On they rode. They had crossed the valley and were now climbing the mountain on the far side. The sun sank, the horizon widened, the countryside lost its look of utter desolation. Long shadows stretched down from the mountain tops, carpeting the low scrub, where a few dog-roses still bloomed. A slight breeze sprang up, filling the air with wild fragrance. Everyone’s spirits lifted at the sudden shade and coolness. One of the company, joining the two women, began on a story about a strange event that had befallen a friend of his in that very place. At one point the story became so racy that even Giovanna gave a faint smile.

The sun began to set, and from high in the mountains they glimpsed the sea that looked like a streak of bluish smoke on the clear horizon. Beyond the moorland where the plants were hardy enough to withstand the ravaging winter winds and the scorching summer suns, high on the melancholy plain, lost in a sea of light and solitude, stood Orlei, the tiny village where the Era family lived, with its rough, sturdy people, who made their living by rearing sheep and growing wheat and honey.

Green pastures dotted with rocks and, in spring with clumps of asphodel and fragrant with mint and thyme, wheatfields hemmed in the little cluster of slate cottages that gleamed like burnished silver. Here and there huge trees spread their shade over a quail’s nest hidden in the corn. In the far distance lay green rows of tamarisk, thickets of thyme and arbutus, and the limitless stretches of the high plain itself, spread out under a sky of indescribable softness and sadness. On the right, against that same sky, blue in the morning, mauve in the afternoon, and violet or bronze in the evening, the mountains rose like huge sphinxes, their sides covered by forests, alive with eagles and vultures.

Towards evening, while Monte Bellu, huge and mysterious as a sphinx-colossus was growing violet against an ash-grey sky, the Era women and their companions reached the village. It was silent and deserted. On the rough paving-stones the horses’ hooves clattered like a shower of pebbles. The company dispersed, the two women going on alone to their own cottage which stood in an open space above the level of the street. Another house, coated with whitewash, overlooked it. Growing beside the dry stone wall of the Era courtyard, a large almond tree shaded the street below at a point where the open fields began. Here and there on the bare patch under the almond tree, in front of the Eras’ dark cottage and the Dejas’ white one, large stones had been placed to serve as seats. This space had become a kind of common courtyard shared between the neighbouring houses.