Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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MONGIBELLO
31
them. And then they could never come free. No
indeed!
The lava was not unproductive, as he thought.
Although no grass grew, there was always
something to see. But he could never guess what it was.
It groped and fell; it tumbled and crept; it moved
on its knees, on its head, and on its elbows. It came
up the sides of the valley and down the sides of the
valley; it was all thorns and knots; it had a cloak
of spider’s-web and a wig of dust, and as many
joints as a worm. Could it be anything but the
cactus? Did he know that the cactus goes out on
the lava and breaks the ground like a peasant? Did
he know that nothing but the cactus can do anything
with the lava?
Now she looked at Father Josef and made a funny
face. The cactus was the best goblin to be found
on Etna; but goblins were goblins. The cactus
was a Turk, for it kept female slaves. No sooner
had the cactus taken root anywhere than it must
have almond trees near it. Almond trees are fine
and shining signoras. They hardly dare to go out
on the black surface, but that does not help them.
Out they must, and out they are. Oh, Gaetano
should see if he came there. When the almond
trees stand white with their blossoms in the spring
on the black field among the gray cacti, they are so
innocent and beautiful that one could weep over
them as over captive princesses.
Now he must know where Monte Chiaro lay. It
shot up from the bottom of that black valley. She
tried to make her umbrella stand on the floor. It
stood so. It stood right up. It had never thought
of either sitting or lying. And Monte Chiaro was
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