"Maju torna, maju veniCu li belli soi ciureri;Oh chi pompa chi nni fa;Maju torna, maju è ccà!"Maju torna, maju vinni,Duna isca a li disinni;Vinni riccu e ricchi fa,Maju viva! Maju è ccà!"
"Maju torna, maju veniCu li belli soi ciureri;Oh chi pompa chi nni fa;Maju torna, maju è ccà!
"Maju torna, maju vinni,Duna isca a li disinni;Vinni riccu e ricchi fa,Maju viva! Maju è ccà!"
He heard a girl's voice singing near him, whether inside the house or among the trees he could not at first tell. It sang softly yet gayly, as if the sun were up and the world were awake, and when it died away Delarey felt as if the singer must be in the dawn, though he stood still in the night. He put his ear to the shuttered window and listened.
"L'haju; nun l'haju?"
The voice was speaking now with a sort of whimsical and half-pathetic merriment, as if inclined to break into laughter at its own childish wistfulness.
"M'ama; nun m'ama?"
It broke off. He heard a little laugh. Then the song began again:
"Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,Bona sorti di Diù vògghiu;Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,Diù, pinzàticci vu a la sorti mia!"
"Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,Bona sorti di Diù vògghiu;Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,Diù, pinzàticci vu a la sorti mia!"
The voice was not in the house. Delarey was sure of that now. He was almost sure, too, that it was the same voice which had cried out to him from the rocks. Moving with precaution, he stole round the house to the farther side, which looked out upon the open sea, keeping among the trees, which grew thickly about the houseon three sides, but which left it unprotected to the sea-winds on the fourth.
A girl was standing in this open space, alone, looking seaward, with one arm out-stretched, one hand laid lightly, almost caressingly, upon the gnarled trunk of a solitary old olive-tree, the other arm hanging at her side. She was dressed in some dark, coarse stuff, with a short skirt, and a red handkerchief tied round her head, and seemed in the pale and almost ghastly light in which night and day were drawing near to each other to be tall and slim of waist. Her head was thrown back, as if she were drinking in the breeze that heralded the dawn—drinking it in like a voluptuary.
Delarey stood and watched her. He could not see her face.
She spoke some words in dialect in a clear voice. There was no one else visible. Evidently she was talking to herself. Presently she laughed again, and began to sing once more:
"Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,A la me'casa guaj nu' nni vògghiu;Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,Oru ed argentu a la sacchetta mia!"
"Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,A la me'casa guaj nu' nni vògghiu;Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,Oru ed argentu a la sacchetta mia!"
There was an African sound in the girl's voice—a sound of mystery that suggested heat and a force that could be languorous and stretch itself at ease. She was singing the song the Sicilian peasant girls join in on the first of May, when the ciuri di maju is in blossom, and the young countrywomen go forth in merry bands to pick the flower of May, and, turning their eyes to the wayside shrine, or, if there be none near, to the east and the rising sun, lift their hands full of the flowers above their heads, and, making the sign of the cross, murmur devoutly:
"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;Divina Pruvidenza, cunsulàtimi;Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;Divina Pruvidenza, cunsulàtimi;Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
"HER HEAD WAS THROWN BACK, AS IF SHE WERE DRINKING IN THE BREEZE""HER HEAD WAS THROWN BACK, AS IF SHE WERE DRINKING IN THE BREEZE"
Delarey knew neither song nor custom, but his ears were fascinated by the voice and the melody. Both sounded remote and yet familiar to him, as if once, in some distant land—perhaps of dreams—he had heard them before. He wished the girl to go on singing, to sing on and on into the dawn while he listened in his hiding-place, but she suddenly turned round and stood looking towards him, as if something had told her that she was not alone. He kept quite still. He knew she could not see him, yet he felt as if she was aware that he was there, and instinctively he held his breath and leaned backward into deeper shadow. After a minute the girl took a step forward, and, still staring in his direction, called out:
"Padre?"
Then Delarey knew that it was her voice that he had heard when he was in the sea, and he suddenly changed his desire. Now he no longer wished to remain unseen, and without hesitation he came out from the trees. The girl stood where she was, watching him as he came. Her attitude showed neither surprise nor alarm, and when he was close to her, and could at last see her face, he found that its expression was one of simple, bold questioning. It seemed to be saying to him quietly, "Well, what do you want of me?"
