Colpi di scure

The wind shakes the rifles and the shepherd-knives of the old shepherd hanging from an enormous holm oak on Monte Albu: it feels like being beneath the sacred oaks of the Druids, hung with fateful weapons, in the forests of primitive Gaul.

And the old man too, seated on the roots of the holm oak and intent on carving a strange design onto a horn snuffbox, has a priestly air: he has slanted eyes beneath a broad brow furrowed with dark wrinkles, a great aquiline nose, and a gray-reddish beard whose tips form two thick curls and reach down to his belt.

Deep in the wood, unbroken blows of the axe are heard, repeated by the echo, and it seems that the whole forest trembles at them.

And the tree, wild and strong as a lion, which has swallowed lightning bolts and sheltered outlaws from the fury of the storm, and the old shepherd, from whom the years have not been able to tear the wolf's teeth and the reddish hair, await the new devastators, whose axe is more powerful than the thunderbolt and than time: they await them with the same stoic impassivity with which they await death.

Day by day, hour by hour, the axe blows resound nearer and louder, while the whole forest covers itself with golden flowers and the June wind grows warmer and more fragrant.

Never was the forest more beautiful or more in bloom: perhaps it senses that its last spring has come, and wants to intoxicate itself on its warmth and its fragrances, to forget that death is drawing near.

On one side of the snuffbox one can make out a man wrestling with a fellow man and throwing him down: on the other, a man facing and stabbing a fierce wild boar.

To Uncle Cosma the two deeds, of which he was the hero, carry equal worth: and the ancient holm oak watches the old artist's work with the same solemnity with which it witnessed the reality of the deeds now immortalized on the horn snuffbox.

A young Swiss charcoal-burner, tall and quick, with a smiling face like that of a child who has painted himself up as a joke, comes forward whistling an air from La Traviata, and from a distance shows the old shepherd a black bottle.

"You'll get no milk from me, as sure as Saint Francis is true!"

Drink yourself a little gunpowder dissolved in kerosene, if you're thirsty.

And go to the devil, you and whoever brought you here.

Who are you, filth?…

Are you a man? Uncle Cosma asks with lordly contempt.

"You have blue eyes, and feet and hands like cradles: yes, in holy truth, the cork cradles hung with horsehair cords from the rafters of the houses of Onanì are smaller than your hands."

Yes, go on and look at this snuffbox: it's made of horn, yes, of horn.

Do you know what horn is, what horns are?

Do you have a wife?

"And these are men?"

Do you have a wife?

"And do you have daughters?"

Father Cosma, I know your daughters.

I saw them dancing, on Sunday, in the church square.

What?

What do you know, you louse, cat-eyes, horned foreigner?

If you dare call me Father Cosma again I'll club you, as sure as Saint Francis is true.

Deep in the forest the wind can be heard shivering sadly: the blows of the axes arrive distinct.

"Everything?"

Get out or I'll kill you, I'll crush you like a lizard.

The young man no longer smiles, and leaps to his feet, troubled by the old man's savage cry.

"Are you afraid of my eyes?"

Young man made of fennel-stalk, little statue carved out of a prickly-pear leaf!

And is it you who comes to flush out the old vulture?

But I'll gouge your eyes out.

"Get out!" he goes on.

"Won't you move?"

Listen, do you see this image, on the snuffbox?

Understand?

Have you understood?

And tell it to them.

And get out right now, or else trouble!

He thinks of the old man's pretty daughters, one of whom, white and slender as a lily, smiled at him with her large, tempting black eyes.

But he's likeable.

Who knows!

The old man makes a feline leap, snatches a rifle down from the holm oak, while the young man flees, laughing like a child.

"Those are not men."

Now they'll be afraid to come near.

The blows of the axes, echoed back, seem to repeat: