One day Dario Scossi looked at her, and she no longer appeared so ugly to him. Grief and love, both despairing, seemed to have transfigured her. Those eyes, for instance, so intense with passion; she did not know it, but they were actually beautiful at that moment. Seeing herself gazed at kindly, Carolinona smiled faintly at him, while her eyes filled with tears. And to Dario Scossi that smile seemed sublime.
The vigils continued heroically for about a month, during which time Carolinona, like mother and sweetheart in one, watched anxiously at the sick man’s bedside while he slept, ready to retire into shadow as soon as he awoke. She actually lost flesh, but, illuminated from within by the joy of knowing him safe at last, she became beautiful—really beautiful? No, but—in the opinion of all—more than possible as a wife. “And then,” they added, “if she has won out, that is saying very little. Has she not actually restored him to the world? Biagio is her own from now on.”
But she could not believe in her own happiness until one day Biagio, still in bed, but already convalescent, called her to him, and said in a voice trembling with tenderness, gazing into her eyes, and pressing her hand: “My good Carolina!”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Speranza, in the Italian language, means “hope.”—Translator.
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
BY GRAZIA DELEDDA
Grazia Deledda was born at Nuoro, Sardinia, in 1872. Until her marriage in 1900 she lived in her native province. At scarcely twenty years of age she published a volume of Sardinian tales, and in 1900 obtained her first great success with “Elias Portolù,” which gave her fame throughout Europe. Besides these two volumes, her works consist so far of two collections of short stories, eight romances, and an exquisite drama. Her chief characteristics as a writer are spontaneity of inspiration, truth of observation, and a simplicity of style most refreshing after the labored subtleties of the psychologists. Her characters, all drawn from the surroundings of her early youth, are generally simple souls, living next to nature and full of violent passions.
