Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) was an Italian (Sardinian) novelist and playwright known for her social realism. In 1926, Deledda won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. She was the first Italian woman to win the prize, and she continued to write with vigor after receiving this honor. Deledda was an intriguing person: she kept a pet crow and did not particularly like many of the perks that came with fame. In fact, Mussolini once asked her if he could do her a favor, and instead of asking for wealth, she asked for the release of a friend who was imprisoned for anti-Fascist activities. In 1936, Deledda lost a long battle with breast cancer. Yet she continued to publish posthumously, as additional manuscripts were found in her home. “Sowbread” (1908) is an unusual tale, in that it is told from the point of view of a plant.
AS SOON AS HE BLOOMED, the cyclamen saw a spectacle that many famous poets have never seen. He saw a moonlit night in the mountains. The silence was so deep the cyclamen could hear the drops of water—collected by the leaves of an oak protecting the small flower—fall to the ground as if poured by small hands.
The night was terse and cold, the mountain black and white, like an immense sleeping ermine, its profile of a pale purple color sparkling against the blue sky. It was not too high, that mountain: the woods covered it to the top; the snow-blanketed rocks resembled blocks of marble in which a gigantic artist had attempted to sketch strange figures. There was one, for example, that looked like a huge wolf with its face turned to the sky; and a thread of smoke, coming out of the rock as if exhaled from the mouth of the beast, increased the illusion.
From its damp and sheltered corner, the cyclamen saw the rocks, the trees, the moon, and a blue background with the outlines of other distant mountains. The moon was setting behind these mountains. Everything existed in silent, pure coldness. The stars shimmered with unusual splendors: they seemed to be looking at each other, communicating a joy unknown to the inhabitants of the earth. The cyclamen felt a bit of this joy; and he, too, trembled on his stem; and he did not know what it was, and did not know that it was the joy that makes the diamond and the spring water sparkle: the joy of feeling pristine. And this happiness lasted a long time, much longer than most human pleasure: it lasted an hour.
Then the cyclamen saw a strange thing, more marvelous even than the white rocks, the black trees, the shining stars. He saw a shadow moving. The flower had believed that everything in its world was still, or just trembling: instead the shadow walked. And after the wonder, the cyclamen shook with dread. The shadow approached, growing larger, rising against the blue background, among the black trunks; and it was so tall that it hid a whole mountain and reached up to the moon. It was a man. From time to time the man stopped under the trees, doubled over, as if looking for something in the shadows at his feet. Arriving under the oak he crouched, and began to rummage through the rotting leaves that covered the ground. And the young flower knew that the man had found what he was looking for: a little cyclamen plant.
After his one hour of life, certain that he had seen all that is most beautiful and most terrible in the entire universe, the cyclamen resigned himself to die. The unfriendly shadow uprooted the seedling, leaving some of the feeding soil around the bulbs. The cyclamen then realized that the black shadow did not represent Death: on the contrary it seemed to him his life was going to be more intense, if not as happy as that which he experienced before. With all his family of leaves, with his unbroken brothers, the flower was riding high, and saw the sky, the stars, better, as he abandoned his birthplace, moving across the mountain.
Like the man who carried him on the palm of his hand, the cyclamen possessed the great power of movement, and he felt a deep gratitude for the one who brought him so much joy. Upon coming under the rock that looked like a wolf, the man entered a cave that looked like the heart of a wolf, black, harsh, full of smoke; and having laid the seedling on a rock ledge, he bent to rekindle the fire. The little flower’s despair lasted but an instant, for he saw another wonderful thing. He saw a black oak trunk transform into fire, and the flames spring from the branches like large golden leaves shook by a burning breath.
The man lay down by the fire and from his corner the little flower saw him fall asleep and heard him talking in his dream. And the man’s voice seemed to him another revelation. Then a whistle vibrated outside, a dog barked, the man raised his head.
Another man entered the cave: the newcomer was young, tall and dressed in red cloth and black skins; his face, swarthy, but with blue eyes and a reddish beard, had something sweet and wild at the same time.
“Compadre,” he said, as soon as he entered, “I think we’re going to catch the fox tonight.”
The older man raised his face, questioning.
“I saw the trail!” said the young man.
The two men said nothing more, but the old man jolted to his feet, and they both listened for a long time. One hour passed, though, and outside the silence of the night was still intense and deep. For a moment the moon appeared at the cave entrance, like a pale face with curious gray eyes, and then disappeared. The white darkness of snow took over the night.
“Your fox is not coming,” said the old man. “And I’ve got to take off! How is the little mistress?”
“Not good. Maybe she’ll die tonight.”
“And you didn’t tell me! I’ve got to go back! Must bring her the flower.”
“What flower?”
“A sowbread. Yesterday, in her fever, she asked for nothing else. She imagines he’s embroidering a stole for Holy Mass and wants to copy the flower. We must please her. I’m off.”
“A stole with a sowbread on it…?” The young man gave a puzzled smile. Then he raised his head, whispering: “Did you hear that?”
