Afterward they lay down on the earth and snored like tired animals.
Plowing. Harrowing. Seeding. No task too big, none too small. And always in the twilight hours Giorgio's feet unerringly took him around to the horse barn. Some inner need urged him, drove him, compelled him to gallop into the sunset as regularly as he ate or slept. Was it a need to flaunt his freedom from earth and cobbler's shop? Or to give the horses a taste of Paradise before they went to the butcher's block? He did not know. He knew only that at day's end when he was sweaty, dirt-creased, and limp, he found joy in thundering across the swales as if in the next moment he and his horse could float over the mountain and into the sky.
The seasons wore on. The festivals came again, and again Giorgio rode for Signor Ramalli. The Umbrella Man came and went, and with his coming the Palio dream intensified, yet remained always the same—always beautiful, always on the other side of the mountain, always out of reach. Winter closed in and the days in the cobbler's shop piled up endlessly, one on top of another, and all were alike.
One day in the following spring, Giorgio felt as if his life had come to a standstill. He seemed to be marking time, doing the same things over and over and over again, working each summer in the fields, riding each fall in little unimportant races, sweating out each winter in the cobbler's shop. He was like a turnspit dog, running in a treadmill cage, smelling the roast but never tasting it.
In this mood of despair he arrived home to find the family in a high state of excitement. They met him at the door, all speaking at once.
"A letter! A letter! A letter!"
"For you comes a letter!"
"It says: 'Sig. Terni Giorgio.'"
"Open it, quick!"
Everyone waited on Giorgio as if he were king. Emilio hung up his lunch bag after fingering inside for the crumbs. Teria brought him a cup of hot coffee.