Prima che incontro alla festosa fronteI lugubri suoi lampi il ver baleni.
It was very still in the small neglected chapel1. The noises of the farmcame faintly through closed doors--voices shouting at the oxen in thelower fields, the querulous bark of the old house-dog, and Filomena'sangry calls to the little white-faced foundling in the kitchen.
The February day was closing, and a ray of sunshine, slanting2 through aslit in the chapel wall, brought out the vision of a pale haloed headfloating against the dusky background of the chancel like a water-lilyon its leaf. The face was that of the saint of Assisi--a sunken ravagedcountenance, lit with an ecstasy3 of suffering that seemed not so much toreflect the anguish4 of the Christ at whose feet the saint knelt, as themute pain of all poor down-trodden folk on earth.
When the small Odo Valsecca--the only frequenter of the chapel--had beentaunted by the farmer's wife for being a beggar's brat5, or when his earswere tingling6 from the heavy hand of the farmer's son, he found amelancholy kinship in that suffering face; but since he had fightingblood in him too, coming on the mother's side of the rude Piedmontesestock of the Marquesses di Donnaz, there were other moods when he turnedinstead to the stout7 Saint George in gold armour8, just discerniblethrough the grime and dust of the opposite wall.
The chapel of Pontesordo was indeed as wonderful a storybook as fateever unrolled before the eyes of a neglected and solitary9 child. For ahundred years or more Pontesordo, a fortified10 manor11 of the Dukes ofPianura, had been used as a farmhouse12; and the chapel was never openedsave when, on Easter Sunday, a priest came from the town to say mass. Atother times it stood abandoned, cobwebs curtaining the narrow windows,farm tools leaning against the walls, and the dust deep on the sea-godsand acanthus volutes of the altar. The manor of Pontesordo was very old.
The country people said that the great warlock Virgil, whosedwelling-place was at Mantua, had once shut himself up for a year in thetopmost chamber13 of the keep, engaged in unholy researches; and anotherlegend related that Alda, wife of an early lord of Pianura, had thrownherself from its battlements to escape the pursuit of the terribleEzzelino. The chapel adjoined this keep, and Filomena, the farmer'swife, told Odo that it was even older than the tower and that the wallshad been painted by early martyrs14 who had concealed15 themselves therefrom the persecutions of the pagan emperors.
On such questions a child of Odo's age could obviously have nopronounced opinion, the less so as Filomena's facts varied16 according tothe seasons or her mood, so that on a day of east wind or when the wormswere not hatching well, she had been known to affirm that the pagans hadpainted the chapel under Virgil's instruction, to commemorate17 theChristians they had tortured. In spite of the distance to which theseconflicting statements seemed to relegate18 them, Odo somehow felt asthough these pale strange people--youths with ardent19 faces under theirsmall round caps, damsels with wheat-coloured hair and boys no biggerthan himself, holding spotted20 dogs in leash--were younger and nearer tohim than the dwellers21 on the farm: Jacopone the farmer, the shrillFilomena, who was Odo's foster-mother, the hulking bully22 their son andthe abate23 who once a week came out from Pianura to give Odo religiousinstruction and who dismissed his questions with the invariableexhortation not to pry24 into matters that were beyond his years. Odo hadloved the pictures in the chapel all the better since the abate, with ashrug, had told him they were nothing but old rubbish, the work of thebarbarians.
Life at Pontesordo was in truth not very pleasant for an ardent andsensitive little boy of nine, whose remote connection with the reigningline of Pianura did not preserve him from wearing torn clothes andeating black bread and beans out of an earthen bowl on the kitchendoorstep.
"Go ask your mother for new clothes!" Filomena would snap at him, whenhis toes came through his shoes and the rents in his jacket-sleeves hadspread beyond darning. "These you are wearing are my Giannozzo's, as youwell know, and every rag on your back is mine, if there were any law forpoor folk, for not a copper26 of pay for your keep or a stitch of clothingfor your body have we had these two years come Assumption--. What'sthat? You can't ask your mother, you say, because she never comes here?
True enough--fine ladies let their brats27 live in cow-dung, but they musthave Indian carpets under their own feet. Well, ask the abate, then--hehas lace ruffles28 to his coat and a naked woman painted on his snuffbox--What? He only holds his hands up when you ask? Well, then, go askyour friends on the chapel-walls--maybe they'll give you a pair ofshoes--though Saint Francis, for that matter, was the father of thediscalced, and would doubtless tell you to go without!" And she wouldadd with a coarse laugh: "Don't you know that the discalced are shodwith gold?"It was after such a scene that the beggar-noble, as they called him atPontesordo, would steal away to the chapel and, seating himself on anupturned basket or a heap of pumpkins29, gaze long into the face of themournful saint.