A dog barked, another echoed in the distance. The two shepherds, leaping out of the cave, heard whistles, screams, shouts more hoarse and ferocious than the dogs’ barking. The flame ceased to tremble, as if listening to the din, while the cyclamen closed his petals among his sleeping brothers. The two men returned, dragging between them a young man with a bruised face and thick, frizzy black hair. Bound with leather strings, the captive struggled desperately. The three men were silent, while their breathing, panting, almost hissing, revealed their anger. This scene, beautiful and terrible, evoked the cavemen’s world, man fighting his fellow man.
The prisoner was taken to the end of the cave, tied better, with cowhide straps and a noose, the end rope fixed to the ground with a stone. He didn’t protest but lowered his disheveled head to the rocky ground and closed his eyes: he seemed dead.
The old man stared at him in rage, shuddering. “One, two, three times you escaped the gallows. But now you won’t decimate my flock anymore! I’m alerting the judge.”
And after throwing a leather bag across his shoulders, forming a hump on his back, he strode out.
No sooner had the old man departed, than the prisoner opened his eyes and pulled his head up, listening. The footsteps could not be heard any longer. The young man with a reddish beard sat on the ground next to the fire, looking sad. The prisoner gazed at him and said a word: “Remember!”
The other remained silent and still. The thief repeated: “The authorities. Remember! Once, on the night of St. John, two boys from different villages watched a flock under the moon. They loved each other like brothers. The elder said: ‘Should we become St. John’s fellows?’ And they swore to be brothers, for life and for death, and especially in the hour of danger. Then they grew up and each went his way. And once the elder went to steal and was caught and given in custody to the younger, who happened to be in the sheep pen. The first word, though, that the prisoner said, ‘Remember!’ was enough, because the other, regardless of the damage that would come to him, untied him and released him. Remember!”
The younger shepherd avoided the captive’s eyes: “That was different! I wasn’t a servant back then. Before the fellow comes the master.”
“No, before the master comes the brother: and a St. John’s fellow is a brother.”
The other, eyes fixed on the flame, did not answer, but seemed lost in a dream.
“We are all subject to error,” said the thief. “Some do this and some do that! We are born with our destiny. And does your master have no flaws? He is the proudest man on earth. He’s the one who’s killing his daughter, your little mistress. And what is she guilty of? Doesn’t everyone say that she’s dying because she’s in love with a priest? No? Ah, you say it’s not like that? You say that the young man became a priest out of despair, because he was not given the girl’s hand? Even so, she should have stopped loving him. Instead, she dies…”
“Ah, that’s why…The stole…the sowbread flower!” The shepherd stood and untied the prisoner, who, without even saying “thank you,” jumped up and ran away.
Left alone, the shepherd picked up the sowbread plant, ran out, leaped from rock to rock, went down a path, shouting, calling the old man by his name.
The latter answered from afar. And the voices of the two men, closer and closer, crisscrossed in the silence of the night.
“You forgot the flower!”
“You left that devil alone!”
“The flower…”
“Give me! Go back…”
“I thought of the little mistress…”
“Go, go back. Now!”
The seedling passed into the old man’s hand, and it was as good as a warm, capacious planter. The old man walked quickly but safely down the path illuminated by snow glowing like a grayish twilight. Finally he reached the foot of the mountain, and the cyclamen discovered a place that was darker and sadder than the cave: it was a place inhabited by men, a village.
The old man knocked on a door; a woman came to open, dressed in yellow and black, very pale in the face.
“How’s the little mistress? I brought her the flower she wanted to copy for an embroidery.”
The woman gave a hissing cry and began tearing at her hair. “The little mistress is dead!”
The man did not utter a word but entered the vast kitchen and laid the seedling on the ottoman where the little mistress used to sit to sew and embroider. In the adjacent rooms women’s cries resounded like the chanting of ancient preachers. The old man left.
And long hours passed. The fire went out in the hearth. A hooded man, dressed in dark velvet, came to sit on the ottoman and kept still for a long time, without weeping, without speaking. Then the red-bearded servant arrived, and began to tell the story of the thief and the cyclamen.
“While I was bringing the flower to the master, the thief found a way to untie himself and escaped. I tried to catch him, in vain: I ran all night. Now the old fool says that the fault is mine, and that he, the master, will send me away.”
The man dressed in velvet did not understand the story of the cyclamen. “An embroidery? For whom?”
The pale servant turned red. He lowered his voice even more. “They say…the stole is for Priest Paulu’s first mass…”
A fleeting blush colored the hooded man’s dull face. He looked at the seedling, then, in a harsh voice, he said: “Return to the sheep pen.”
The shepherd studied the man’s face and, before leaving, whispered: “May the Lord grant you all the good…Master…” But the man dressed in velvet did not seem to hear the wish. As soon as he was alone he grabbed the seedling, and clenched his teeth angrily.
The cyclamen saw his end come.
The man dressed in velvet opened his fist, stared at the folded leaves, the languishing little flower, and wept. And so, before dying, the cyclamen, who had seen so many beautiful and terrible scenes, experienced a deep wonder, a shiver, a commotion similar to the one he had sensed while he was blooming. He seemed to see the stars again, he believed himself on the mountain again, feeling, within the confines of that man’s hand, still happy and pure as in mother earth. And all this because he had collected among his petals the tears of a proud man.