# The Games of Life, Easter

I giuochi della vita · Grazia Deledda · The Games of Life

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/deledda/pasqua. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/deledda/pasqua.json.


La mattina del Sabato Santo, Apollonia Fara balzò dal suo gran letto di legno a baldacchino, quando l’alba cominciava a mettere un glauco riflesso sull’unico vetro del finestruolo.  
On the morning of Holy Saturday, Apollonia Fara sprang from her great canopied wooden bed, just as dawn began to lay a sea-green gleam on the little window's single pane of glass.
> Passato remoto: the narrative past: «Balzò» ('she sprang') is passato remoto, the tense Italian narrative prose reaches for to name a single completed action in the story's own past — distinct from the imperfect, which paints an ongoing backdrop. Deledda opens on this decisive verb to launch Apollonia into motion.
Unico vetro grossolano, ma stupendo per il piccolo quadro che ci si vedeva; un paesaggio che nella freschezza chiara e quasi sbiadita dell’incipiente primavera pareva dipinto dal Poussin: una falda di collina, un ruscello azzurro e tortuoso e alberi radi pittoreschi, i cui rami, verdi di musco, cominciavano ad ornarsi di foglioline tenere: ed erba, erba dappertutto, bassa erbetta chiara che dava una impressione di purezza e d’innocenza a chi guardava.  
A single coarse pane, but marvelous for the small picture it framed: a landscape which, in the clear and almost faded freshness of early spring, seemed painted by Poussin — a fold of hillside, a blue and winding brook, and picturesque, scattered trees whose branches, green with moss, were just beginning to dress themselves in tender little leaves; and grass, grass everywhere, low pale grass that gave whoever looked at it an impression of purity and innocence.
Mentre indossava il suo costume giallo e rosso, Apollonia osservò il cielo attraverso il vetro, poi andò a guardare entro una corba intessuta d’asfodelo, colma di farina lievitata fin dalla sera prima, e sulla quale ella aveva segnato col dito la santa croce.  
While she was putting on her yellow and red costume, Apollonia studied the sky through the glass, then went to look inside a basket woven of asphodel, full of flour that had been rising since the evening before, and on which she had traced the holy cross with her finger.
> «corba»: A «corba» is a large woven basket, often made of rushes or, as here, «asfodelo» (asphodel stalks) — a traditional Sardinian container for kneading and proofing bread dough.
La farina s’era un po’ sollevata intorno a questo segno di buon augurio.  
The flour had risen a little around this sign of good omen.

La giovine donna prese la corba sulle braccia bianche robuste e la portò nell’attigua cucina: impasto la farina, poi accese il forno e preparò il caffè.  
The young woman took the basket in her strong white arms and carried it into the adjoining kitchen: she kneaded the flour, then lit the oven and made the coffee.
> Passato remoto chain: Three passato remoto verbs in a row — «impasto» (kneaded; here printed without its accent, standard would be «impastò»), «accese» (lit), «preparò» (made) — narrate one sequence of completed kitchen actions, each simply following the last.
A misura che il giorno schiarivasi roseo e tiepido, Apollonia pensava con trepidanza:  
As the day grew bright, rosy and mild, Apollonia thought with trepidation:

— Egli verrà alle otto, forse alle nove, forse più tardi, forse domani.  
"He will come at eight, maybe at nine, maybe later, maybe tomorrow."
> Dash for dialogue: Italian prose often opens direct speech (or, as here, a character's unspoken thought) with an em-dash rather than quotation marks. The dash alone signals the shift into Apollonia's own words.
O Gesù mio, piccolo Gesù Cristo mio!  
"Oh my Jesus, my little Jesus Christ!"
Bene, non ci voglio neppur pensare, venga quando vuole.  
"Well, I don't even want to think about it — let him come whenever he likes."

