14.2 A waggon is moving along the road. It is the waggon that is carrying Joseph, Mary and Her cousins. Their journey is at an end.
Mary is looking with the eagerness of those who want to know, or better, want to recognise what they have already seen, but can no longer remember and they smile when a faint memory comes back to them and rests, like a light, on this or that thing, on this or that point. Elizabeth, Zacharias and Joseph help Her to remember, pointing to various places and houses.
Nazareth is already showing its houses, spread out on the undulations of its hills. Lit up from the left by the setting sun, it shows the white of its low wide little houses bordered in pink and surmounted by terraces. Some of them, fully illuminated by the sun, seem to be near a fire, so red are the fronts of the houses because of the sun, that also lights up the water of the ponds and of the low wells, with practically no parapets, and from which squeaky pails of water are being pulled up for the houses as well as water-bags for the orchards.
Children and women rush to the side of the road and look into the waggon and greet Joseph who is well known to them. But they are somewhat embarrassed and shy with regards the other three travellers.
But when the waggon enters the little town, there is no longer any embarrassment or shyness. Many people of all ages are gathered at the entrance of the village under a rustic arch of flowers and branches, and there is an outburst of shrill voices and a tossing of branches and flowers as soon as the waggon appears from behind the corner of the last house lying before it in the country. It is the women, girls and children of Nazareth greeting the bride. The men, more serious, are standing behind the excited and shouting crowd and they are greeting solemnly.
The waggon is not covered now by the tent, which was removed before reaching the village, both because the sun was no longer annoying them and to enable Mary to see Her native land. Mary thus appears in all the beauty of a lovely flower. White and blonde like an angel, She smiles lovingly at everybody: at the children who throw Her flowers and kisses; at the girls of Her own age who call Her by name; at the elderly women who bless Her with their cheerful voices. She bows to the men and in particular to one who is perhaps the rabbi or the elder of the town.
The waggon proceeds slowly along the main road, followed for a considerable distance by the crowd, for whom the arrival is an event.
14.3 «There is Your house, Mary» says Joseph, pointing with his whip to a little house which is just under the edge of an undulation of the hill. Behind the house there is a lovely large kitchen garden all in bloom, at the end of which there is a small olive-grove. Behind the olive-grove there is the usual boundary hedge of hawthorn and cactus. The fields that once belonged to Joachim, are farther beyond…
«As You can see, very little is left for You» says Zacharias. «Your father’s illness was a long and expensive one. Also the expenses to repair the damage done by the Romans were heavy. See? The road took away the three main rooms and the house was cut down in size. In order to enlarge it, without excessive expenses, a part of the mountain was adapted, where the grotto is. Joachim kept his supplies there and Anne her looms. You will do as You think best.»
«Oh! It does not matter if only little is left. It will be sufficient for Me. I will work…»
«No, Mary.» It is Joseph who is speaking. «I will work. You will do nothing but weave and sew things for the house. I am young and strong and I am Your husband. Please do not humiliate me with Your work.»
«I shall do as you wish.»
«Yes, in this case I do want it. In everything else Your wishes are the law. But not with regards to this.»