Page:Under the shadow of Etna; Sicilian stories from the Italian of Giovanni Verga (IA undershadowofetn00vergrich).pdf/112

86 sheep, and she was not accustomed to the January tramontana wind, which stiffens the hand on the staff, and it seems as if your fingers would drop off, or to furious storms that come, when the water penetrates to your very bones, and again, when the dust drives choking through the streets, when the sheep travel under the boiling sun, or to the hard bed on the ground, and the mouldy bread, and the long, silent, solitary days, when through the arid fields nothing else is seen in the distance but occasionally some sun-burned peasant driving his ass silently along over the white, interminable road.

Jeli knew at least that Mara was warm and comfortable under the quilts, or was spinning in front of the fire, talking with the women of the neighborhood, or was enjoying the sun on the balcony, while he was returning from the pasture tired and thirsty, or wet through with the rain, or when the wind drifted the snow back of his hut and put out his fire of branches.