ew. But they did not know. And they were kind with
each other. For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines,
and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They loved
her that she would strip maize-cobs or pick acorns. But they were
all anxious to serve her. And it seemed as if they needed some one
to serve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certain
magic glamour for them, and so long as she was happy, it was a
supreme joy and relief to them to have her there. But it seemed to
her she would not live.

And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingled
with sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and the
house inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by
going about constantly working, dumb and elemental. But what was
Alvina to do?

For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were the
kitchen and Alvina's bedroom: and the kitchen, with its little
grated windows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken pane
and must keep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a dark
cavern vaulted and bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settle
before the fire, the hard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keep
the fire going, with faggots of green oak. But the smoke hurt her
chest, she was not clean for one moment, and she could do nothing
else. The bedroom again was just impossibly cold. And there was no
other place. And from far away came the wild braying of an ass,
primeval and desperate in the snow.

The house was quite large; but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on the
left of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of the
weather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, was
a big, long apartment where Pancrazio kept implements and tools and
potatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hopped
unexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, was
the cantina, a dark place with wine-barrels and more agricultural
stores. This was the whole of the downstairs.

Going upstairs, half way up, at the turn of the stairs was the
opening of a sort of barn, a great wire-netting behind which showed
a glow of orange maize-cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were four
rooms. But Alvina's room alone was furnished. Pancrazio slept in the
unfurnished bedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was a
room with litter in it, a chest of drawers, and rubbish of old books
and photographs Pancrazio had b