Ma suo malgrado ricadeva nel solito pensiero.  
But in spite of herself she fell back into the same thought.
La persona di cui ella aspettava e temeva la venuta era il giovine Vicario, che doveva visitar le case del paese, per la benedizione pasquale.  
The person whose arrival she awaited and dreaded was the young Vicar, who was to visit the houses of the village for the Easter blessing.
Il giovine Vicario era stato, qualche anno prima, fidanzato con Apollonia, ma ella lo aveva abbandonato per sposarsi con un ricco pastore.  
The young Vicar had, some years before, been engaged to Apollonia, but she had abandoned him to marry a rich shepherd.
Il giovine, pazzamente innamorato di lei, aveva tentato suicidarsi, sparandosi una revolverata al fianco; salvato a stento, egli, poi, s’era fatto prete.  
The young man, madly in love with her, had tried to kill himself by firing a revolver shot into his side; saved with great difficulty, he had afterward become a priest.
> Reflexive gerund «sparandosi»: «Sparandosi una revolverata al fianco» = 'firing a revolver-shot into his own side' — the reflexive gerund «sparandosi» (from «spararsi», 'to shoot oneself') packs both the action and its self-directed target into one word.
> «farsi» + noun: to become: «Farsi» plus a noun/profession means 'to become' by one's own choice: «s'era fatto prete» = 'he had become a priest' (had made himself a priest), distinct from «era diventato», which would suggest something happening to him rather than a chosen path.
Da poco tempo era tornato in paese col titolo di Vicario, ed ogni volta che vedeva Apollonia diventava un po’ pallido.  
He had only recently returned to the village with the title of Vicar, and every time he saw Apollonia he turned a little pale.
Ella lo guardava con indifferenza; quella mattina però sentiva un certo fastidio nel pensare che egli sarebbe entrato nella sua casa per benedire il suo pane ed il suo letto ancora infecondo: e quando spalancò il finestrino per guardare la processione che passava salmodiando, e vide il viso magro e spaventato del Vicario, si turbò.  
She looked at him with indifference; that morning, however, she felt a certain unease at the thought that he would come into her house to bless her bread and her still-barren bed: and when she threw open the little window to watch the procession passing by chanting psalms, and saw the Vicar's thin, frightened face, she was troubled.
> Pronominal verb «turbarsi»: «Turbarsi» ('to become troubled/upset') is a pronominal verb: the reflexive «si» turns the plain verb «turbare» ('to trouble someone') into something that happens to the subject herself — 'she grew troubled', not 'she troubled [something]'.
Rimase tuttavia a guardare: precedeva la processione una Madonna bruna con sette spade confitte nel cuore, che andava in cerca del Figliuolo morto; seguiva lo stendardo di broccato verde venivano poi i musicisti paesani e le donne vestite a lutto.  
Still, she stayed to watch: at the head of the procession went a dark-skinned Madonna with seven swords driven into her heart, searching for her dead Son; the green brocade banner followed, and then came the village musicians and the women dressed in mourning.
Quando tutto sparì in fondo alla strada campestre, Apollonia ritornò al suo forno ed alla sua farina impastata, della quale fece mirabilmente il pane per la Pasqua, pane bianchissimo, tutto intagliato e traforato; le casadinas, focaccie di pasta e di formaggio fresco ingiallito con lo zafferano e certe figurine in forma di bimbi fasciati, di mummie, di uccelli, che per testa avevano un grosso uovo cotto.  
When everything had vanished down the country road, Apollonia went back to her oven and her kneaded flour, from which she wonderfully made the Easter bread — the whitest of bread, all carved and pierced with openwork — and the casadinas, little cakes of dough and fresh cheese yellowed with saffron, and certain small figures shaped like swaddled babies, mummies, and birds, each with a large hard-boiled egg for a head.
> «casadinas»: «Casadinas» (also «pardulas») are traditional Sardinian Easter pastries: little cheese-and-saffron tarts, here shaped into figures — swaddled infants, mummies, birds — each topped with a whole hard-boiled egg.
Nella casetta deserta e nella campagna soleggiata regnava un profondo silenzio; le campane tacevano, legate per la morte di Nostro Signore, e tutte le cose partecipavano a questo silenzio, in attesa di un arcano avvenimento; solo qualche uccello cominciava a cantare fra le siepi, ma tosto taceva, quasi impaurito dal silenzio che interrompeva.  
A deep silence reigned in the deserted little house and over the sunlit countryside; the bells were still, bound for the death of Our Lord, and everything shared in this silence, waiting for some mysterious event; only a bird now and then began to sing among the hedges, but soon fell silent again, as if frightened by the silence it had broken.
> Bells 'bound' for Good Friday: «Legate» ('bound, tied') describes church bells traditionally silenced from the death of Christ until the Easter announcement — a real Sardinian and wider Italian custom; the silence breaks all at once when the bells ring loose again, as happens later in this story.