Delarey was not acquainted with the Arab type of face. Had he been he would have at once been struck by the Eastern look in the girl's long, black eyes, by the Eastern cast of her regular, slightly aquiline features. Above her eyes were thin, jet-black eyebrows that looked almost as if they were painted. Her chin was full and her face oval in shape. She had hair like Gaspare's, black-brown, immensely thick and wavy, with tiny feathers of gold about the temples. She was tall, and had the contours of a strong though graceful girl just blooming into womanhood. Her hands were as brown as Delarey's, well shaped, but the hands of a worker. Shewas perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and brimful of lusty life.
After a minute of silence Delarey's memory recalled some words of Gaspare's, till then forgotten.
"You are Maddalena!" he said, in Italian.
The girl nodded.
"Si, signore."
She uttered the words softly, then fell into silence again, staring at him with her lustrous eyes, that were like black jewels.
"You live here with Salvatore?"
She nodded once more and began to smile, as if with pleasure at his knowledge of her.
Delarey smiled too, and made with his arms the motion of swimming. At that she laughed outright and broke into quick speech. She spoke vivaciously, moving her hands and her whole body. Delarey could not understand much of what she said, but he caught the words mare and pescatore, and by her gestures knew that she was telling him she had been on the rocks and had seen his mishap. Suddenly in the midst of her talk she uttered the little cry of surprise or alarm which he had heard as he came up above water, pointed to her lips to indicate that she had given vent to it, and laughed again with all her heart. Delarey laughed too. He felt happy and at ease with his siren, and was secretly amused at his thought in the sea of the magical being full of enchantment who sang to lure men to their destruction. This girl was simply a pretty, but not specially uncommon, type of the Sicilian contadina—young, gay, quite free from timidity, though gentle, full of the joy of life and of the nascent passion of womanhood, blossoming out carelessly in the sunshine of the season of flowers. She could sing, this island siren, but probably she could not read or write. She could dance, could perhaps innocently give and receive love. But there was in her face, in her manner, nothing deliberately provocative. Indeed, shelooked warmly pure, like a bright, eager young animal of the woods, full of a blithe readiness to enjoy, full of hope and of unself-conscious animation.
Delarey wondered why she was not sleeping, and strove to ask her, speaking carefully his best Sicilian, and using eloquent gestures, which set her smiling, then laughing again. In reply to him she pointed towards the sea, then towards the house, then towards the sea once more. He guessed that some fisherman had risen early to go to his work, and that she had got up to see him off, and had been too wakeful to return to bed.
"Niente più sonno!" he said, opening wide his eyes.
"Niente! Niente!"
He feigned fatigue. She took his travesty seriously, and pointed to the house, inviting him by gesture to go in and rest there. Evidently she believed that, being a stranger, he could not speak or understand much of her language. He did not even try to undeceive her. It amused him to watch her dumb show, for her face spoke eloquently and her pretty, brown hands knew a language that was delicious. He had no longer any thought of sleep, but he felt curious to see the interior of the cottage, and he nodded his head in response to her invitation. At once she became the hospitable peasant hostess. Her eyes sparkled with eagerness and pleasure, and she went quickly by him to the door, which stood half open, pushed it back, and beckoned to him to enter.
He obeyed her, went in, and found himself almost in darkness, for the big windows on either side of the door were shuttered, and only a tiny flame, like a spark, burned somewhere among the dense shadows of the interior at some distance from him. Pretending to be alarmed at the obscurity, he put out his hand gropingly, and let it light on her arm, then slip down to her warm, strong young hand.
"I am afraid!" he exclaimed.
He heard her merry laugh and felt her trying to pullher hand away, but he held it fast, prolonging a joke that he found a pleasant one. In that moment he was almost as simple as she was, obeying his impulses carelessly, gayly, without a thought of wrong—indeed, almost without thought at all. His body was still tingling and damp with the sea-water. Her face was fresh with the sea-wind. He had never felt more wholesome or as if life were a saner thing.
She dragged her hand out of his at last; he heard a grating noise, and a faint light sputtered up, then grew steady as she moved away and set a match to a candle, shielding it from the breeze that entered through the open door with her body.
"What a beautiful house!" he cried, looking curiously around.
He saw such a dwelling as one may see in any part of Sicily where the inhabitants are not sunk in the direst poverty and squalor, a modest home consisting of two fair-sized rooms, one opening into the other. In each room was a mighty bed, high and white, with fat pillows, and a counterpane of many colors. At the head of each was pinned a crucifix and a little picture of the Virgin, Maria Addolorata, with a palm branch that had been blessed, and beneath the picture in the inner room a tiny light, rather like an English night-light near its end, was burning. It was this that Delarey had seen like a spark in the distance. At the foot of each bed stood a big box of walnut wood, carved into arabesques and grotesque faces. There were a few straw chairs and kitchen utensils. An old gun stood in a corner with a bundle of wood. Not far off was a pan of charcoal. There were also two or three common deal-tables, on one of which stood the remains of a meal, a big jar containing wine, a flat loaf of coarse brown bread, with a knife lying beside it, some green stuff in a plate, and a slab of hard, yellow cheese.
