blocks, ran, took the sack from his shoulders and looked around to see if one of his mistresses was in sight. The one-story house rose at the end of the courtyard, under the shelter of the mountain, which seemed to rest on him like a huge white and green piebald hood.
Three small doors yawned under a wooden veranda that ran around the whole house and to which a rotten staircase led up outside. A blackish rope knotted around the nails rammed into the bottom and top steps replaced the broken railing. The porch doors, pillars, and railings were neatly carved, but everything was in danger of collapsing, and it looked as if the black, weathered, worm-eaten wood would crumble to dust at the slightest breath of air .
A small, stout woman in black, with a white cloth around her dark, angular face, stepped out onto the veranda; she leaned over the railing,caught sight of the servant, and her black, almond-shaped eyes lit up with joy.
“Ah - Miss Ruth! Good morning, mistress! "
Fraulein Ruth came down the stairs briskly, with thick legs in dark blue stockings. She gave him a friendly smile and showed her snow-white teeth under her lip, which was shaded by a delicate fuzz.
'And Miss Esther? And Miss Noemi? "
“Esther went to mass, Noemi is getting up. Wonderful weather, Efix! And what about the estate ? «
“Good, good - thank God, very good . «
The kitchen also had a medieval touch: large, low, with a soot-blackened beam ceiling. A carved wooden bench ran along the wall on either side of the huge hearth; the green hilltop looked in through the grille of the window. On the bare, reddish-gray walls, the traces of the copper pans, which had gradually disappeared, could still be seen; and the rusted nails from which the saddles, armor and weapons once hung remained there as if to remember.
“Well, Miss Ruth ? " Asked Efix, while the mistress placed a small copper coffee pot on the fire. But she only turned her broad, dark, white-framed face towards him and blinked to indicate that he should be patient for a while.
"Get me a bucket of water until Noemi comes down!"
Efix took the bucket out from under the bench and opened it closed the door, but once more looked around shyly and inquiringly on the threshold and considered the swaying bucket thoughtfully.
'I suppose the letter was from Don Giacinto ? «
"The letter? It's a telegram ... "
“Merciful God! Hasn't it happened to him ? «
“No, nothing at all. Go now ... "
There was no point in asking any more questions before Miss Noemi came down; for although Fraulein Ruth was the eldest of the three sisters and kept the house keys - there wasn't much to keep safe any more - she never did anything of her own free will and rejected all responsibility.
He went towards the fountain, which looked like a gigantic megalithic grave raised in a corner of the courtyard and was bordered by mighty sandstone blocks on which gold lacquer and jasmine bloomed in old, broken pots. A branch of jasmine climbed the wall and peered over it, as if to see what was out there in the world.
How many memories aroused this gloomy, moss-covered corner with the light brown of the gold lacquer and the delicate green of the jasmine in the heart of the servant!
He thought he saw Miss Lia standing pale and thin as a rush on the veranda again, her eyes fixed in the distance, as if she too wanted to fathom what was out there in the world. He had her up there on the day of the escape, toosee standing motionless like a ferryman peering into the mysterious depths of the water .
How hard these memories are! As heavy as the full bucket of water that pulls down into the black well shaft.
But when Efix looked up again, he saw that the tall, slender woman who stepped lightly onto the balcony and hooked the cuffs of her black, finely pleated bodice was not Lia.
“Ah - Miss Noemi! Good day, mistress! Aren't you coming down ? «
With black, golden hair, which wrapped itself in two broad braids around her pale face, she leaned over the railing, thanked him with a fleeting glance from her black eyes, which were also golden under her long lashes, for his greeting, but spoke not a word and did not come down either.
She opened doors and windows - today was not a danger that a gust of wind slam and smash the windows, by the way, were missing for many years - and spread carefully a yellow blanket in the sun.
“Aren't you coming down, Miss Noemi ? " Repeated Efix, who was still at her up saw .
“Yes, yes, soon. «
But again she carefully smoothed the blanket and seemed to be gazing pensively at the landscape on the right and on the left, which lay spread out in wistful beauty before her: on the wide sand plain, broken by the glittering ribbon of the river, by rows of poplar trees, from low alders and reeds and milkweed to the gloomy basilica in the middle of the brambles, to the old churchyard, where the bones of the dead shimmered like white marguerites between the bright green of the overgrown grass, and to the defiant castle ruins on the hill in the distance .
The past still loomed over the area. But Noemi was not saddened by this; from early childhood she had been used to seeing the bones of the dead pale over there, which seemed to freeze in winter in the pale sun and on which dew glinted in spring. Nobody thought of taking them away; so why should she have thought about it?
Miss Esther, however, who comes slowly and withdrawn from the new church in the village, crosses herself when she comes to the old cemetery and says a prayer for the dead souls.
Esther never forgets anything and has an eye for everything. And so she notices, as she now enters the courtyard, that someone has drawn water from the well, and puts the bucket in its place; then she removes a stone from the gold lacquer pot, goes into the kitchen, greets Efix and asks him whether he has already got his coffee.
"Yes, yes - for a long time, mistress."
Meanwhile Noemi had come down with the telegram in hand. But she didn't make up her mind to read it out; it gave her almost a secret pleasure in teasing the servant's anxious curiosity about the torture.
"Esther," she said, and sat down on the bench by the stove, "why don't you take off your cloth?"
“This morning there is mass in the basilica, I'll be going again. So read aloud! "
Esther also sat on the bench, and Miss Ruth followed her example. And when the three sisters sat next to each other they looked strangely alike; only that they embodied three different ages: Noemi the youth, Esther the maturity and Ruth the old age - a sprightly, tranquil and cheerful age.
The servant had stepped before them and was waiting; but after Miss Noemi had unfolded the yellow paper, she stared at it, as if she could not decipher the words on it, and finally shook it angrily in her hand.
“Well, he telegraphed that he'll be here in a few days. That's all."
She raised her eyes and blushed when her stern gaze fell on Efix's face; the other two looked at him too.
"Do you understand? Just as if he were at home here. "
"What do you think of that?" Asked Miss Esther, pointing a finger through the crack in the cloth.
Efix shone all over the face; the many tiny wrinkles around his vivid, flashing eyes looked like rays, and he tried not to hide his joy.
"I'm just a poor servant, but I tell myself Heaven knows what he's doing."
"Thank God, finally a sensible word," said Miss Esther.
But Noemi was pale as death again. Indignant words surged from her lips, and although she knew how to control herself as always before the servant - she did not give much thought to his opinion - she replied:
“Heaven has nothing to do with that, and that is not what it is about. It is, "she added after a moment's hesitation," yes, it is a question of answering him succinctly that there is no room for him in our house. "
Then