It is a quiet sultry day, and life seems to have come to a standstill
in the serene calm; the sky looks affably down at the earth, with a
limpid eye of which the sun is the fiery iris.
The sea has been hammered smooth out of some blue metal, the coloured
boats of the fishermen are as motionless as if they were soldered into
the semicircle of the bay, which is as clear as the sky overhead. A
seagull flies past, lazily flapping its wings; out of the water comes
another bird, whiter yet and more beautiful than the one in the air.
In the distant mist floats, as if melting in the sun, a violet isle, a
solitary rock in the sea, like a precious stone in the ring formed by
the Neapolitan bay.
The rocky isle, with its rugged promontories sloping down to the sea,
is covered with gorgeous clusters of the dark foliage of the vine, of
orange, lemon and fig trees, and the dull silver of the tiny olive
leaves. Out of this mass of green, which falls abruptly to the sea,
red, white and golden flowers smile pleasantly, while the yellow and
orange-coloured fruits remind one of the stars on a hot moonlight
night, when the sky is dark and the air moist.
There is quiet in the sky, on the sea and in one's soul; one stops and
listens to all the living things singing a wordless prayer to their
God--the Sun.
Between the gardens winds a narrow path, and along it a tall woman in
black descends slowly to the sea, stepping from stone to stone. Her
dress has faded in the sun: brown spots and even patches can be seen
on it from afar. Her head is bare; her grey hair glistens like silver,
framing in crisp curls her high forehead, her temples and the tawny
skin of her cheeks; it is of the kind that no combing could render
smooth.
Her face is sharp, severe, once seen to be remembered for ever; there
is something profoundly ancient in its withered aspect; and when one
encounters the direct look of her dark eyes one involuntarily thinks of
the burning wilderness of the East, of Deborah and Judith.
Her head is bent over some red garment which she is knitting; the steel
of her hook glistens. A ball of wool is hidden somewhere in her dress,
but the red thread appears to come from her bosom. The path is steep
and treacherous, the pebbles fall and rattle as she steps, but this
greyhaired woman descends as confidently as if her feet themselves
could find the way. This tale is told of her in the village: She is
a widow; her husband, a fisherman, soon after their wedding went out
fishing and never returned, leaving her with a child under her heart.
When the child was born she hid it; she did not take her son out into
the street and sunshine to show him off, as mothers are wont to do, but
kept him in a dark corner of her hut, swaddling him in rags. Not one
of the neighbours knew how the new-born baby was shaped--they saw only
the large head and big, motionless eyes in a yellow face. Previously
she had been healthy, alert and cheerful and able not only to struggle
persistently with necessity herself but knowing also how to say a word
of encouragement to others. But now it was noticed that she had become
silent, that she was always musing, and knitting her brows, and looked
at everything as through a mist of sorrow, with a strange, wistful,
searching expression.
Little time was needed for everyone to learn about her misfortune: the
child born to her was a freak, that is why she hid it, that is what
depressed her.
The neighbours told her, of course, how shameful it is for a woman to
be the mother of a freak; no one except the Madonna knows whether this
cruel insult is a punishment justly deserved or not; but that the child
was guiltless, and she was wrong to deprive it of sunshine.
She listened to them and showed them her son. His arms and legs were
short, like the fins of a fish, his head, which was puffed out like a
huge ball, was weakly supported by a thin, skinny neck, and his face
was wrinkled like that of an old man; he had a pair of dull eyes and a
large mouth drawn into a set smile.
The women cried when they beheld him, men frowned, expressed loathing
and went gloomily away; the freak's mother sat on the ground, now
bowing her head, now raising it and looking at the others, as if
silently inquiring about something which no one could grasp.
The neighbours made a box like a coffin for the freak, and filled
it with rags and combings of wool; they put the little child into
this soft warm nest and placed the box out in the yard in the shade,
entertaining a secret hope that the sunlight which performs miracles
every day might work yet one miracle more.
Time passed, but he remained unchanged, with a large head, a thin
body, and four helpless limbs; only his smile assumed a more definite
expression of ravenous greed, and his mouth was becoming filled with
two rows of sharp, crooked teeth. The short paws learnt to catch chunks
of bread and to carry them, with rarely a mistake, to the large warm
mouth.
He was dumb, but when food was being consumed near him and he could
smell it he made a mumbling sound, working his jaws and shaking his
large head, and the dull whites of his eyes became covered with a red
network of bloody veins.
The freak's appetite was enormous, and waxed greater as time went
on; his mumbling never ceased. The mother worked untiringly, but very
often her earnings were small and sometimes she earned nothing at all.
She did not complain, and accepted help from the neighbours rather
unwillingly, and always without a word. When she was away from home the
neighbours, irritated by the mumbling of the child, ran into the yard
and shoved crusts of bread, vegetables, fruit, anything that could be
eaten, into the ever-hungry jaws.
