His attitude was hideous. Maurice pretended not to notice it, and was careful to keep on the most friendly possible terms with him. But, while they acted their parts, the secret sense of enmity grew steadily in thetwo men, as things grow in the sun. When Maurice saw the fisherman, with a smiling, bird's face, coming to meet him as he climbed up through the trees to the sirens' house, he sometimes longed to strike him. And when Maurice went away with Gaspare in the night towards the white road where Tito, tied to a stake, was waiting to carry the empty pannier that had contained a supper up the mountain to the house of the priest, Salvatore stood handling his money, and murmuring:
"Maledetto straniero! Madonna! Ma io sono più birbante di Lei, mille volte più birbante, Dio mio!"
And he laughed as he went towards the sirens' house. It amused him to think that a stranger, an "Inglese," fancied that he could play with a Sicilian, who had never been "worsted," even by one of his own countrymen.
Maurice had begun to dread the arrival of the post. Artois was rapidly recovering his strength, and in each of her letters Hermione wrote with a more glowing certainty of her speedy return to Sicily, bringing the invalid with her. Would they come before June 11th, the day of the fair? That was the question which preoccupied Maurice, which began to haunt him, and set a light of anxiety in his eyes when he saw Antonino climbing up the mountain-side with the letter-bag slung over his shoulder. He felt as if he could not forego this last festa. When it was over, when the lights had gone out in the houses of San Felice, and the music was silent, and the last rocket had burst in the sky, showering down its sparks towards the gaping faces of the peasants, he would be ready to give up this free, unintellectual life, this life in which his youth ran wild. He would resign himself to the inevitable, return to the existence in which, till now, he had found happiness, and try to find it there once more, try to forget the strange voices that had called him, the strange impulses that had prompted him. He would go back to his old self, and seek pleasure in the old paths, where he walked with those whom society would call his "equals," and did not spend his days with men who wrung their scant livelihood from the breast of the earth and from the breast of the sea, with women whose eyes, perhaps, were full of flickering fires, but who had never turned the leaves of a printed book, or traced a word upon paper. He would sit again at the feet ofpeople who were cleverer and more full of knowledge than himself, and look up to them with reverence.
But he must have his festa first. He counted upon that. He desired that so strongly, almost so fiercely, that he felt as if he could not bear to be thwarted, as if, should fate interfere between him and the fulfilment of this longing, he might do something almost desperate. He looked forward to the fair with something of the eagerness and the anticipation of a child expectant of strange marvels, of wonderful and mysterious happenings, and the name San Felice rang in his ears with a music that was magical, suggesting curious joys.
He often talked about the fair to Gaspare, asking him many questions which the boy was nothing loath to answer.
To Gaspare the fair of San Felice was the great event of the Sicilian year. He had only been to it twice; the first time when he was but ten years old, and was taken by an uncle who had gone to seek his fortune in South America, and had come back for a year to his native land to spend some of the money he had earned as a cook, and afterwards as a restaurant proprietor, in Buenos Ayres; the second time when he was sixteen, and had succeeded in saving up a little of the money given to him by travellers whom he had accompanied as a guide on their excursions. And these two days had been red-letter days in his life. His eyes shone with excitement when he spoke of the festivities at San Felice, of the bands of music—there were three "musics" in the village; of the village beauties who sauntered slowly up and down, dressed in brocades and adorned with jewels which had been hoarded in the family chests for generations, and were only taken out to be worn at the fair and at wedding-feasts; of the booths where all the desirable things of the world were exposed for sale—rings, watches, chains, looking-glasses,clocks that sang and chimed with bells like church towers, yellow shoes, and caps of all colors, handkerchiefs, and shawls with fringes that, when worn, drooped almost to the ground; ballads written by native poets, relating the life and the trial of Musolino, the famous brigand, his noble address to his captors, and his despair when he was condemned to eternal confinement; and the adventures of Giuseppe Moroni, called "Il Niccheri" (illetterato), composed in eight-lined verses, and full of the most startling and passionate occurrences. There were donkeys, too—donkeys from all parts of Sicily, mules from Girgenti, decorated with red-and-yellow harness, with pyramids of plumes and bells upon their heads, painted carts with pictures of the miracles of the saints and the conquests of the Saracens, turkeys and hens, and even cages containing yellow birds that came from islands far away and that sang with the sweetness of the angels. The ristoranti were crowded with people, playing cards and eating delicious food, and outside upon the pavements were dozens of little tables at which you could sit, drinking syrups of beautiful hues and watching at your ease the marvels of the show. Here came boys from Naples to sing and dance, peddlers with shining knives and elegant walking-sticks for sale, fortune-tellers with your fate already printed and neatly folded in an envelope, sometimes a pigeon-man with a high black hat, who made his doves hop from shoulder to shoulder along a row of school-children, or a man with a monkey that played antics to the sound of a grinding organ, and that was dressed up in a red worsted jacket and a pair of cloth trousers. And there were shooting-galleries and puppet-shows and dancing-rooms, and at night, when the darkness came, there were giuochi di fuoco which lit up the whole sky, till you could see Etna quite plainly.
