The Evening of the Holiday by Shirley Hazzard

Author:Shirley Hazzard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador
Published: 1966-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

Nine

While they were sitting at lunch a great storm broke. At this time of year, the height of summer, there were brief thunderstorms almost every day, but this was something special. The sultry day was split by lightning - not crackling flashes but a series of full, silent illuminations, weird as moonlight - and by explosive thunder. Then the rain came down, white, torrential. The day darkened. The shutters of the dining room had to be closed, and they could hear one of the maids doing this throughout the house. Isabella, the old servant who was waiting on the table, switched on the lights, but a moment later the electricity failed, on a peal of thunder, and the three of them went on with their meal in the half-dark.

They were seated, Luisa and Sophie and Tancredi, at equal distances around the circular table, and were in this way quite far from one another. At first the storm was perfectly discussable. Luisa spoke about certain leaks in the upstairs rooms, cracks that she had meant to have repaired. Tancredi mentioned the risk to the threshing and the possible damage in the orchards. It was even a means of animating an awkward conversation, for this was the first time Luisa had seen Sophie since she had gone to live with Tancredi in his own house. They were in love, presumably. And why, Luisa had been wondering when the storm broke, did one qualify the situation to oneself in that way? One would always want to think of oneself as being on the side of love, ready to recognize it and wish it well - but, when confronted with it in others, one so often resented it, questioned its true nature, secretly dismissed the particular instance as folly or promiscuity. Was it merely jealousy, or a reluctance to admit so noble and enviable a sentiment in anyone but oneself? Charity, talent, love were real, perhaps, only to the sufferer and the beneficiary, and abstractions in the eyes of others.

When the storm began they were all glad of the interruption. There was quite a lively conversation about storms in general. Darkness, in this long, large room lined with furniture and dim paintings, drew them closer together. As it went on, however, the storm ceased to be welcome or even socially acceptable. The heavens gaped and roared above the house. Isabella ran out of the room with her hands to her ears and could be heard having hysterics in the kitchen. It was frightening in the way that an earthquake is frightening, because it was so immeasurably beyond anyone’s control. Their talk subsided. They came to the end of the fruit and sat on around the table without speaking.

Or is it simply, Luisa went on to herself (turning up, as it were, the volume of her thoughts to make them coherent through the storm), that love so often makes for trouble, for such a fuss? Tancredi had a wife and children. And in Italy there is no divorce.

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