Tales of My Native Town Author:Gabriele D'Annunzio Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE RETURN OF TURLENDANA THE group was walking along the seashore. Down the hills and over the country Spring was coming again. The humble strip of lan... more »d bordering the sea was already green; the various fields were quite distinctly marked by the springing vegetation, and every mound was crowned with budding trees. The north wind shook these trees, and its breath caused many flowers to fall. At a short distance the heights seemed to be covered with a colour between pink and violet; for an instant the view seemed to tremble and grow pale like a ripple veiling the clear surface of a pool, or like a faded painting. The sea stretched out its broad expanse serenely along the coast, bathed by the moonlight, and toward the north taking on the hue of a turquois of Persia, broken here and there by the darker tint of the currents winding over its surface. Turlendana, who had lost the recollection of these places through a long absence, and who in his long peregrinations had forgotten the sentiments of his native land, was striding along with the tired, regular step of haste, looking neither backward nor around him. When the camel would stop at a tuft of wild grass, Turlendana would utter a brief, hoarse cry of incitement. The huge reddish quadruped would slowly raise his head, chewing the morsel heavily between his jaws. "Hu, Barbara !" The she-ass, the little snowy white Susanna, protesting against the tormenting of the monkey, from time to time would bray lamentingly, asking to be freed of her rider. But the restless Zavali gave her no peace; as though in a frenzy, with quick, short gestures of wrath, she would run over the back of the beast, jump playfully on her head, get hold of her large ears; then would lift her tail and shake the hairs, hold it up and look ...« less