There was nothing unusual in Odo's lot. It was that of many children inthe eighteenth century, especially those whose parents were cadets ofnoble houses, with an appanage barely sufficient to keep their wives andthemselves in court finery, much less to pay their debts and clothe andeducate their children. All over Italy at that moment, had Odo Valseccabut known it, were lads whose ancestors, like his own, had been dukesand crusaders, but who, none the less, were faring, as he fared, onblack bread and hard blows, and the half-comprehended taunts30 of unpaidfoster-parents. Many, doubtless, there were who cared little enough, aslong as they might play morro with the farmer's lads and ride the coltbare-back through the pasture and go bird-netting and frog-hunting withthe village children; but some perhaps, like Odo, suffered in a dumbanimal way, without understanding why life was so hard on little boys.
Odo, for his part, had small taste for the sports in which Gianozzo andthe village lads took pleasure. He shrank from any amusement associatedwith the frightening or hurting of animals, and his bosom31 swelled32 withthe fine gentleman's scorn of the clowns who got their fun in so coarsea way. Now and then he found a moment's glee in a sharp tussle33 with oneof the younger children who had been tormenting34 a frog or a beetle35; buthe was still too young for real fighting, and could only hang on theoutskirts when the bigger boys closed, and think how some day he wouldbe at them and break their lubberly heads. There were thus many hourswhen he turned to the silent consolations36 of the chapel. So familiar hadhe grown with the images on its walls that he had a name for every one:
the King, the Knight37, the Lady, the children with guinea-pigs, basilisksand leopards38, and lastly the Friend, as he called Saint Francis. Analmond-faced lady on a white palfrey with gold trappings represented hismother, whom he had seen too seldom for any distinct image to interferewith the illusion; a knight in damascened armour and scarlet39 cloak wasthe valiant40 captain, his father, who held a commission in the ducalarmy; and a proud young man in diadem41 and ermine, attended by a retinueof pages, stood for his cousin, the reigning25 Duke of Pianura.
A mist, as usual at that hour, was rising from the marshes42 betweenPontesordo and Pianura, and the light soon ebbed44 from the saint's face,leaving the chapel in obscurity. Odo had crept there that afternoon witha keener sense than usual of the fact that life was hard on little boys;and though he was cold and hungry and half afraid, the solitude45 in whichhe cowered46 seemed more endurable than the noisy kitchen where, at thathour, the farm hands were gathering47 for their polenta, and Filomena wasscreaming at the frightened orphan48 who carried the dishes to the table.
He knew, of course, that life at Pontesordo would not last forever--that in time he would grow up and be mysteriously transformed intoa young gentleman with a sword and laced coat, who would go to court andperhaps be an officer in the Duke's army or in that of some neighbouringprince; but, viewed from the lowliness of his nine years, that dazzlingprospect was too remote to yield much solace49 for the cuffs50 and sneers,the ragged51 shoes and sour bread of the present. The fog outside hadthickened, and the face of Odo's friend was now discernible only as aspot of pallor in the surrounding dimness. Even he seemed farther awaythan usual, withdrawn52 into the fog as into that mist of indifferencewhich lay all about Odo's hot and eager spirit. The child sat down amongthe gourds53 and medlars on the muddy floor and hid his face against hisknees.
He had sat there a long time when the noise of wheels and the crack of apostillion's whip roused the dogs chained in the stable. Odo's heartbegan to beat. What could the sounds mean? It was as though theflood-tide of the unknown were rising about him and bursting open thechapel door to pour in on his loneliness. It was, in fact, Filomena whoopened the door, crying out to him in an odd Easter Sunday voice, thevoice she used when she had on her silk neckerchief and gold chain orwhen she was talking to the bailiff.
Odo sprang up and hid his face in her lap. She seemed, of a sudden,nearer to him than any one else--a last barrier between himself and themystery that awaited him outside.
"Come, you poor sparrow," she said, dragging him across the threshold ofthe chapel, "the abate is here asking for you;" and she crossed herself,as though she had named a saint.
Odo pulled away from her with a last wistful glance at Saint Francis,who looked back at him in an ecstasy of commiseration54.
"Come, come," Filomena repeated, dropping to her ordinary key as shefelt the resistance of the little boy's hand. "Have you no heart, youwicked child? But, to be sure, the poor innocent doesn't know! Comecavaliere, your illustrious mother waits.""My mother?" The blood rushed to his face; and she had called him"cavaliere"!
"Not here, my poor lamb! The abate is here; don't you see the lights ofthe carriage? There, there, go to him. I haven't told him, yourreverence; it's my silly tender-heartedness that won't let me. He'salways been like one of my own creatures to me--" and she confounded Odoby bursting into tears.
The abate stood on the doorstep. He was a tall stout man with a hookednose and lace ruffles. His nostrils55 were stained with snuff and he tooka pinch from a tortoise-shell box set with the miniature of a lady; thenhe looked down at Odo and shrugged56 his shoulders.