Delarey was less interested in these things than in the display of photographs, picture-cards, and figures of saintsthat adorned the walls, carefully arranged in patterns to show to the best advantage. Here were colored reproductions of actresses in languid attitudes, of peasants dancing, of babies smiling, of elaborate young people with carefully dressed hair making love with "Molti Saluti!" "Una stretta di Mano!" "Mando un bacio!" "Amicizia eterna!" and other expressions of friendship and affection, scribbled in awkward handwritings across and around them. And mingled with them were representations of saints, such as are sold at the fairs and festivals of Sicily, and are reverently treasured by the pious and superstitious contadine; San Pancrazio, Santa Leocanda, the protector of child-bearing women; Sant Aloe, the patron saint of the beasts of burden; San Biagio, Santo Vito, the patron saint of dogs; and many others, with the Bambino, the Immacolata, the Madonna di Loreto, the Madonna della Rocca.
In the faint light cast by the flickering candle, the faces of saints and actresses, of smiling babies, of lovers and Madonnas peered at Delarey as if curious to know why at such an hour he ventured to intrude among them, why he thus dared to examine them when all the world was sleeping. He drew back from them at length and looked again at the great bed with its fat pillows that stood in the farther room secluded from the sea-breeze. Suddenly he felt a longing to throw himself down and rest.
The girl smiled at him with sympathy.
"That is my bed," she said, simply. "Lie down and sleep, signorino."
Delarey hesitated for a moment. He thought of his companions. If they should wake in the cave and miss him what would they think, what would they do? Then he looked again at the bed. The longing to lie down on it was irresistible. He pointed to the open door.
"When the sun comes will you wake me?" he said.
He took hold of his arm with one hand, and made the motion of shaking himself.
"Sole," he said. "Quando c'è il sole."
The girl laughed and nodded.
"Si, signore—non dubiti!"
Delarey climbed up on to the mountainous bed.
"Buona notte, Maddalena!" he said, smiling at her from the pillow like a boy.
"Buon riposo, signorino!"
That was the last thing he heard. The last thing he saw was the dark, eager face of the girl lit up by the candle-flame watching him from the farther room. Her slight figure was framed by the doorway, through which a faint, sad light was stealing with the soft wind from the sea. Her lustrous eyes were looking towards him curiously, as if he were something of a phenomenon, as if she longed to understand his mystery.
Soon, very soon, he saw those eyes no more. He was asleep in the midst of the Madonnas and the saints, with the blessed palm branch and the crucifix and Maria Addolorata above his head.
The girl sat down on a chair just outside the door, and began to sing to herself once more in a low voice:
"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;Divina Pruvidenza, consulàtimi;Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;Divina Pruvidenza, consulàtimi;Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
Once, in his sleep, Delarey must surely have heard her song, for he began to dream that he was Ulysses sailing across the purple seas along the shores of an enchanted coast, and that he heard far off the sirens singing, and saw their shadowy forms sitting among the rocks and reclining upon the yellow sands. Then he bade his mariners steer the bark towards the shore. But when he drew near the sirens changed into devout peasant women, and their alluring songs into prayers uttered to the Bambino and the Virgin. But one watched him with eyes that gleamed like black jewels, and her lips smiledwhile they uttered prayers, as if they could murmur love words and kiss the lips of men.
"Signorino! Signorino!"
Delarey stirred on the great, white bed. A hand grasped him firmly, shook him ruthlessly.
"Signorino! C'è il sole!"
He opened his eyes reluctantly. Maddalena was leaning over him. He saw her bright face and curious young eyes, then the faces of the saints and the actresses upon the wall, and he wondered where he was and where Hermione was.
"Hermione!" he said.
"Cosa?" said Maddalena.
She shook him again gently. He stretched himself, yawned, and began to smile. She smiled back at him.
"C'è il sole!"
Now he remembered, lifted himself up, and looked towards the doorway. The first rays of the sun were filtering in and sparkling in the distance upon the sea. The east was barred with red.
He slipped down from the bed.
"The frittura!" he said, in English. "I must make haste!"
