An accordion fills the air with plaintive cries. The courtyard is illuminated by a fire’s rosy gleam that makes the slender figure of the dark musician and the purplish faces of the women and children dancing the ballo sardo stand out against the grey wall. Their shadows move like phantoms on the trampled grass and along the church walls; gold buttons, silvery braids of costumes, accordion keys flash and gleam. Everything else is lost in the pearly shadows of moonlight.

Cit. Grazia Deledda «Reeds in the wind»