5.1 I see Anne coming out of the garden. She is leaning on the arm of somebody who is surely a relative, as they look alike. She is obviously several months pregnant and she looks tired, perhaps due to the same heat that is now exhausting me.
Although the garden is shady, it is very hot and close. The air can be cut like a soft warm dough, it is so heavy. The sun’s rays descend from a merciless blue sky and there is some dust making the atmosphere slightly hazy. The weather must have been dry for a long time, because where there is no irrigation, the land is literally reduced to a very fine, almost white dust. Out in the open this shade of white is slightly pink, whereas it is a dark red-brown under the trees, where the soil is damp. Likewise the ground is moist along the small flower-beds, where rows of vegetables are growing, and around the rose bushes, the jasmines and other flowers, and particularly in the front of and along the beautiful pergola, which divides the orchard in two, up to the beginning of the fields, now stripped of their crops. The grass of the meadow, which marks the boundary of the property, is parched and thin. Only at its border, where there is a hedge of wild hawthorn, already completely studded with the rubies of its little fruits, is the grass greener and thicker. There are some sheep thereabouts with a young shepherd seeking pasture and shade.
Joachim is working around the rows of vines and olive-trees. There are two men with him, helping him. Although an elderly man he is quick and works eagerly. They are opening little channels at the end of a field to give water to the dry plants, and this water makes its way gurgling between the grass and the dry land. The flow forms circles that for one moment resemble a yellowish crystal and seconds later are only rings of wet soil, around the overloaded vine branches and the olive-trees.
Along the shady pergola, under which golden bees are buzzing, greedy for the sugar of the golden grapes, Anne moves slowly towards Joachim, who hastens towards her as soon as he sees her.
«You came so far?»
«The house is as hot as an oven.»
«And you suffer from it.»
«The only suffering of this last hour is that of a pregnant woman. The natural suffering of everybody: man and beast. Don’t get too hot, Joachim.»
«The water we have been hoping for, for such a long time, and that for three days seemed so close, has not yet come and the land is parched. We are lucky to have a spring so near and so rich in water. I have opened the channels. It is a small sigh of relief for the plants which have withering leaves and are covered with dust: just enough to keep them alive. If it would only rain…»
Joachim, with the eagerness of all farmers, looks at the sky, while Anne, tired, cools herself with a fan that seems to be made of the dry leaf of a palm interwoven with many-coloured threads keeping it firm. (...)
They make haste because clouds driven by a strong wind, rush across and gather in the sky, while the plain darkens and shudders at the warning of a storm. When they reach the threshold of the dwelling, a first livid flash of lightning crosses the sky and the rumble of the first peal of thunder sounds like the roll of a huge drum that mingles with the arpeggio of the first drops on the parched leaves.
They all go in and Anne withdraws, while Joachim, standing at the door, talks with the workers, who have in the meantime joined him: the conversation is about the longed-for water which is a blessing for the parched land. But their joy turns into fear because a very violent storm is approaching with lightning and clouds threatening hail. «If the cloud bursts, it will crush the grapes and the olives like a millstone. Poor me!»