"E' veramente un paradiso!" concluded Gaspare.
"A paradise!" echoed Maurice. "A paradise! I say, Gaspare, why can't we always live in paradise? Why can't life be one long festa?"
"Non lo so, signore. And the signora? Do you think she will be here for the fair?"
"I don't know. But if she is here, I am not sure that she will come to see it."
"Why not, signorino? Will she stay with the sick signore?"
"Perhaps. But I don't think she will be here. She does not say she will be here."
"Do you want her to be here, signorino?" Gaspare asked, abruptly.
"Why do you ask such a question? Of course I am happy, very happy, when the signora is here."
As he said the words Maurice remembered how happy he had been in the house of the priest alone with Hermione. Indeed, he had thought that he was perfectly happy, that he had nothing left to wish for. But that seemed long ago. He wondered if he could ever again feel that sense of perfect contentment. He could scarcely believe so. A certain feverishness had stolen into his Sicilian life. He felt often like a man in suspense, uncertain of the future, almost apprehensive. He no longer danced the tarantella with the careless abandon of a boy. And yet he sometimes had a strange consciousness that he was near to something that might bring to him a joy such as he had never yet experienced.
"I wish I knew what day Hermione is arriving," he thought, almost fretfully. "I wish she wouldn't keep me hung up in this condition of uncertainty. She seems to think that I have nothing to do but just wait here upon the pleasure of Artois."
With that last thought the old sense of injury rose in him again. This friend of Hermione's was spoiling everything, was being put before every one. It wasreally monstrous that even during their honeymoon this old friendship should intrude, should be allowed to govern their actions and disturb their serenity. Now that Artois was out of danger Maurice began to forget how ill he had been, began sometimes to doubt whether he had ever been so ill as Hermione supposed. Perhaps Artois was one of those men who liked to have a clever woman at his beck and call. These literary fellows were often terribly exigent, eaten up with the sense of their own importance. But he, Maurice, was not going to allow himself to be made a cat's-paw of. He would make Artois understand that he was not going to permit his life to be interfered with by any one.
"I'll let him see that when he comes," he said to himself. "I'll take a strong line. A man must be the master of his own life if he's worth anything. These Sicilians understand that."
He began secretly to admire what before he had thought almost hateful, the strong Arab characteristics that linger on in many Sicilians, to think almost weak and unmanly the Western attitude to woman.
"I will be master," he said to himself again. "All these Sicilians are wondering that I ever let Hermione go to Africa. Perhaps they think I'm a muff to have given in about it. And now, when Hermione comes back with a man, they'll suppose—God knows what they won't imagine!"
He had begun so to identify himself with the Sicilians about Marechiaro that he cared what they thought, was becoming sensitive to their opinion of him as if he had been one of themselves. One day Gaspare told him a story of a contadino who had bought a house in the village, but who, being unable to complete the payment, had been turned out into the street.
"And now, signorino," Gaspare concluded, "they are all laughing at him in Marechiaro. He dare notshow himself any more in the Piazza. When a man cannot go any more into the Piazza—Madonna!"
