She could not account to herself why she was so sure that God had spoken to her through the storm. As she limped along, getting the goats together and leading them down to the village, she seemed to be thinking in the manner of those old women who believed God was always there turning their neighbors’ milk sour and sparing their own, or causing children to be born crippled or simpleminded in return for some slight. Was that God’s work, to mete out such misfortunes, or to send a storm in order to straighten out her thoughts?

Umbertina could not believe all the miracles the old women were always recounting, because she could see that much of it was how things were done, well or badly—or simply luck, good or bad. But she could and did believe in signs that were powerful.

Her thinking had been changed; it was God’s sign to her, through the storm, that she should not think further of Giosuè.

She accepted this as naturally as she did Beppino’s telling their father there was talk in the village about his sister and the charcoal burner from Carlopoli. That same night her father told Umbertina that it was time for him to think of finding her a husband.

Umbertina, a realist, accepted what her father said.

Chapter Two

Umbertina was herding the goats back into the village when she saw a tall man coming up the path from the valley. She noticed him because he was not dressed like someone of the region. He wore long trousers and a cap that was not the usual soft one that fell in a fold upon the shoulder, but a strange little one with a brim that tilted to one side; and yet he could not be a signore since he was walking. She thought he must be a foreigner, someone from the coast or even the North, until he came nearer. He stopped and took off his cap and wiped his brow with a cloth. His thin, graying hair receded from his forehead. Then, though his face was worn and thin, she recognized by the blue of his eyes that it was Serafino Longobardi, the shepherd who had gone to America.

Serafino’s name was his nature; in a land of violent feelings and emotions that came quickly, he was instead seraphic. It was as if his temperament derived from the ingenuous candor of his blue eyes. They were of a blue seldom found in Italians, especially those of the South, and were the reason he was known as il normanno. The Normans who had built the abbey in the valley had also added blue eyes and tall stature to the Bruttian stock. Still, Serafino, whose name was Longobardi, must have descended from those other Northmen, the Lombard hordes who had swept through the old empire earlier than the Normans, devastating it while disseminating their seed.

Serafino was breathing hard and coughing into the patterned cloth that he now held to his mouth. He continued to rest, and saw, as he looked around, a strong-limbed girl balancing a load of brush upon the square cloth on her head and urging on a small flock of goats. She stood tall and straight though she was of short build; her bust was high and rounded, and full hips swelled beneath her skirt, promising the fertility of her race. The roundness of her face softened the thrust of her aggressive chin. Her eyes seemed to carry the lights of the forest, greenish and brownish tones mingling in variegated shades, and as they caught Serafino’s eyes, she lowered them in shyness.