ASHES
(CENERE)
A SARDINIAN STORY
BY
GRAZIA DELEDDA
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN
BY
HELEN HESTER COLVILL
Author of "The Stepping-Stone,"
&c., and Translator of Grazia
Deledda's "Nostalgia," the Serial
in the Fortnightly Review, 1895.
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPY. MCMVIII
CONTENTS
Chapter
Chapter
ASHES
PART I
I
It was the night of Midsummer Eve. Olì came forth from the white-walledCantoniera[1] on the Mamojada road, and hurried away across the fields.She was fifteen, well-grown and beautiful, with very large, very bright,feline eyes of greenish grey, and a sensuous mouth of which the cleftlower lip suggested two ripe cherries. She wore a red petticoat andstiff brocade bodice sustaining and defining her bosom; from the red captied under her prominent chin, issued two braids of glossy black hairtwisted over her ears. This hair-dressing and the picturesque costumegave the girl an almost Oriental grace. Her fingers were heavily ringed,and she carried long streamers of scarlet ribbon, with which to "signthe flowers of St John," that is, to mark those bunches of mullein,thyme, and asphodel which she must pick to-morrow at dawn for thecompounding of charms and drugs. True, even were the signingomitted, there was small danger of anyone's touching Olì's selected plants;the fields round the Cantoniera, where she lived with her father and herlittle brothers, were completely deserted. Only one tumble-down housewas in sight, emerging from a field of corn like a rock out of a greenlake.
Everywhere in the country round, the wild Sardinian spring[2] was on itsdeath-bed; the flowers of the asphodel, the golden balls of the broomwere dropping; the roses showed pale in the thickets, the grass wasalready yellow; a hot odour of hay perfumed the heavy air. The Milky Wayand the distant splendour of the horizon, which seemed a band of far offsea, made the night clear as twilight. The dark blue heaven and itsstars were reflected in the scanty waters of the river. On its bank,Olì found two of her little brothers looking for crickets.
"Go home this moment!" she said, in her beautiful, still childishvoice.
"No!" replied