COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| I | [The Hero] | 3 |
| II | [The Countess of Amalfi] | 10 |
| III | [The Return of Turlendana] | 56 |
| IV | [Turlendana Drunk] | 72 |
| V | [The Gold Pieces] | 83 |
| VI | [Sorcery] | 92 |
| VII | [The Idolaters] | 119 |
| VIII | [Mungia] | 140 |
| IX | [The Downfall of Candia] | 153 |
| X | [The Death of the Duke of Ofena] | 172 |
| XI | [The War of the Bridge] | 192 |
| XII | [The Virgin Anna] | 215 |
INTRODUCTION By Joseph Hergesheimer
I
The attitude of mind necessary to a complete enjoyment of the tales in this book must first spring from the realisation that, as stories, they are as different from our own short imaginative fiction as the town of Pescara, on the Adriatic Sea, is different from Marblehead in Massachusetts. It is true that fundamentally the motives of creative writing, at least in the Western Hemisphere, are practically everywhere alike; they are what might be called the primary emotions, hatred and envy, love and cruelty, lust, purity and courage. There are others, but these are sufficient: and an analysis of The Downfall of Candia together with any considerable story native to the United States would disclose a similar genesis.
But men are not so much united by the deeper bonds of a common humanity as they are separated by the superficial aspects and prejudices of society. The New England town and Pescara, at heart very much the same, are far apart in the overwhelming trivialities of civilisation, and Signor D’Annunzio’s tales, read in a local state of being, might as well have remained untranslated. But this difference, of course, lies in the writer, not in his material; and Gabriele D’Annunzio is the special and peculiar product of modern Italy.