Odo was growing sick with apprehension57. It was two days before theappointed time for his weekly instruction and he had not prepared hiscatechism. He had not even thought of it--and the abate could use thecane. Odo stood silent and envied girls, who are not disgraced bycrying. The tears were in his throat, but he had fixed58 principles aboutcrying. It was his opinion that a little boy who was a cavaliere mightweep when he was angry or sorry, but never when he was afraid; so heheld his head high and put his hand to his side, as though to rest it onhis sword.
The abate sneezed and tapped his snuff-box.
"Come, come, cavaliere, you must be brave--you must be a man; you haveduties, you have responsibilities. It's your duty to console yourmother--the poor lady is plunged59 in despair. Eh? What's that? Youhaven't told him? Cavaliere, your illustrious father is no more."Odo stared a moment without understanding; then his grief burst from himin a great sob60, and he hid himself against Filomena's apron61, weeping forthe father in damascened armour and scarlet cloak.
"Come, come," said the abate impatiently. "Is supper laid? for we mustbe gone as soon as the mist rises." He took the little boy by the hand.
"Would it not distract your mind to recite the catechism?" he inquired.
"No, no!" cried Odo with redoubled sobs62.
"Well, then, as you will. What a madman!" he exclaimed to Filomena. "Iwarrant it hasn't seen its father three times in its life. Come in,cavaliere; come to supper."Filomena had laid a table in the stone chamber known as the bailiff'sparlour, and thither63 the abate dragged his charge and set him downbefore the coarse tablecloth64 covered with earthen platters. A tallow dipthrew its flare65 on the abate's big aquiline66 face as he sat opposite Odo,gulping the hastily prepared frittura and the thick purple wine in itswicker flask67. Odo could eat nothing. The tears still ran down his cheeksand his whole soul was possessed68 by the longing69 to steal back and seewhether the figure of the knight in the scarlet cloak had vanished fromthe chapel wall. The abate sat in silence, gobbling his food like theold black pig in the yard. When he had finished he stood up, exclaiming:
"Death comes to us all, as the hawk70 said to the chicken. You must be aman, cavaliere." Then he stepped into the kitchen, and called out forthe horses to be put to.
The farm hands had slunk away to one of the outhouses, and Filomena andJacopone stood bowing and curtseying as the carriage drew up at thekitchen door. In a corner of the big vaulted71 room the little foundlingwas washing the dishes, heaping the scraps72 in a bowl for herself and thefowls. Odo ran back and touched her arm. She gave a start and looked athim with frightened eyes. He had nothing to give her, but he said:
"Good-bye, Momola"; and he thought to himself that when he was grown upand had a sword he would surely come back and bring her a pair of shoesand a panettone. The abate was calling him, and the next moment he foundhimself lifted into the carriage, amid the blessings73 and lamentations ofhis foster-parents; and with a great baying of dogs and clacking ofwhipcord the horses clattered74 out of the farmyard, and turned theirheads toward Pianura.
The mist had rolled back and fields and vineyards lay bare to the wintermoon. The way was lonely, for it skirted the marsh43, where no one lived;and only here and there the tall black shadow of a crucifix ate into thewhiteness of the road. Shreds75 of vapour still hung about the hollows,but beyond these fold on fold of translucent76 hills melted into a skydewy with stars. Odo cowered in his corner, staring out awestruck at theunrolling of the strange white landscape. He had seldom been out atnight, and never in a carriage; and there was something terrifying tohim in this flight through the silent moon-washed fields, where no oxenmoved in the furrows77, no peasants pruned78 the mulberries, and not agoat's bell tinkled79 among the oaks. He felt himself alone in a ghostlyworld from which even the animals had vanished, and at last he avertedhis eyes from the dreadful scene and sat watching the abate, who hadfixed a reading-lamp at his back, and whose hooked-nosed shadow, as thesprings jolted80 him up and down, danced overhead like the huge Pulcinellaat the fair of Pontesordo.
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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commemorate
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| vt.纪念，庆祝 | |
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relegate
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| v.使降级，流放，移交，委任 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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reigning
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| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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ruffles
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| 褶裥花边( ruffle的名词复数 ) | |
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pumpkins
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| n.南瓜( pumpkin的名词复数 )；南瓜的果肉，南瓜囊 | |
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taunts
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| 嘲弄的言语，嘲笑，奚落( taunt的名词复数 ) | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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tussle
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| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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leopards
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| n.豹( leopard的名词复数 )；本性难移 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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diadem
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| n.王冠，冕 | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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cowered
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的过去式 ) | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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gourds
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| n.葫芦( gourd的名词复数 ) | |
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commiseration
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| n.怜悯，同情 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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tablecloth
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| n.桌布，台布 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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scraps
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73
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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74
clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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75
shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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76
translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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77
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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78
pruned
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| v.修剪（树木等）( prune的过去式和过去分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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79
tinkled
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| （使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出 | |
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80
jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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