Dante seemed very pleased with this story. He sucked on his cigar and ran his fingers through his hair.
‘Man is a wondrous thing. I am certain even God is sometimes surprised,’ he said, and burst out laughing in his inimitable way.
Botta, who was a sentimentalist, asked Diotivede how things had turned out with the beautiful Greek girl. The doctor grinned bitterly.
‘The year after the war broke out, I left for the front, and when I returned Simonetta was with somebody else. She was very beautiful.’
There was a silent pause, as if each was thinking of past loves gone wrong. Piras’s eyes were bloodshot from all the alcohol, but he was full of energy and one could see he felt good. Even the smoke no longer bothered him. He pulled his chair closer to the table and rested his elbows on the tablecloth.
‘Just outside my town, Bonacardo,’ he began, ‘there is a big grey boulder, over six foot tall, at the edge of a stream. It has a rather even hollow in the middle, forming a sort of seat that looks as if it was carved by human hands. The village elders say that long ago a woman fell in love with a man, and he with her. But they kept their love secret, because their families despised one another because of a disputed boundary. In short, the usual Romeo and Juliet sort of story. They would arrange to meet at night at the grey stone, calling it “our rock”. And they would part in the morning, weary and happy. It was a great love, the kind that can last a lifetime. And that was, indeed, what they imagined for themselves, that they would live together for ever. But one day he decided to leave to join Napoleon’s army, which was descending over Europe to bring the Revolution to everyone. He said he could not be happy if he didn’t do this, and that love shouldn’t make people selfish but give them the strength to do important things. He said that if he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t have the courage to leave, and that if he didn’t leave, he would feel like a coward. This was the price of happiness. He dreamt of freeing the world from tyranny and promised her he would return soon, in triumph. “Wait for me at our rock,” he said, “wait for me there, I’ll be back soon.” She wanted to cry but didn’t. She held him tight and kissed him. She wanted him to leave with an untroubled heart. So she sat and watched his ship sail away until it vanished over the horizon, and the very next day she went and waited for him at the grey boulder. She leaned her back against the stone and thought of him, his face, his kisses, of every time they had shared their love in that place. The rock was the symbol of their secret love. The months went by, without any news of her beloved. She became more and more weary and desperate. She hardly ever slept and ate only so that she would be pretty when he returned. At night she would slip out of the house and lean against the great rock, gazing at the stream. She would watch the water rush past and think that time, itself, stood still. After a year had gone by, she started to think he was dead, but she didn’t want to accept this. She couldn’t. In the end she thought that she too had to pay the price of happiness, just as he had done. So she decided to make a vow. On her knees she prayed before an image of the Blessed Virgin, as the little children around her made fun of her. “My dear Madonna, please save my man. Ask me something, speak to me.” The Madonna said nothing, but the girl nevertheless believed she understood what she needed to do. She swore she would never again quit the place where they had loved each other, until he returned. She would spend her life standing in front of the grey stone, and she asked the Virgin to punish her if she was unable to keep her vow. “If I ever step away from our rock, you must drown me in the stream. You must kill me.” But even this was not enough. And so she convinced herself that if she ever stepped away from the rock, her beloved would die that very instant, felled by a ball of lead. Thus one winter’s day she headed for her rock, carrying only a blanket. A week went by. Everyone in town thought she had gone mad, but to keep her alive they brought her food to eat and water to drink. She would thank them with the faintest nod of the head, and hardly ever spoke. Fatigue clouded her vision, but she continued to fight off sleep. She did not want to fall asleep, because she was afraid that if she did, she would fall to the ground and lose contact with the stone, and her beloved would die like a dog. After three weeks of this, however, she realised she could not keep it up. She had committed the sin of pride, and sooner or later she would fall to the ground and he would die. She asked to be bound to the stone, but nobody would do this for her. They all told her to go home, to stop playing the madwoman. Even her mother came, together with the priest, to try to persuade her. But she would not be moved, and to every attempt to take her away she replied that if they tried to remove her from that rock, she would throw herself into the river at once and drown. In the end, they let her be. One night she felt on the verge of collapse. Another minute and she would fall to the ground. The blood was draining from her temples. She only had time to say, “Forgive me, my love,” and then she saw no more.’
Piras paused to pour himself a splash of grappa. Nobody breathed a word. Canapini was panting with curiosity, curled up in his chair like a cat. In the end, he couldn’t hold back.
‘And then what?’ he asked. Piras took a good, deep breath.
‘When she awoke, she didn’t even want to open her eyes. The world no longer interested her. She extended her hand to drag herself to the river and drown, but instead of dirt she felt only air. And so she opened her eyes and saw the sky full of stars. She hadn’t fallen. The rock had opened up and formed a comfortable seat, sheltered from the wind. And so she was able to wait for her man, who returned in a sorry state, but alive and in one piece. I say it’s a legend, but the old folks in town tell the story as if it was true.’