As the dawn was beginning to extract the outlines of things from the night and the rain, if someone had happened to pass by the foot of the monumental staircase leading up to Capodimonte, they’d have seen a dog and a child. But they would have had to look very closely; the figures were hard to make out in the uncertain light of early morning.
The dog and the child just sat there, motionless, indifferent to the fat, cold raindrops falling from the sky. They were sitting on the stone bench in the ornamental recess just above the bottom of the staircase. The staircase itself was a rushing torrent, transporting leaves and branches from the wooded palace grounds.
If someone had walked by and stopped to look, they might have wondered why the stream of water and detritus rushing downhill seemed to respect the dog and the child, flowing around them without touching them, save for the occasional splash. The alcove offered some slight shelter and protected them from the rain: only the hair on the dog’s back quivered every now and then, like a shiver of wind.
Someone might have wondered what the dog and the child were doing there, sitting motionless in the cold dawn of a rainy fall day.
The little boy was gray, his hair plastered to his head by the rain, hands in his lap and feet dangling an inch or so from the ground, head tilted slightly to one side, eyes lost as if in a dream or in some thought. The dog seemed to be sleeping, its head resting on its paws, fur spotted with sopping wet patches of dark brown, one ear raised, its tail at rest along its side.
Someone might have wondered if the dog and child were waiting for somebody. Or if they were thinking about something that had happened, something that had left its mark in their memories. Or perhaps if they were listening to a sound, some faint music.
Now the rain starts drumming louder, thundering like a revolt against the rising sun; the dog and the child remain motionless, indifferent to the water’s fury. From the child’s nose and the dog’s lifted ear stream icy rivulets.
The dog is waiting.
The child no longer dreams.