Le ore passarono ed il Vicario non venne.  
The hours passed and the Vicar did not come.
Verso le dieci Apollonia sentì come un brivido passare per l’aria; anch’ella ebbe un sussulto e sollevò la testa, ascoltando.  
Around ten o'clock Apollonia felt something like a shiver pass through the air; she too gave a start and raised her head, listening.
Le campane suonarono.  
The bells rang out.
E attraverso il loro primo squillo risuonò uno sparo, poi un altro, poi altri tre, poi dieci, poi cento.  
And through their first peal came the sound of a shot, then another, then three more, then ten, then a hundred.
Grida e voci di letizia quasi folle accompagnavano il suono delle campane e lo scoppio delle fucilate ripetuto dall’eco della collina.  
Shouts and voices of almost frenzied joy accompanied the sound of the bells and the crack of the gunshots, echoed back by the hillside.
Frotte di bambini passarono cantando per il villaggio:  
Bands of children passed through the village singing:

Lagrime di gioia mistica velarono gli occhi di Apollonia.  
Tears of mystic joy veiled Apollonia's eyes.
Ella finì di cuocere il suo pane, le sue focaccie, i suoi dolci pasquali; e nel pomeriggio ricevette da vicini parenti ed amici, e ricambiò regali di pane, dolci, carne.  
She finished baking her bread, her flatcakes, her Easter sweets; and in the afternoon she received gifts from neighbors, relatives, and friends, and gave back gifts of bread, sweets, and meat.
Ad ogni nuovo regalo ella compiacevasi confrontare il pane ricevuto con quello fatto da lei, felice di trovare più bianco e più ben fatto il suo.  
With every new gift she delighted in comparing the bread she received with the bread she had made, happy to find her own whiter and better made.
Verso sera tornò dall’ovile il marito; tornò sul suo forte cavallo bianco, con una bisaccia colma di latticini, e con due agnelli, uno bianco e l’altro nero, che dovevano servire per il banchetto pasquale.  
Toward evening her husband returned from the sheepfold; he came back on his sturdy white horse, with a saddlebag full of dairy foods, and with two lambs, one white and the other black, which were to serve for the Easter feast.
> «ovile»: An «ovile» is a sheepfold or shepherd's enclosure — here the isolated pasture station where Apollonia's husband keeps his flock, matching the story's pastoral Sardinian setting.
Era ricco, il marito di Apollonia, ma come tutti i mariti ricchi che hanno sposato ragazze povere, era brutto e vecchiotto: nel suo viso giallognolo solo il naso e un po’ della fronte e un po’ delle guancie, emergevano fra una nuvola nera, di barba e di capelli arruffati.  
Apollonia's husband was rich, but like all rich husbands who have married poor girls, he was ugly and rather old: in his sallow face only the nose, a bit of the forehead, and a bit of the cheeks emerged from a black cloud of tangled beard and hair.
> Present perfect for a lived-in past: «hanno sposato» (present perfect: 'have married') describes a completed marriage whose consequences persist into the present — unlike the passato remoto used elsewhere for the finished narrative past, this is a generalizing aside about rich husbands as a type.
Il sabato sera cominciarono le feste pasquali: il ricco pastore invitò a casa sua parenti, amici, vicini, e tutti cantarono, improvvisando canzoni di gioia in onore di Nostro Signore Risorto.  
On Saturday evening the Easter festivities began: the rich shepherd invited relatives, friends, and neighbors to his house, and everyone sang, improvising songs of joy in honor of Our Risen Lord.
Intanto mangiavano le focaccie e bevevano vino, assenzio ed acquavite.  
Meanwhile they ate the flatcakes and drank wine, absinthe, and brandy.
Manco a dirlo, tutti si ubriacarono, per far dispetto ai Giudei che avevano crocifisso Gesù Nostro.  
Needless to say, everyone got drunk, to spite the Jews who had crucified Our Jesus.