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in a gesture of contemptuous pity.
"E' finito!" he exclaimed.
"Certo!" said Maurice.
He was resolved that he would never be in such a case. Hermione, he felt now, did not understand the Sicilians as he understood them. If she did she would not bring back Artois from Africa, she would not arrive openly with him. But surely she ought to understand that such an action would make people wonder, would be likely to make them think that Artois was something more than her friend. And then Maurice thought of the day of their arrival, of his own descent to the station, to wait upon the platform for the train. Artois was not going to stay in the house of the priest. That was impossible, as there was no guest-room. He would put up at the hotel in Marechiaro. But that would make little difference. He was to arrive with Hermione. Every one would know that she had spent all this time with him in Africa. Maurice grew hot as he thought of the smiles on the Sicilian faces, of the looks of astonishment at the strange doings of the forestieri. Hermione's enthusiastic kindness was bringing her husband almost to shame. It was a pity that people were sometimes thoughtless in their eager desire to be generous and sympathetic.
One day, when Maurice had been brooding over this matter of the Sicilian's view of Hermione's proceedings, the spirit moved him to go down on foot to Marechiaro to see if there were any letters for him at the post. It was now June 7th. In four days would come the fair. As the time for it drew near, his anxiety lest anything should interfere to prevent his going to it with Maddalena increased, and each day at post time he was filled with a fever of impatience to know whether there wouldbe a letter from Africa or not. Antonino generally appeared about four o'clock, but the letters were in the village long before then, and this afternoon Maurice felt that he could not wait for the boy's coming. He had a conviction that there was a letter, a decisive letter from Hermione, fixing at last the date of her arrival with Artois. He must have it in his hands at the first possible moment. If he went himself to the post he would know the truth at least an hour and a half sooner than if he waited in the house of the priest. He resolved, therefore, to go, got his hat and stick, and set out, after telling Gaspare, who was watching for birds with his gun, that he was going for a stroll on the mountain-side and might be away for a couple of hours.
It was a brilliant afternoon. The landscape looked hard in the fiery sunshine, the shapes of the mountains fierce and relentless, the dry watercourses almost bitter in their barrenness. Already the devastation of the summer was beginning to be apparent. All tenderness had gone from the higher slopes of the mountains which, jocund in spring and in autumn with growing crops, were now bare and brown, and seamed like the hide of a tropical reptile gleaming with metallic hues. The lower slopes were still panoplied with the green of vines and of trees, but the ground beneath the trees was arid. The sun was coming into his dominion with pride and cruelty, like a conqueror who loots the land he takes to be his own.
But Maurice did not mind the change, which drove the tourists northward, and left Sicily to its own people. He even rejoiced in it. As each day the heat increased he was conscious of an increasing exultation, such as surely the snakes and the lizards feel as they come out of their hiding-places into the golden light. He was filled with a glorious sense of expansion, as if his capabilities grew larger, as if they were developed by heat like certain plants. None of the miseries that afflictmany people in the violent summers which govern southern lands were his. His skin did not peel, his eyes did not become inflamed, nor did his head ache under the action of the burning rays. They came to him like brothers and he rejoiced in their company. To-day, as he descended to Marechiaro, he revelled in the sun. Its ruthlessness made him feel ruthless. He was conscious of that. At this moment he was in absolutely perfect physical health. His body was lithe and supple, yet his legs and arms were hard with springing muscle. His warm blood sang through his veins like music through the pipes of an organ. His eyes shone with the superb animation of youth that is radiantly sound. For, despite his anxiety, his sometimes almost fretful irritation when he thought about the coming of Artois and the passing of his own freedom, there were moments when he felt as if he could leap with the sheer joy of life, as if he could lift up his arms and burst forth into a wild song of praise to his divinity, the sun. And this grand condition of health made him feel ruthless, as the man who conquers and enters a city in triumph feels ruthless. As he trod down towards Marechiaro to-day, thinking of the letter that perhaps awaited him, it seemed to him that it would be monstrous if anything, if any one, were to interfere with his day of joy, the day he was looking forward to with such eager anticipation. He felt inclined to trample over opposition. Yet what could he do if, by some evil chance, Hermione and Artois arrived the day before the fair, or on the very day of the fair? He hurried his steps. He wanted to be in the village, to know whether there was a letter for him from Africa.
