Although it was yet early in the year, it was an unpleasant journey: the heat was excessive, and a storm was building. On the final day of my journey, bruise-colored clouds began to pile in the sky, and the air became ever closer and more sultry, so that the sweat trickled down my back underneath my corset. To make matters worse, I was tormented by midges that swarmed in hosts out of the grasses and which bit any exposed skin. Both the carter and myself were anxious to arrive in Elbasa before the storm broke over our heads. To my inexpressible relief, we reached the Red House just as the first fat raindrops began to fall in the dust.My mother was glad to see me, although without any demonstration that others might have thought appropriate for close family members who were now reunited after a sundering of seven years. She embraced me briefly and commented that I had grown tall. She was as shy and awkward as I was: when my mother had last seen me, I had still been a girl scarce out of childhood, and now I was a grown woman.