Maddalena laughed. She had never heard English before.
"Ditelo ancora!" she cried, eagerly.
They went but together on to the plateau and stood looking seaward.
"I—must—make—haste!" he said, speaking slowly and dividing the words.
"Hi—maust—maiki—'ai—isti!" she repeated, trying to imitate his accent.
He burst out laughing. She pouted. Then she laughed, too, peal upon peal, while the sunlight grew stronger about them. How fresh the wind was! It played with her hair, from which she had now removed the handkerchief, and ruffled the little feathers of goldupon her brow. It blew about her smooth, young face as if it loved to touch the soft cheeks, the innocent lips, the candid, unlined brow. The leaves of the olive-trees rustled and the brambles and the grasses swayed. Everything was in movement, stirring gayly into life to greet the coming day. Maurice opened his mouth and drew in the air to his lungs, expanding his chest. He felt inclined to dance, to sing, and very much inclined to eat.
"Addio, Maddalena!" he said, holding out his hand.
He looked into her eyes and added:
"Addio, Maddalena mia!"
She smiled and looked down, then up at him again.
"A rivederci, signorino!"
She took his hand warmly in hers.
"Yes, that's better. A rivederci!"
He held her hand for a moment, looking into her long and laughing eyes, and thinking how like a young animal's they were in their unwinking candor. And yet they were not like an animal's. For now, when he gazed into them, they did not look away from him, but continued to regard him, and always with an eager shining of curiosity. That curiosity stirred his manhood, fired him. He longed to reply to it, to give a quick answer to its eager question, its "what are you?" He glanced round, saw only the trees, the sea all alight with sun-rays, the red east now changing slowly into gold. Then he bent down, kissed the lips of Maddalena with a laugh, turned and descended through the trees by the way he had come. He had no feeling that he had done any wrong to Hermione, any wrong to Maddalena. His spirits were high, and he sang as he leaped down, agile as a goat, to the sea. He meant to return as he had come, and at the water's edge he stripped off his clothes once more, tied them into a bundle, plunged into the sea, and struck out for the beach opposite. As he did so, as the cold, bracing water seized him, heheard far above him the musical cry of the siren of the night. He answered it with a loud, exultant call.
That was her farewell and his—this rustic Hero's good-bye to her Leander.
When he reached the Caffè Berardi its door stood open, and a middle-aged woman was looking out seaward. Beyond, by the caves, he saw figures moving. His companions were awake. He hastened towards them. His morning plunge in the sea had given him a wild appetite.
"Frittura! Frittura!" he shouted, taking off his hat and waving it.
Gaspare came running towards him.
"Where have you been, signorino?"
"For a walk along the shore."
He still kept his hat in his hand.
"Why, your face is all wet, and so is your hair."
"I washed them in the sea. Mangiamo! Mangiamo!"
"You did not sleep?"
Gaspare spoke curiously, regarded him with inquisitive, searching eyes.
"I couldn't. I'll sleep up there when we get home."
He pointed to the mountain. His eyes were dancing with gayety.
"The frittura, Gasparino, the frittura! And then the tarantella, and then 'O sole mio'!"
He looked towards the rising sun, and began to sing at the top of his voice:
"O sole, o sole mio,Sta 'n fronte a te,Sta 'n fronte a te!"
"O sole, o sole mio,Sta 'n fronte a te,Sta 'n fronte a te!"
Gaspare joined in lustily, and Carmela in the doorway of the Caffè Berardi waved a frying-pan at them in time to the music.
"Per Dio, Gaspare!" exclaimed Maurice, as they racedtowards the house, each striving to be first there—"Per Dio, I never knew what life was till I came to Sicily! I never knew what happiness was till this morning!"
"The frittura! The frittura!" shouted Gaspare. "I'll be first!"
Neck and neck they reached the caffè as Nito poured the shining fish into Madre Carmela's frying-pan.
"They are coming, signora, they are coming! Don't you hear them?"
Lucrezia was by the terrace wall looking over into the ravine. She could not see any moving figures, but she heard far down among the olives and the fruit trees Gaspare's voice singing "O sole mio!" and while she listened another voice joined in, the voice of the padrone:
"Dio mio, but they are merry!" she added, as the song was broken by a distant peal of laughter.
Hermione came out upon the steps. She had been in the sitting-room writing a letter to Miss Townly, who sent her long and tearful effusions from London almost every day.
"Have you got the frying-pan ready, Lucrezia?" she asked.
"The frying-pan, signora!"
"Yes, for the fish they are bringing us."