"Soon he will devour everything you have," they said to her. "Why don't
you send him to some orphanage or hospital?"
She answered gloomily:
"Leave him alone! I am his mother, I gave him life and I must feed him."
She was fair to look upon, and more than one man sought her love, but
unsuccessfully. To one whom she liked more than the rest she said:
"I cannot be your wife; I am afraid of giving birth to another freak;
you would be ashamed. No, go away!"
The man tried to persuade her, reminded her of the Madonna, who is
just to mothers and looks upon them as her sisters, but the freak's
mother replied to him:
"I don't know what I am guilty of, but I have been cruelly punished."
He implored, wept, raged; and finally she said:
"One cannot do what one does not believe to be right. Go away!"
He went away to a far-off place and she never saw him again.
And so for many years she filled the insatiable jaws, which chewed
incessantly. He devoured the fruits of her toil, her blood, her life;
his head grew and became more terrible, until it seemed ready to break
away from the thin weak neck and to rise in the air like a balloon; one
could imagine it in its course knocking against the corners of houses,
and swaying lazily from side to side.
All who looked into the yard stopped involuntarily and shuddered,
unable to understand what they saw. Near the vine-covered wall, propped
up on stones, as on an altar, was a box, out of which rose a head,
showing up clearly against the background of foliage. The yellow,
freckled, wrinkled face, with its high cheekbones, and vacant eyes
starting out of their sockets, impressed itself on the memory of all
who saw it; the broad flat nostrils quivered, the abnormally developed
cheek-bones and jaws worked monotonously, the fleshy lips hung loose,
disclosing two rows of ravenous teeth; the large projecting ears, like
those of an animal, seemed to lead a separate existence. And this awful
visage was crowned by a mass of black hair growing in small, close
curls, like the wool of a negro.
Holding in his little hands, which were short and small like the paws
of a lizard, a chunk of something to eat, the freak would bend his
head forward like a bird pecking, and, wrenching off bits of food with
his teeth, would munch noisily and snuffle. When he was satisfied he
grinned; his eyes shifted towards the bridge of his nose, forming one
dull, expressionless spot on the half-dead face, the movements of which
recalled to mind the twitchings of a person in agony. When he was
hungry he would crane his neck forward, open his red maw and mumble
clamorously, moving a thin, snake-like tongue.
Crossing themselves and muttering a prayer people stepped aside,
reminded of everything evil that they had lived through, of all the
misfortunes they had experienced in their lives.
The blacksmith, an old man of a gloomy disposition, said more than once:
"When I see the all-devouring mouth of this creature I feel that
somebody like him has devoured my strength; it seems to me that we all
live and die for the sake of such parasites."
This dumb head called forth in everyone sombre thoughts and feelings
that oppressed the heart.
The freak's mother listened to what people said, and was silent; but
her hair turned quickly grey, wrinkles appeared on her face and she
had long since forgotten how to laugh. It was known that sometimes she
would spend the whole night standing in the doorway, and looking up at
the sky as if waiting for something. Shrugging their shoulders they
said to one another:
"Whatever is she waiting for?"
"Put him on the square near the old church," her neighbours advised
her. "Foreigners pass there; they will be sure to throw him a few
coppers."
The mother shuddered as if in horror, saying:
"It would be terrible if he were seen by strangers, by people from
other countries--what would they think of us?"
They replied:
"There is misfortune everywhere, and they all know it."
Disparagingly she shook her head.
But foreigners, driven by the desire for change, wander everywhere,
and naturally enough as they passed her house looked in. She was at
home, she saw the ugly looks, expressing aversion and loathing, on
the repleted faces of these idle people, heard how they spoke about
her son, making wry mouths and screwing up their eyes. Her heart
was especially wounded by a few words uttered contemptuously, with
animosity, and obvious triumph.
Many times she repeated to herself the stranger's words, committing
them to memory; her heart, the heart of an Italian woman and a mother,
divined their insulting meaning.
That same day she went to an interpreter whom she knew and asked what
the words meant.
"It depends upon who uttered them!" he replied, knitting his brows.
"They mean: 'Italy is the first of the Latin races to degenerate.' ...
Where did you hear this lie?"
She went away without answering.
The next day her son died in convulsions from over-eating.
She sat in the yard near the box, her hand on the head of her dead son;
still seeming to be calmly waiting, waiting. She looked questioningly
into the eyes of everybody who came to the house to look upon the
deceased.
All were silent, no one spoke to her, though perhaps many wished to
congratulate her--she had been freed from slavery--to say a word
of consolation to her--she had lost a son--but everyone was mute.
Sometimes people understand that there is a time for silence.
For some time after this she continued to gaze long into people's
faces, as if questioning them about something; then she became as
ordinary as everybody else.