna Cristina having asked her to
remain, she stayed on in the capacity of a servant. She had a little
room looking out upon a court. The walls were whitened with plaster,
an old screen covered with curious figures blocked a corner, and among
the beams of the roof many spiders stretched in peace their intricate
webs. Under the window projected a short roof, and further down opened
the court full of tame birds. On the roof grew from a pile of earth
enclosed with five tiles a tobacco plant. The sun lingered there from
early in the morning until the evening. Every summer the plant bloomed.
Anna, in this new life, in this new house, little by little felt
herself revive and her natural inclination for order reasserted itself.
She attended tranquilly and without speaking to all her duties.
Meanwhile her belief in things supernatural increased. Two or three
legends had in the distant past established themselves with regard to
certain spots in the Basile house, and from generation to generation
they had been handed down. In the yellow room on the second floor (now
unoccupied) lived the soul of Donna Isabella. In a dark room with a
winding staircase descending to a door that had not been opened for
a long time, lived the soul of Don Samuele. Those two names exercised
a singular power over the present occupants, and diffused through the
entire ancient building a kind of conventional solemnity. Further, as
the inside court was surrounded by many roofs, the cats on the loggia
gathered in counsel and mewed with a mysterious sweetness, while
begging Anna for bits from her meals.
In March of the year 1853 the husband of Donna Cristina after
many weeks of convulsions died of a urinary disease. He was a God
fearing man, domestic and charitable, at the head of a congregation
of landowners, read theological works, and knew how to play on the
piano several simple airs of the ancient Neapolitan masters. When the
viaticum arrived, magnificent with its quantity of servers and richness
of equipage, Anna knelt on the doorsill and prayed in a loud voice. The
room filled with the vapour of incense, in the midst of which glittered
the _cyborium_ and the censers flickering like burning lamps. One
heard weeping, and then arose the voices of the priests recommending
the soul to the Most High. Anna, carried away by the solemnity of that
sacrament, lost all horror of death, and from that time on the death of
a Christian seemed to her a journey sweet and joyful.
Donna Cristina kept the windows of her house closed for an entire
month. She mourned for her husband at the hours of dinner and supper,
gave in his name alms to beggars; and many times a day, with the
tail of a fox swished the dust from his piano, as if from a relic,
while emitting sighs. She was a woman of forty years, tending toward
fleshiness, although still youthful in her form which sterility had
preserved. And since she inherited from the deceased a considerable
sum, the five oldest bachelors of the country began to lay ambushes
for her and to allure her with flattering wiles to new nuptials. The
competitors were: Don Ignazio Cespa, an effeminate person, of ambiguous
sex, with the face of an old gossip marked from the small-pox, and
a head of hair filled with cosmetics, with fingers heavy from rings
and ears pierced with two minute circles of gold; Don Paolo Nervegna,
doctor of law, a man talkative and keen, who had his lips always
curled as if he were chewing on some bitter herb, and a kind of red,
unconcealable wart on his forehead; Don Fileno d’Amelio, a new leader
of the congregation, slightly bald, with a forehead sloping backward,
and deep-set lamb-like eyes; Don Pompeo Pepe, a jocular man and a lover
of wine, women and leisure, luxuriantly corpulent, especially in his
face and sonorous in laughter and speech; Don Fiore Ussorio, a man
of pugnacious disposition, a great reader of political works, and a
triumphant quoter of historical examples in every dispute, pallid with
an unearthly pallor, with a thin circle of beard around his cheeks and
a mouth peculiarly leaning toward an oblique line. To these were added,
as a help to Donna Cristina’s power of resistance, the Abbot Egidio
Cennamele who, wishing to draw the heritage to the benefit of the
church, with well covered cleverness antagonised the wooers by means of
flattery. This great contest, which some day should be narrated in more
detail, lasted a long time and held great variety of incident.
The principal theatre of the first act was the dining-room—a
rectangular room where on the French paper of the walls were
graphically represented the facts of Ulysses’ sail to the island
of Calypso. Almost every evening the combatants assembled around
the besieged’s window and played the game of _briscola_ and of love
alternately.