Lucrezia looked knowing.
"Oh, signora, they will bring no fish."
"Why not? They promised last night. Didn't you hear?"
"They promised, yes, but they won't remember. Men promise at night and forget in the morning."
Hermione laughed. She had been feeling a little dull, but now the sound of the lusty voices and the laughter from the ravine filled her with a sudden cheerfulness, and sent a glow of anticipation into her heart.
"Lucrezia, you are a cynic."
"What is a cinico, signora?"
"A Lucrezia. But you don't know your padrone. He won't forget us."
Lucrezia reddened. She feared she had perhaps said something that seemed disrespectful.
"Oh, signora, there is not another like the padrone. Every one says so. Ask Gaspare and Sebastiano. I only meant that—"
"I know. Well, to-day you will understand that all men are not forgetful, when you eat your fish."
Lucrezia still looked very doubtful, but she said nothing more.
"There they are!" exclaimed Hermione.
She waved her hand and cried out. Life suddenly seemed quite different to her. These moving figures peopled gloriously the desert waste, these ringing voices filled with music the brooding silence of it. She murmured to herself a verse of scripture, "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh with the morning," and she realized for the first time how absurdly sad and deserted she had been feeling, how unreasonably forlorn. By her present joy she measured her past—not sorrow exactly; she could not call it that—her past dreariness, and she said to herself with a little shock almost of fear, "How terribly dependent I am!"
"Mamma mia!" cried Lucrezia, as another shout of laughter came up from the ravine, "how merry and mad they are! They have had a good night's fishing."
Hermione heard the laughter, but now it sounded a little harsh in her ears.
"I wonder," she thought, as she leaned upon the terrace wall—"I wonder if he has missed me at all? I wonder if men ever miss us as we miss them?"
Her call, it seemed, had not been heard, nor her gesture of welcome seen, but now Maurice looked up, waved his cap, and shouted. Gaspare, too, took off his linen hat with a stentorian cry of "Buon giorno, signora."
"Signora!" said Lucrezia.
"Yes?"
"Look! Was not I right? Are they carrying anything?"
Hermione looked eagerly, almost passionately, at the two figures now drawing near to the last ascent up the bare mountain flank. Maurice had a stick in one hand, the other hung empty at his side. Gaspare still waved his hat wildly, holding it with both hands as a sailor holds the signalling-flag.
"Perhaps," she said—"perhaps it wasn't a good night, and they've caught nothing."
"Oh, signora, the sea was calm. They must have taken—"
"Perhaps their pockets are full of fish. I am sure they are."
She spoke with a cheerful assurance.
"If they have caught any fish, I know your frying-pan will be wanted," she said.
"Chi lo sa?" said Lucrezia, with rather perfunctory politeness.
Secretly she thought that the padrona had only one fault. She was a little obstinate sometimes, and disinclined to be told the truth. And certainly she did not know very much about men, although she had a husband.
Through the old Norman arch came Delarey and Gaspare, with hot faces and gay, shining eyes, splendidly tired with their exertions and happy in the thought of rest. Delarey took Hermione's hand in his. He would have kissed her before Lucrezia and Gaspare, quite naturally, but he felt that her hand stiffened slightly in his as he leaned forward, and he forbore. She longed for his kiss, but to receive it there would have spoiled a joy. And kind and familiar though she was with those beneath her, she could not bear to show the deeps of her heart before them. To her his kiss after her lonelynight would be an event. Did he know that? She wondered.
He still kept her hand in his as he began to tell her about their expedition.
"Did you enjoy it?" she asked, thinking what a boy he looked in his eager, physical happiness.
"Ask Gaspare!"
"I don't think I need. Your eyes tell me."
"I never enjoyed any night so much before, out there under the moon. Why don't we always sleep out-of-doors?"
"Shall we try some night on the terrace?"
"By Jove, we will! What a lark!"
"Did you go into the sea?"
"I should think so! Ask Gaspare if I didn't beat them all. I had to swim, too."
"And the fish?" she said, trying to speak, carelessly.
"They were stunning. We caught an awful lot, and Mother Carmela cooked them to a T. I had an appetite, I can tell you, Hermione, after being in the sea."
She was silent for a moment. Her hand had dropped out of his. When she spoke again, she said:
"And you slept in the caves?"
"The others did."
"And you?"
"I couldn't sleep, so I went out on to the beach. But I'll tell you all that presently. You won't be shocked, Hermione, if I take a siesta now? I'm pretty well done—grandly tired, don't you know. I think I could get a lovely nap before collazione."
