The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎657r] (204/239)

NOSTALGIA.
BY
GRAZIA DELEDDA,
Author of “ Cenere,” <£c.
Translated by Helen Hester Colvill.
III.
That winter was cold in Rome, and the rain seemed endless. Even
days which began fine grew suddenly dark; the wind rose, and down
came a deluge. Luckily, the showers did not last. Soon the pave
ments dried, the clouds blew away, the sky became blue, as if smiling
at an accomplished jest. The people, however, came home with
their clothes drenched, their boots soaking, their chests racked with
coughs, and their bosoms with evil temper.
Your famous Roman sky seems to me a lunatic asylum without
any warders,” said Regina to her husband; “ a bedlam where the
raging clouds do whatever they like.”
And that rainy winter proved one of the saddest in the young wife’s
whole life. True, she loved Antonio; the first day he left her to
resume his work she felt a profound emptiness, and knew herself
henceforth attached to him as firmly as the bark to the tree.
But existence in the Casa Venutelli, association with her mother-
in-law, the presence of Sor Gaspare, the gloomy bedroom with those
immense armchairs, heavy as vulgar destiny, proved altogether un
bearable.
And Rome was horrible under the continuous rain, which had
something malicious and mocking about it. People hurried through
the streets, their faces livid; the women showed petticoat-edges
pasted with mud; the heaven itself was soiled; and Regina’s soul
made shipwreck amid this ocean of mud and water. She would
come in drenched and exasperated; within-doors it was cold; there
was no fire, and there was continual annoyance. She was uncom
fortable at table in those old round chairs, opposite the sarcastic
countenance of Massimo, Sor Gaspare’s red visage, the enormous
panting bosom of Signora Anna. At night she was worse off still
on that lumpy mattress, in the cold air which was pervaded by the
rumble of the trams, and the melancholy rolling of purposeless
carriages.
Was this the life of Rome? Nay, was this Rome? What? This
the famous Corso—this narrow, smelly, mud-splashed street, with
its carriage loads of old and hideous women, its foot passengers