The Sermon on the Fall of Rome, стр. 9

and went on cursing because the pig, that was paying very dearly for its late puberty, was making desperate efforts to escape its tormentor’s grip, it twisted this way and that, the dust flew, and it uttered cries that now seemed almost human, so that Virgile eventually gave up. The pig stood up and sought refuge in a corner of the pen, with a sullen air and shaking legs, its long ears, spotted with black, dangling over its eyes.

“Will it die?” asked Matthieu.

Virgile joined them, the bowl under his arm, wiping the sweat from his brow and laughed and said,

“Oh no, he’ll not die. He’s just a bit dazed. They’re tough, pigs. They don’t die like that,”

and he laughed again and asked,

“Well, guys, how’s it going? Shall we go and eat?”

and Matthieu realized that the bowl contained their meal and tried not to let any of his surprise show because this was his world, even if all of it was not yet known to him, and each surprise, however daunting, must be denied on the spot and made over into habit, though in this case the dullness of habit was a far cry from the relish Matthieu felt as he stuffed himself with pigs’ balls grilled over a wood fire, while a great wind drove the clouds toward the mountain, above a little chapel dedicated to the Virgin, a completely white chapel at whose foot burned the scarlet candles Sauveur and Virgile occasionally lit in honor of their companion in solitude, and the hands that had built this chapel had long since been swept away by the wind, but they had left traces of their existence here, and higher up, along a steep slope, the remains of collapsed walls could be seen, almost invisible because they were of the same red color as the granite rock from whence they had arisen before the mountain took them back, slowly absorbing them into its bosom, all covered in stones and thistles, as if to make a show, not of its power, but of its tenderness. Sauveur heated a pan of terrible coffee on the fire, speaking to Virgile and his brother in a language Matthieu did not understand but knew to be his own, and he listened to them, as he drank the boiling hot coffee, imagining that he could understand them, although their words had no more meaning for him than the roar of the river whose unseen torrents could be heard surging along the base of a steep chasm that ripped through the mountain like a deep wound, a furrow traced by God’s finger at the beginning of the world. After the meal they followed Virgile into a room where cheeses were drying and he opened a vast old trunk that was filled with an appalling collection of relics, curb bits, rusty old stirrups, pairs of military boots of all sizes with leather so stiff they seemed as if made of bronze, and he took out an army rifle wrapped in rags, as well as various pieces of ironmongery which Matthieu was amazed to learn were Sten guns that had been parachuted down in such great numbers that they could still be found in the maquis, where they had been waiting for sixty years to be retrieved, and Virgile laughed and told them his father had been a great resistance fighter, the terror of the Italians, in the days when Ribeddu and his men trod the same ground, moving silently at night, their ears cocked for the sound of aircraft engines, and Virgile patted Matthieu on the shoulder as he listened open-mouthed, picturing himself as a formidable hero, too.

“Come on. We’re going to fire it.”

Virgile checked the rifle, took some bullets and they went and sat on a great rock overhanging the ravine and, one after the other, they fired across at the mountain’s opposing face, the echo of the shots was lost in the forest of Vaddi Mali and great drifts of mist were now rising up from the sea and the valley, Matthieu felt cold, the recoil from the rifle hurt his shoulder and his happiness was complete.