"Come in, my dearest," she said. "Collazione a little late, Lucrezia, not till half-past one."
"And the fish, signora?" asked Lucrezia.
"We've got quite enough without fish," said Hermione, turning away.
"Oh, by Jove!" Delarey said, as they went into thecottage, putting his hand into his jacket-pocket, "I've got something for you, Hermione."
"Fish!" she cried, eagerly, her whole face brightening. "Lucre—"
"Fish in my coat!" he interrupted, still not remembering. "No, a letter. They gave it me from the village as we came up. Here it is."
He drew out a letter, gave it to her, and went into the bedroom, while Hermione stood in the sitting-room by the dining-table with the letter in her hand.
It was from Artois, with the Kairouan postmark.
"It's from Emile," she said.
Maurice was closing the shutters, to make the bedroom dark.
"Is he still in Africa?" he asked, letting down the bar with a clatter.
"Yes," she said, opening the envelope. "Go to bed like a good boy while I read it."
She wanted his kiss so much that she did not go near to him, and spoke with a lightness that was almost like a feigned indifference. He thrust his gay face through the doorway into the sunshine, and she saw the beads of perspiration on his smooth brow above his laughing, yet half-sleepy eyes.
"Come and tuck me up afterwards!" he said, and vanished.
Hermione made a little movement as if to follow him, but checked it and unfolded the letter.
"4,Rue d'Abdul Kader, Kairouan.My dear Friend,—This will be one of my dreary notes, but you must forgive me. Do you ever feel a heavy cloud of apprehension lowering over you, a sensation of approaching calamity, as if you heard the footsteps of a deadly enemy stealthily approaching you? Do you know what it is to lose courage, to fear yourself, life, the future, to long to hear a word of sympathy from a friendly voice, to long to lay hold of a friendly hand? Are you ever like a child in the dark, your intellect noweapon against the dread of formless things? The African sun is shining here as I sit under a palm-tree writing, with my servant, Zerzour, squatting beside me. It is so clear that I can almost count the veins in the leaves of the palms, so warm that Zerzour has thrown off his burnous and kept on only his linen shirt. And yet I am cold and seem to be in blackness. I write to you to gain some courage if I can. But I have gained none yet. I believe there must be a physical cause for my malaise, and that I am going to have some dreadful illness, and perhaps lay my bones here in the shadow of the mosques among the sons of Islam. Write to me. Is the garden of paradise blooming with flowers? Is the tree of knowledge of good weighed down with fruit, and do you pluck the fruit boldly and eat it every day? You told me in London to come over and see you. I am not coming. Do not fear. But how I wish that I could now, at this instant, see your strong face, touch your courageous hand! There is a sensation of doom upon me. Laugh at me as much as you like, but write to me. I feel cold—cold in the sun.Emile."
"4,Rue d'Abdul Kader, Kairouan.
My dear Friend,—This will be one of my dreary notes, but you must forgive me. Do you ever feel a heavy cloud of apprehension lowering over you, a sensation of approaching calamity, as if you heard the footsteps of a deadly enemy stealthily approaching you? Do you know what it is to lose courage, to fear yourself, life, the future, to long to hear a word of sympathy from a friendly voice, to long to lay hold of a friendly hand? Are you ever like a child in the dark, your intellect noweapon against the dread of formless things? The African sun is shining here as I sit under a palm-tree writing, with my servant, Zerzour, squatting beside me. It is so clear that I can almost count the veins in the leaves of the palms, so warm that Zerzour has thrown off his burnous and kept on only his linen shirt. And yet I am cold and seem to be in blackness. I write to you to gain some courage if I can. But I have gained none yet. I believe there must be a physical cause for my malaise, and that I am going to have some dreadful illness, and perhaps lay my bones here in the shadow of the mosques among the sons of Islam. Write to me. Is the garden of paradise blooming with flowers? Is the tree of knowledge of good weighed down with fruit, and do you pluck the fruit boldly and eat it every day? You told me in London to come over and see you. I am not coming. Do not fear. But how I wish that I could now, at this instant, see your strong face, touch your courageous hand! There is a sensation of doom upon me. Laugh at me as much as you like, but write to me. I feel cold—cold in the sun.
Emile."
