“My sister’s husband lives here,” explained Pancrazio.
Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of inn. On the earthen floor glowed a great round pan of charcoal, which looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave.
“Warm yourself,” said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down. The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards. Ciccio came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively, watching Alvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature. Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect.
There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came and said to her:
“They want to know if we will stay the night here.”
“I would rather go on home,” she said.
He averted his face at the word home.
“You see,” said Pancrazio, “I think you might be more comfortable here, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care for it—”
Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows in their black hats. She was thinking how she would be “more comfortable” here.
“I would rather go on,” she said.
“Then we will get the donkey,” said Pancrazio stoically. And Alvina followed him out on to the high-road.
From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes. His legs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide straps, and he was shod in silent skin sandals.
“This is my brother Giovanni,” said Pancrazio. “He is not quite sensible.” Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect.
Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern to Pancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the ass. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the lantern the things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather precarious heap. Pancrazio tested the rope again.
“There! Go on, and I shall come in a minute.”
“Ay-er-er!” cried Giovanni at the ass, striking the flank of the beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark highway, stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading the ass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the quiet step of the ass.
She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried the lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were trees on the roadside, and a small channel of invisible but noisy water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountain high-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead.
“How strange it is!” said Alvina to Ciccio. “Are you glad you have come home?”
“It isn’t my home,” he replied, as if the word fretted him. “Yes, I like to see it again. But it isn’t the place for young people to live in. You will see how you like it.”
She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. The latter now came running to catch them up.
“I think you will be tired,” he said. “You ought to have stayed at my relation’s house down there.”
“No, I am not tired,” said Alvina. “But I’m hungry.”
“Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house.”
They plodded in the darkness of the valley high-road. Pancrazio took the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A great flat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little valise. Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing him the lantern. Ciccio picked up the bread and put it under his arm.
“Break me a little piece,” said Alvina.
And in the darkness they both chewed bread.
After a while, Pancrazio halted with the ass just ahead, and took the lantern from Giovanni.
“We must leave the road here,” he said.
And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small track descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvina ventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light. In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all picked their way down into the great white-bouldered bed of a mountain river. It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars. There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial-sounding. The place seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes, along the far shore.
Pancrazio swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through the uneven boulders till they came to the river itself—not very wide, but rushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over. Alvina crossed rather tremulous, followed by Pancrazio with the light, and Ciccio with the bread and the valise. They could hear the click of the ass and the ejaculations of Giovanni.
Pancrazio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw the dim ass come up, wander uneasily to the stream, plant his fore legs, and sniff the water, his nose right down.
“Er! Err!” cried Pancrazio, striking the beast on the flank.
But it only lifted its nose and turned aside. It would not take the stream. Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turned upstream.
“Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense,” his voice floated angrily across the chill darkness.
Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony riverbed, in the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the men crawl upstream with the lantern.
Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hindquarters tilted up with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a
