Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XXVII. Summer
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three sons, all talking at the top of their voices.
Round the table stood their womenfolk in
admiration, according to Neapolitan custom. The
sun was slowly sinking over the sea. For the
first time in my life it seemed a relief to me when
it disappeared at last behind Ischia. Why was I
longing for the twilight and the stars, I the
sun-worshipper, who had been afraid of darkness and
night ever since I was a child? Why had my
eyes been burning so when I looked up to the
glorious sun god? Was he angry with me, was
he going to turn his face away from me and leave
me in the dark, I who was working on my knees
to build him another sanctuary? Was it true
what the tempter in the red mantle had told me
twenty years ago when I looked down upon the
fair island for the first time from the chapel of San
Michele? Was it true that too much light was
not good for mortal eyes?
“Beware of the light! Beware of the light!”
His sinister warning echoed in my ears.
I had accepted his bargain, I had paid his price,
I had sacrificed my future to gain San Michele,
what else did he want of me? What was the
other heavy price he had said I would have to
pay before I died?
A dark cloud suddenly descended over the sea
and over the garden at my feet. My burning
eyelids closed with terror . . .
“Listen, compagni!” shouted the gravedigger
of Rome from the terrace below, “listen to what
I tell you! You peasant folk who only see him
going about in this wretched little village,
bare-footed and with no more clothes on than you have,
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