SUNNY HONEYMOON
655
She nodded, turning her head away in order not to meet his
eyes. Feeling easier in his mind, Giacomo quickly got dressed. A few
steps away, Simona pulled on her shorts and jersey and started to
throw her bag over one shoulder. But with a tender protectiveness
such as he had not displayed on the way down, Giacomo said:
"I'll carry that for you."
They started off. First they crossed the flatland, where the pale
green branches of the prickly pears seemed to gleam discordantly
against the dark sky.
As
they reached the beginning of the slope
they turned around to look behind them. The pink and white light–
house stood out against a majestic mass of black storm clouds rising
from the horizon to invade that part of the sky which was still empty.
These clouds, shaped like great rampant beasts, had smoking under–
bellies, and irregular fringes hung down from them over the sea,
which was spottily darkening in some places, while in others it still
shone like burnished lead in the sun. The fringes were gusts of rain,
just beginning to comb the surface of the water. Meanwhile a
turbulent wind covered the prickly pears with yellow dust and a
blinding stroke of lightning zigzagged diagonally across the sky from
one far point to another. After a long silence they heard the thunder,
no clap but rather a dull rumble within the clouds. Giacomo saw
his wife pale and instinctively shrink toward hiin.
"Lightning scares me to death," she said, looking at him.
Giacomo raised his eyes to the half-clear, half-stormy sky.
"The storm isn't here yet," he said; "It's still over the sea.
If
we hurry, we may get home without a wetting."
"Let's hurry then," she said, continuing to climb up the path.
The clouds, apparently driven by an increasingly powerful wind,
were spreading out over the sky with startling rapidity. Simona
quickened her pace to almost a run, and Giacomo could not help
teasing her.
"Afraid of lightning? What would the comrades say to that?
A good Marxist like yourself shouldn't have any such fear."
"It's stronger than I am," she said in a childish voice, without
turning around.
There were steps, first narrow and then wide, to facilitate the
ascent of the lower part of the path, and higher up it rose in wide
curves through groves of olive trees. Simona was way ahead; Giacomo
could see her striding along fifty or sixty feet before
him.
At the top
