urned. Some stepped down from the embankment. Those on the
promontory leaned far over. All became silent, in expectation. The man
on guard drew the sheet once more over the corpse. In the midst of the
silence, the sea barely seemed to draw its breath, the acacias barely
rustled. And then through the silence they could hear her cries as she
drew near.

The mother came along the strand, beneath the sun, crying aloud. She was
clad in widow's mourning. She tottered along the sand, with bowed body,
calling out, "O my son! My son!"

She raised her palms to heaven, and then struck them upon her knees,
calling out, "My son!"

One of her older sons, with a red handkerchief bound around his neck, to
hide some sore, followed her like one demented, dashing aside his tears
with the back of his hand. She advanced along the strand, beating her
knees, directing her steps toward the sheet. And as she called upon her
dead, there issued from her mouth sounds scarcely human, but rather like
the howling of some savage dog. As she drew near, she bent over lower
and lower, she placed herself almost on all fours; till, reaching him,
she threw herself with a howl upon the sheet.

She arose again. With hand rough and toil-stained, hand toughened by
every variety of labor, she uncovered the body. She gazed upon it a few
instants, motionless as though turned to stone. Then time and time
again, shrilly, with all the power of her voice, she called as if trying
to awaken him, "My son! My son! My son!"

Sobs suffocated her. Kneeling beside him, she beat her sides furiously
with her fists. She turned her despairing eyes around upon the circle of
strangers. During a pause in her paroxysms she seemed to recollect
herself. And then she began to sing. She sang her sorrow in a rhythm
which rose and fell continually, like the palpitation of a heart. It was
the ancient monody which from time immemorial, in the land of the
Abruzzi, the women have sung over the remains of their relatives. It was
the melodious eloquence of sacred sorrow, which renewed spontaneously,
in the profundity of her being, this hereditary rhythm in which the
mothers of bygone ages had modulated their lamentations.

She sang on and on:--"Open your eyes, arise and walk, my son! How
beautiful you are! How beautiful you are!"

She sang on:--"For a morsel of bread I have drowned you, my son! For a
morsel of bread I have borne you to the slaughter! For that have I
raised you!"

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