The Waters of Edera | Page 5

feed you. Come. Have no fear. I
am Adone Alba, of the Terra Vergine, and my mother is a kind woman.
She will not grudge you a meal."
The child laughed all over her thin, brown face.
"That will be good," she said, and leapt up out of the water.
"Poor soul! Poor soul!" thought the young man, with a profound sense
of pity.

As the child sprang up out of the river, shaking the water off her as a
little terrier does, he saw that she must have been in great want of food
for a long time; her bones were almost through her skin. He set his
fishing pole more firmly in the ground, and left the net sunk some half
a yard below the surface; then he said to the little girl:
"Come, come and break your fast. It has lasted long, I fear."
Nerina only understood that she was to be fed; that was enough for her.
She trotted like a stray cur, beckoned by a benevolent hand, behind him
as he went, first through some heather and broom, then over some grass,
where huge olive trees grew, and then through corn and vine lands, to
an old farmhouse, made of timber and stone; large, long, solid; built to
resist robbers in days when robbers came in armed gangs. There was a
wild garden in front of it, full of cabbage roses, lavender, myrtle, stocks
and wallflowers. Over the arched door a four-season rose-tree
clambered.
The house, ancient and spacious, with its high-pitched roof of ruddy
tiles, impressed Nerina with a sense of awe, almost of terror. She
remained hesitating on the garden path, where white and red stocks
were blossoming.
"Mother," said Adone, "here is a hungry child. Give her, in your
kindness, some broth and bread."
Clelia Alba came out into the entrance, and saw the little girl with some
displeasure. She was kind and charitable, but she did not love beggars
and vagabonds, and this half-naked female tatterdemalion offended her
sense of decency and probity, and her pride of sex. She was herself a
stately and handsome woman.
"The child is famished," said Adone, seeing his mother's displeasure.
"She shall eat then, but let her eat outside," said Clelia Alba, and went
back into the kitchen.
Nerina waited by the threshold, timid and mute and humble, like a lost

dog; her eyes alone expressed overwhelming emotions: fear and hope
and one ungovernable appetite, hunger.
Clelia Alba came out in a few minutes with a bowl of hot broth made
of herbs, and a large piece of maize-flour bread.
"Take them," she said to her son.
Adone took them from her, and gave them to the child.
"Sit and eat here," he said, pointing to a stone settle by the wall under
the rose of four seasons.
The hands of Nerina trembled with excitement, her eyes looked on fire,
her lips shook, her breath came feverishly and fast. The smell of the
soup made her feel beside herself. She said nothing, but seized the food
and began to drink the good herb-broth with thirsty eagerness though
the steam of it scorched her.
Adone, with an instinct of compassion and delicacy, left her unwatched
and went within.
"Where did you find that scarecrow?" asked his mother.
"Down by the river. She has nobody and nothing. She comes from the
mountains."
"There are poor folks enough in Ruscino without adding to them from
without," said Clelia Alba impatiently. "Mind she does not rob the
fowl-house before she slips sway."
"She has honest eyes," said Adone. "I am sure she will do us no harm."
When he thought that she had been given time enough to finish her
food he went out; the child was stretched at full length on the stone seat,
and was already sound asleep, lying on her back; the empty bowl was
on the ground, of the bread there was no longer a crumb; she was
sleeping peacefully, profoundly, her thin hands crossed on her naked
brown bosom, on which some rose leaves had fallen from the rose on

the wall above.
He looked at her in silence for a little while, then returned to his
mother.
"She is tired. She sleeps. Let her rest."
"It is unsafe."
"How unsafe, mother? She is only a child."
"She may have men behind her."
"It is not likely."
Adone could not say (for he had no idea himself) why he felt sure that
this miserable little waif would not abuse hospitality: "She is a child,"
he answered rather stupidly, for children are often treacherous and
wicked, and he knew nothing of this one except what she had chosen to
tell of herself.
"She may have men behind her," repeated his mother.
"Such men as you are thinking of,