When she had finished reading this letter, Hermione stood quite still with it in her hand, gazing at the white paper on which this cry from Africa was traced. It seemed to her that—a cry from across the sea for help against some impending fate. She had often had melancholy letters from Artois in the past, expressing pessimistic views about life and literature, anxiety about some book which he was writing and which he thought was going to be a failure, anger against the follies of men, the turn of French politics, or the degeneration of the arts in modern times. Diatribes she was accustomed to, and a definite melancholy from one who had not a gay temperament. But this letter was different from all the others. She sat down and read it again. For the moment she had forgotten Maurice, and did not hear his movements in the adjoining room. She was in Africa under a palm-tree, looking into the face of a friend with keen anxiety, trying to read the immediate future for him there.
"Maurice!" she called, presently, without getting upfrom her seat, "I've had such a strange letter from Emile. I'm afraid—I feel as if he were going to be dreadfully ill or have an accident."
There was no reply.
"Maurice!" she called again.
Then she got up and looked into the bedroom. It was nearly dark, but she could see her husband's black head on the pillow and hear a sound of regular breathing. He was asleep already; she had not received his kiss or tucked him up. She felt absurdly unhappy, as if she had missed a pleasure that could never come to her again. That, she thought, is one of the penalties of a great love, the passionate regret it spends on the tiny things it has failed of. At this moment she fancied—no, she felt sure—that there would always be a shadow in her life. She had lost Maurice's kiss after his return from his first absence since their marriage. And a kiss from his lips still seemed to her a wonderful, almost a sacred thing, not only a physical act, but an emblem of that which was mysterious and lay behind the physical. Why had she not let him kiss her on the terrace? Her sensitive reserve had made her loss. For a moment she thought she wished she had the careless mind of a peasant. Lucrezia loved Sebastiano with passion, but she would have let him kiss her in public and been proud of it. What was the use of delicacy, of sensitiveness, in the great, coarse thing called life? Even Maurice had not shared her feeling. He was open as a boy, almost as a peasant boy.
She began to wonder about him. She often wondered about him now in Sicily. In England she never had. She had thought there that she knew him as he, perhaps, could never know her. It seemed to her that she had been almost arrogant, filled with a pride of intellect. She was beginning to be humbler here, face to face with Etna.
Let him sleep, mystery wrapped in the mystery of slumber!
She sat down in the twilight, waiting till he should wake, watching the darkness of his hair upon the pillow.
Some time passed, and presently she heard a noise upon the terrace. She got up softly, went into the sitting-room, and looked out. Lucrezia was laying the table for collazione.
"Is it half-past one already?" she asked.
"Si, signora."
"But the padrone is still asleep!"
"So is Gaspare in the hay. Come and see, signora."
Lucrezia took Hermione by the hand and led her round the angle of the cottage. There, under the low roof of the out-house, dressed only in his shirt and trousers with his brown arms bare and his hair tumbled over his damp forehead, lay Gaspare on a heap of hay close to Tito, the donkey. Some hens were tripping and pecking by his legs, and a black cat was curled up in the hollow of his left armpit. He looked infinitely young, healthy, and comfortable, like an embodied carelessness that had flung itself down to its need.
"I wish I could sleep like that," said Hermione.
"Signora!" said Lucrezia, shocked. "You in the stable with that white dress! Mamma mia! And the hens!"
"Hens, donkey, cat, hay, and all—I should love it. But I'm too old ever to sleep like that. Don't wake him!"
Lucrezia was stepping over to Gaspare.
"And I won't wake the padrone. Let them both sleep. They've been up all night. I'll eat alone. When they wake we'll manage something for them. Perhaps they'll sleep till evening, till dinner-time."
"Gaspare will, signora. He can sleep the clock round when he's tired."
"And the padrone too, I dare say. All the better."
She spoke cheerfully, then went to sit down to her solitary meal.
The letter of Artois was her only company. She read it again as she ate, and again felt as if it had been written by a man over whom some real misfortune was impending. The thought of his isolation in that remote African city pained her warm heart. She compared it with her own momentary solitude, and chided herself for minding—and she did mind—the lonely meal. How much she had—everything almost! And Artois, with his genius, his fame, his liberty—how little he had! An Arab servant for his companion, while she for hers had Maurice! Her heart glowed with thankfulness, and, feeling how rich she was, she felt a longing to give to others—a longing to make every one happy, a longing specially to make Emile happy. His letter was horribly sad. Each time she looked at it she was made sad by it, even apprehensive. She remembered their long and close friendship, how she had sympathized with all his struggles, how she had been proud of possessing his confidence and of being asked to advise him on points connected with his work. The past returned to her, kindling fires in her heart, till she longed to be near him and to shed their warmth on him. The African sun shone upon him and left him cold, numb. How wonderful it was, she thought, that the touch of a true friend's hand, the smile of the eyes of a friend, could succeed where the sun failed. Sometimes she thought of herself, of all human beings, as pygmies. Now she felt that she came of a race of giants, whose powers were illimitable. If only she could be under that palm-tree for a moment beside Emile, she would be able to test the power she knew was within her, the glorious power that the sun lacked, to shed light and heat through a human soul. With an instinctive gesture she stretched out her hand as if to give Artois the touch he longed for. It encountered only the air and dropped to her side. She got up with a sigh.
