At about that time she received as a gift from a squire a turtle. This
new pet, heavy and taciturn, was her delight and care in her leisure
hours. It walked from one end of the room to the other, lifting with
difficulty from the ground the great weight of its body. It had claws,
like olive-coloured stumps, and was young; the sections of its dorsal
shield, spotted yellow and black, glittered often in the sunlight with
a shade of amber. The head covered with scales, tapering to the nose
and yellowish, projected and nodded with timorous benignity, and it
seemed sometimes like the head of an old worn-out serpent that had
issued from the husk of its own skin. Anna was much delighted with
the traits of the animal; its silence, its frugality, its modesty, its
love of home. She fed it with leaves, roots and worms, while watching
ecstatically the movement of its little horned and ragged jaws. She
experienced almost a feeling of maternity as she gently called the
animal and chose for it the tenderest and sweetest herbs. Then the
turtle became the presager of an idyl. The squire, on coming many times
a day to the house, lingered on the loggia to chat with Anna. Since
he was a man of humble spirit, devout, prudent, and just, he enjoyed
seeing the reflections of his pious virtues in the soul of the woman.
Hence, from habit there arose between the two, little by little, a
friendly familiarity. Anna already had several white hairs on her
temples, and a placid sincerity suffused her face. Zacchiele exceeded
her in age by several years; he had a large head with bulging forehead
and two gentle, round, rabbit-like eyes. During their soliloquies
they sat for the most part on the loggia. Above them, between the
roofs, the sky seemed a transparent cupola, while at intervals the
pet doves in their soarings traversed this patch of the heavens. Their
conversations turned upon the harvests, the fruitfulness of the earth
and simple rules for cultivation, and they were both full of experience
and self-denial. Since Zacchiele loved at times, because of a natural
diffident vanity, to make show of his knowledge before the ignorant
and credulous woman, she conceived for him an unlimited esteem and
admiration. She learned from him that the earth was divided into five
races of men: the white, the yellow, the red, the black, and the brown.
She learned that in form the earth was round, that Romulus and Remus
were nourished by a wolf, and that in autumn the swallows flew over
the sea to Egypt where the Pharaohs reigned in ancient times. But did
not men all have one colour, in the image and semblance of God? How
could we walk upon a ball? Who were the Pharaohs? She did not succeed
in understanding and thus remained completely confused. However, after
that she regarded the swallows with reverence and judged them to be
birds gifted with human foresight.
One day Zacchiele showed her a copy of the Old Testament, illustrated
with drawings. Anna examined it slowly, listening to his explanations.
She saw Adam and Eve among the hares and fawns, Noah half nude kneeling
before an altar, the three angels of Abraham, Moses rescued from the
water; she saw with joy finally a Pharaoh, in the presence of the rod
of Moses, changed into a serpent; the queen of Sheba, the feast of the
Tabernacle, and the martyrdom of the Maccabees. The affair of Balaam’s
ass filled her with wonder and tenderness. The story of the cup of
Joseph in the sack of Benjamin caused her to burst into tears. Now
she imagined the Israelites walking through a desert all covered with
scales, under a dew that was called manna and which was white like snow
and sweeter than bread. After the Sacred History, seized with a strange
ambition, Zacchiele began to read to her of the enterprises of the
kings of France with the Emperor Constantine up to the time of Orlando,
Count of Anglante. A great tumult then upset the woman’s mind, the
battles of the Philistines and Syrians she confused with the battles
of the Saracens, Holofernes with Rizieri, King Saul with King Mambrino,
Eleazar with Balante, Naomi with Galeana.
Worn out she no longer followed the thread of the narrative, but
shivered only at intervals when she heard fall from the lips of
Zacchiele the sound of some beloved name. And she had a strong liking
for Dusolina and the Duke of Bovetto, who seized all of England while
becoming enamoured of the daughter of the Frisian King.
The first day of September came. In the air, tempered with recent rain,
was a placid autumnal clarity. Anna’s room became the spot for their
readings. One day Zacchiele, seated, read “how Galeana, daughter of
the King Galafro, became enamoured of Mainetto and wished to make him a
garland of green.”
Anna, because the fable seemed simple and rustic, and because the voice
of the reader seemed to sweeten with new inflections, listened with
evident eagerness. The turtle gently dragged itself over several leaves
of lettuce, the sun illumined a great spider’s web upon the window, and
one saw the last red flowers of the tobacco plant through the subtle
threads of gold.
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.