_ASHES_ (_CENERE_) _A SARDINIAN STORY_ _BY_ _GRAZIA DELEDDA_ _TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN_ _BY_ _HELEN HESTER COLVILL_ _Author of "The Stepping-Stone," &c., and Translator of Grazia Deledda's "Nostalgia," the Serial in the Fortnightly Review, 1895. _LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD_ _NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPY. MCMVIII_ CONTENTS PART I Chapter I II III IV V VI VII VIII PART II Chapter I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX _ASHES_ PART I I It was the night of Midsummer Eve. Olì came forth from the white-walled Cantoniera[1] on the Mamojada road, and hurried away across the fields. She was fifteen, well-grown and beautiful, with very large, very bright, feline eyes of greenish grey, and a sensuous mouth of which the cleft lower lip suggested two ripe cherries. She wore a red petticoat and stiff brocade bodice sustaining and defining her bosom; from the red cap tied under her prominent chin, issued two braids of glossy black hair twisted over her ears. This hair-dressing and the picturesque costume gave the girl an almost Oriental grace. Her fingers were heavily ringed, and she carried long streamers of scarlet ribbon, with which to "_sign the flowers of St John_," that is, to mark those bunches of mullein, thyme, and asphodel which she must pick to-morrow at dawn for the compounding of charms and drugs. True, even were the _signing_ omitted, there was small danger of anyone's touching Olì's selected plants; the fields round the Cantoniera, where she lived with her father and her little brothers, were completely deserted. Only one tumble-down house was in sight, emerging from a field of corn like a rock out of a green lake. Everywhere in the country round, the wild Sardinian spring[2] was on its death-bed; the flowers of the asphodel, the golden balls of the broom were dropping; the roses showed pale in the thickets, the grass was already yellow; a hot odour of hay perfumed the heavy air. The Milky Way and the distant splendour of the horizon, which seemed a band of far off sea, made the night clear as twilight. The dark blue heaven and its stars were reflected in the scanty waters of the river. On its bank, Olì found two of her little brothers looking for crickets. "Go home this moment!" she said, in her beautiful, still childish voice. "No!" replied one of the little fellows. "Then you won't see the heavens burst to-night. Good children on the night of St John see the heavens open, and then they can look into Paradise, and see the Lord, and the angels, and the Holy Spirit. What you'll see is a hobgoblin if you don't go straight back home!" "All right," said the elder, impressed; and though the other protested, he allowed himself to be led away.