"Poor old Emile!" she said to herself. "If only I could do something for him!"
The thought of Maurice sleeping calmly close to her made her long to say "Thank you" for her great happiness by performing some action of usefulness, some action that would help another—Emile for choice—to happiness, or, at least, to calm.
This longing was for a moment so keen in her that it was almost like an unconscious petition, like an unuttered prayer in the heart, "Give me an opportunity to show my gratitude."
She stood by the wall for a moment, looking over into the ravine and at the mountain flank opposite. Etna was startlingly clear to-day. She fancied that if a fly were to settle upon the snow on its summit she would be able to see it. The sea was like a mirror in which lay the reflection of the unclouded sky. It was not far to Africa. She watched a bird pass towards the sea. Perhaps it was flying to Kairouan, and would settle at last on one of the white cupolas of the great mosque there, the Mosque of Djama Kebir.
What could she do for Emile? She could at least write to him. She could renew her invitation to him to come to Sicily.
"Lucrezia!" she called, softly, lest she might waken Maurice.
"Signora?" said Lucrezia, appearing round the corner of the cottage.
"Please bring me out a pen and ink and writing-paper, will you?"
"Si, signora."
Lucrezia was standing beside Hermione. Now she turned to go into the house. As she did so she said:
"Ecco, Antonino from the post-office!"
"Where?" asked Hermione.
Lucrezia pointed to a little figure that was moving quickly along the mountain-path towards the cottage.
"There, signora. But why should he come? It is not the hour for the post yet."
"No. Perhaps it is a telegram. Yes, it must be a telegram."
She glanced at the letter in her hand.
"It's a telegram from Africa," she said, as if she knew.
And at that moment she felt that she did know.
Lucrezia regarded her with round-eyed amazement.
"But, signora, how can you—"
"There, Antonino has disappeared under the trees! We shall see him in a minute among the rocks. I'll go to meet him."
And she went quickly to the archway, and looked down the path where the lizards were darting to and fro in the sunshine. Almost directly Antonino reappeared, a small boy climbing steadily up the steep pathway, with a leather bag slung over his shoulder.
"Antonino!" she called to him. "Is it a telegram?"
"Si, signora!" he cried out.
He came up to her, panting, opened the bag, and gave her the folded paper.
"Go and get something to drink," she said. "To eat, too, if you're hungry."
Antonino ran off eagerly, while Hermione tore open the paper and read these words in French:
"Monsieur Artois dangerously ill; fear may not recover; he wished you to know.Max Berton, Docteur Médecin, Kairouan."
"Monsieur Artois dangerously ill; fear may not recover; he wished you to know.Max Berton, Docteur Médecin, Kairouan."
Hermione dropped the telegram. She did not feel at all surprised. Indeed, she felt that she had been expecting almost these very words, telling her of a tragedy at which the letter she still held in her hand had hinted. For a moment she stood there without being conscious of any special sensation. Then she stooped, picked up the telegram, and read it again. This time it seemed like an answer to that unuttered prayer in her heart: "Give me an opportunity to show my gratitude." She did nothesitate for a moment as to what she would do. She would go to Kairouan, to close the eyes of her friend if he must die, if not to nurse him back to life.
Antonino was munching some bread and cheese and had one hand round a glass full of red wine.
"I'm going to write an answer," she said to him, "and you must run with it."
"Si, signora."
"Was it from Africa, signora?" asked Lucrezia.
"Yes."
Lucrezia's jaw fell, and she stared in superstitious amazement.
"I wonder," Hermione thought, "if Maurice—"
She went gently to the bedroom. He was still sleeping calmly. His attitude of luxurious repose, the sound of his quiet breathing, seemed strange to her eyes and ears at this moment, strange and almost horrible. For an instant she thought of waking him in order to tell him her news and consult with him about the journey. It never occurred to her to ask him whether there should be a journey. But something held her back, as one is held back from disturbing the slumber of a tired child, and she returned to the sitting-room, wrote out the following telegram: