VI
SILVESTRO
The guard at the Porta San Zuan let them go unheeded; one ragamuffin more or less made no odds. The heart of the new-born Silvestro gave a great bound as they cleared the gate, and she saw before her the straight white road with its border of silver stems and the spreading tent-roof of golden green. These stems were so obviously like the pillars of a church that Silvestro ventured to remark as much to her neighbour—a broad-faced, thick fellow, not quite her own height, but twice as big in the girth. His mouth was large, his eyes were small and rather hot. He blinked a good deal, was very sulky, and met her advances with a grunt. "Chi lo sa?" was as far as he would go along with her in the matter of tree-trunks.
It was annoying. Every one had seemed friendly at first. But being free, she could not feel daunted long; and at the second bend of the road the hills sailed into full vision—the solemn hills in a long line of peak and hollow, velvety, dark, and brooding sleep, like a bank of cloud edging the pale sky. The frogs were singing vespers in the ditches, the sharp chorus of the cicalas shrilled on all sides. At
108
