Four Phases of Love by Paul Heyse — Read

It was late in January. The first snow hung upon the mountains, and the sun, shrouded by mists, had only melted away a narrow band around their feet. But the waste of the campagna bloomed like spring. Only the sombre boughs of the olive trees, that here and there followed in rows the gentle undulations of the plain, or surrounded some lonely cabin, and the frosted scrubby bushes that grew about the road, still showed the effects of winter. At this time of the year the scattered herds are collected within hurdles, near the huts of the campagnuoli, which are generally placed under the shelter of some hillock, and scantily enough protected from the weather by straw piled up from the ground; whilst those amongst the herdsmen who can sing or play the bagpipe have left, to wander about Rome as pifferari, to serve the artists as models, or to support their poor frozen existences by some similar industry.

The dogs are now the herds of the campagna, and sweep through the deserted waste in packs, maddened by hunger, and no longer restrained by the herdsmen, on whose poverty they are only a burden.