The manager, Enrico Persevalli,
and Adelaida pay twenty-four francs for every performance, or every
evening on which a performance is given, as rent for the theatre,
including light. The company is completely satisfied with its reception
on the Lago di Garda.
So it is all over. The Bersaglieri go running all the way home, because
it is already past half past ten. The night is very dark. About four
miles up the lake the searchlights of the Austrian border are swinging,
looking for smugglers. Otherwise the darkness is complete.
_4_
SAN GAUDENZIO
In the autumn the little rosy cyclamens blossom in the shade of this
west side of the lake. They are very cold and fragrant, and their scent
seems to belong to Greece, to the Bacchae. They are real flowers of the
past. They seem to be blossoming in the landscape of Phaedra and Helen.
They bend down, they brood like little chill fires. They are little
living myths that I cannot understand.
After the cyclamens the Christmas roses are in bud. It is at this season
that the cacchi are ripe on the trees in the garden, whole naked trees
full of lustrous, orange-yellow, paradisal fruit, gleaming against the
wintry blue sky.
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