Anche l’indomani mattina Apollonia s’alzò all’alba, perchè doveva per mezzodì preparare il pranzo pasquale.  
The next morning too Apollonia rose at dawn, because she had to have the Easter dinner ready by noon.
A misura che il sole saliva sopra la collina, la giovine donna si turbava nuovamente pensando alla visita del Vicario.  
As the sun rose above the hill, the young woman grew troubled again, thinking of the Vicar's visit.
Ah!  
Ah!
oggi verrà, verrà certamente.  
today he will come, he will surely come.
Apollonia sa che anch’egli si è alzato all’alba, e, vestito degli abiti sacri, seguito da un uomo con una bisaccia sulle spalle e da un fanciullo con una secchia di acqua benedetta, fa le visite alle quali non ha potuto accudire ieri.  
Apollonia knows that he too has risen at dawn, and, dressed in his sacred vestments, followed by a man with a saddlebag over his shoulders and a boy with a pail of holy water, is making the visits he was unable to attend to yesterday.
In ogni casa le donne gettano entro la bisaccia pane, focaccie, frutta secche, e nella secchia uova e monete.  
In every house the women drop bread, flatcakes, and dried fruit into the saddlebag, and eggs and coins into the pail.
> «bisaccia»: A «bisaccia» is a double saddlebag slung over the shoulder or a mule's back — the traditional container in which the priest's attendant collects household offerings during the Easter house-blessing round.
Davanti alla casa di Apollonia egli arrivò verso le nove; l’uomo della bisaccia si curvava sotto il peso dei regali avuti, e il fanciullo, con la secchia quasi colma di uova e di monete, pareva avesse attinto ad un pozzo miracoloso.  
He arrived in front of Apollonia's house around nine; the man with the saddlebag stooped under the weight of the gifts he had received, and the boy, with his pail almost full of eggs and coins, looked as if he had drawn water from a miraculous well.
Il sacerdote entrò senza chieder permesso nella casa di Apollonia, e per la prima volta dacchè rivedeva la giovine donna, non impallidì, mentre impallidiva lei.  
The priest entered Apollonia's house without asking leave, and for the first time since he had begun seeing the young woman again, he did not turn pale — while she turned pale instead.
> «dacchè» = 'since' (archaic): «Dacchè» is an older, literary form of «da quando» / «dal momento che» ('since, ever since'), typical of Deledda's early-1900s prose register.
Avrebbe egli benedetto o maledetto la casa dove viveva felice colei che lo aveva condotto fin sul limitare della morte?  
Would he bless, or curse, the house where the woman who had driven him to the very threshold of death now lived happily?
> Conditional perfect for a wondered-at past-future: «Avrebbe benedetto» is the conditional perfect ('would have blessed'), used here inside free indirect discourse to render Apollonia's silent question about what the Vicar was about to do — a 'future in the past' cast as conjecture rather than fact.
Ella si faceva questa domanda con una specie di terrore, giacchè nei piccoli paesi sardi si crede che i sacerdoti possano, per mezzo dei libri sacri, scomunicare e maledire con molta efficacia.  
She asked herself this question with a kind of terror, for in the small villages of Sardinia it is believed that priests, by means of the sacred books, can excommunicate and curse with great effect.
> Impersonal «si»: «Si crede» ('it is believed / people believe') is the impersonal «si» construction: no specific subject is named, only a general, communal belief — the village's collective voice rather than the narrator's own claim.
Ma bastò che Apollonia guardasse il viso inspirato del sacerdote ed il gesto soave col quale egli prese l’aspersorio lucente e sparse l’acqua santa di qua, di là, di su, di sotto, perchè ella si convincesse che anche in cuor suo egli benediceva.  
But it was enough for Apollonia to look at the priest's inspired face and the gentle gesture with which he took up the gleaming aspergillum and scattered the holy water here and there, above and below, for her to become convinced that in his heart, too, he was blessing her.
> «aspersorio»: An «aspersorio» is an aspergillum, the metal wand-and-perforated-ball tool a priest uses to sprinkle holy water during a blessing.
> Congiuntivo after «bastare che»: «Bastò che Apollonia guardasse» ('it was enough that Apollonia should look') puts the verb after «bastare che» into the congiuntivo imperfetto («guardasse», not «guardò»); Italian requires the subjunctive in the clause naming what was sufficient, not the plain indicative.
Allora ella aprì l’uscio che chiudeva la stanza delle provviste; egli benedisse il pane, le focaccie, il frumento, i legumi, il formaggio.  
Then she opened the door that closed off the storeroom; he blessed the bread, the flatcakes, the wheat, the vegetables, the cheese.
Apollonia sopraccaricò la bisaccia con due grandi pani, cinque focaccie, una corona di fichi secchi: poi rientrò col sacerdote in cucina, e timidamente aprì l’uscio che dava nella camera da letto.  
Apollonia loaded the saddlebag with two great loaves, five flatcakes, and a garland of dried figs: then she went back with the priest into the kitchen, and timidly opened the door that led into the bedroom.
Dal finestruolo penetrava una vivissima luce d’oro.  
Through the little window came a very bright golden light.
Col respiro sospeso, muta e pallida, Apollonia guardò il prete.  
With bated breath, mute and pale, Apollonia looked at the priest.
Ah!  
Ah!
anch’egli s’era fatto un po’ bianco in viso; ma la sua mano soave versava la benedizione sul letto nuziale, augurando fecondità.  
he too had gone a little pale in the face; but his gentle hand poured the blessing over the marriage bed, wishing it fruitfulness.

Allora Apollonia gettò la sua offerta nella secchia e una lagrima cadde sull’acqua santa, formando un piccolo cerchio nel gran cerchio fatto dalla moneta.  
Then Apollonia dropped her offering into the pail, and a tear fell onto the holy water, forming a small circle within the great circle made by the coin.
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Source text: public domain (Grazia Deledda, d. 1936; collection first published 1905). English translation: © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC — original draft, pending editorial review.