Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino

fugitives.
    The Arenella boys began to splash water up from below; they splashed so hard there wasn't a place on the ship that wasn't wet. Finally they got tired of that and swam out to sea, heads down and arms arched, surfacing every now and then to breathe, in little spurts.
    The Piazza dei Dolori boys had remained masters of the field. They went to the prow; the little girl was still there. She had succeeded in turning over the medusa and was now trying to lift it on the stick.
    "They left us a hostage!" Mariassa said.
    "Hey, gang! A hostage!" Cicin was all excited.
    "You cowards!" Carruba shouted behind the other bunch. "Leaving your women in the enemies' hands!"
    They had a highly developed sense of honor around Piazza dei Dolori.
    "Come with us," Mariassa said, and started to put a hand on her shoulder.
    The girl motioned him to keep still; she had almost succeeded in lifting the medusa. As Mariassa bent over to look, the girl pulled up the stick, with the medusa balanced on it, pulled it up, up, and slammed it into Mariassa's face.
    "Bitch!" Mariassa yelled, spitting and putting his hands to his face.
    The little girl looked at them all and laughed. Then she
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    turned, went straight to the top of the prow, raised her arms, joining her fingertips, did a swan dive, and swam off without looking back. The Piazza dei Dolori boys hadn't moved.
    "Say," Mariassa asked, touching one cheek, "is it true that medusas make your skin burn?"
    "Wait and find out," Pier Lingera said. "But the best thing would be to dive in right away."
    "Let's go," Mariassa said, starting off with the others.
    Then he stopped. "From now on we have to have a woman in our gang, too! Menin! Bring your sister!"
    "My sister's a dummy," Menin said.
    "That doesn't matter," Mariassa said. "Come on!" And he gave Menin a shove, pushing him into the water because he didn't know how to dive. Then they all dived in.
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    MAN IN THE WASTELAND
    Early in the morning you can see Corsica : it looks like a ship laden with mountains, suspended out there on the horizon. If we lived in another country it would have inspired legends, but not here: Corsica is a poor land, poorer than ours; nobody has ever gone there and nobody has ever given it any thought. If you see Corsica in the morning it means the air is clear and still and there's no rain in the offing.
    On one of those mornings, at dawn, my father and I were climbing up the dry, stony gullies of Colla Bella, with the dog on a chain. My father had encased his chest and back in scarves, coats, a hunting jacket, vests, knapsacks, canteens, cartridge belts; from all this, a white goatee emerged; on his legs he wore an old pair of scratched-up, leather puttees. I had on a threadbare, too-tight jerkin that left my wrists and waist exposed, and trousers, also tight and threadbare; and I took long strides like my father, but with my hands dug into my pockets and my long neck pulled down between my shoulders. Both of us carried old hunting guns, a fine make but neglected and streaked with rust. The dog was a harrier, ears drooping till they swept the ground, a short bristling coat
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    on its bones that seemed to scrape the skin. Behind him he dragged a chain that might have served for a bear.
    "You stay here with the dog," my father said. "From here you can keep an eye on both trails. I'll go to the other, and when I get there I'll give you a whistle. Then you turn the dog loose. Watch out: a hare can slip past in a second."
    My father continued up the stony track, and I crouched down on the ground with the dog, whimpering because he wanted to follow. Colla Bella is a height rising from the pale shore, all barren terrain, weeds hard to crop, crumbling walls of ancient embankments. Farther down, the black haze of the olive groves begins; farther up, the tawny woods, made patchy by fires, like the backs of mangy old dogs. Everything lazed in the gray of the dawn as in a half-opening of still-sleepy eyelids. At sea no