When he came into the village it was about half-past two o'clock, and the long, narrow main street was deserted. The owners of some of the antiquity shops had already put up their shutters for the summer. Other shops, still open, showed gaping doorways, throughwhich no travellers passed. Inside, the proprietors were dozing among their red brocades, their pottery, their Sicilian jewelry and obscure pictures thick with dust, guarded by squadrons of large, black flies, which droned on walls and ceilings, crept over the tiled floors, and clung to the draperies and laces which lay upon the cabinets. In the shady little rooms of the barbers small boys in linen jackets kept a drowsy vigil for the proprietors, who were sleeping in some dark corner of bedchamber or wine-shop. But no customer came to send them flying. The sun made the beards push on the brown Sicilian faces, but no one wanted to be shaved before the evening fell. Two or three lads lounged by on their way to the sea with towels and bathing-drawers over their arms. A few women were spinning flax on the door-lintels, or filling buckets of water from the fountain. A few children were trying to play mysterious games in the narrow alleys that led downward to the sea and upward to the mountains on the left and right of the street. A donkey brayed under an archway as if to summon its master from his siesta. A cat stole along the gutter, and vanished into a hole beneath a shut door. But the village was almost like a dead village, slain by the sun in his carelessness of pride.
On his way to the post Maurice passed through the Piazza that was the glory of Marechiaro and the place of assemblage for its people. Here the music sounded on festa days before the stone steps that led up to the church of San Giuseppe. Here was the principal caffè, the Caffè Nuovo, where granite and ices were to be had, delicious yellow cakes, and chocolate made up into shapes of crowing cocks, of pigs, of little men with hats, and of saints with flowing robes. Here, too, was the club, with chairs and sofas now covered with white, and long tables adorned with illustrated journals and the papers of Catania, of Messina, and Palermo. But at this hour the caffè was closed and the club was empty. For thesun beat down with fury upon the open space with its tiled pavement, and the seats let into the wall that sheltered the Piazza from the precipice that frowned above the sea were untenanted by loungers. As Maurice went by he thought of Gaspare's words, "When a man cannot go any more into the Piazza—Madonna, it is finished!" This was the place where the public opinion of Marechiaro was formed, where fame was made and characters were taken away. He paused for an instant by the church, then went on under the clock tower and came to the post.
"Any letters for me, Don Paolo?" he asked of the postmaster.
The old man saluted him languidly through the peep-hole.
"Si, signore, ce ne sono."
He turned to seek for them while Maurice waited. He heard the flies buzzing. Their noise was loud in his ears. His heart beat strongly and he was gnawed by suspense. Never before had he felt so anxious, so impatient to know anything as he was now to know if among the letters there was one from Hermione.
"Ecco, signore!"
"Grazie!"
Maurice took the packet.
"A rivederci!"
"A rivederlo, signore."
He went away down the street. But now he had his letters he did not look at them immediately. Something held him back from looking at them until he had come again into the Piazza. It was still deserted. He went over to the seat by the wall, and sat down sideways, so that he could look over the wall to the sea immediately below him. Then, very slowly, he drew out his cigarette-case, selected a cigarette, lit it, and began to smoke like a man who was at ease and idle. He glanced over the wall. At the foot of the precipiceby the sea was the station of Cattaro, at which Hermione and Artois would arrive when they came. He could see the platform, some trucks of merchandise standing on the rails, the white road winding by towards San Felice and Etna. After a long look down he turned at last to the packet from the post which he had laid upon the hot stone at his side. TheTimes, the "Pink 'un," theIllustrated London News, and three letters. The first was obviously a bill forwarded from London. The second was also from England. He recognized the handwriting of his mother. The third? He turned it over. Yes, it was from Hermione. His instinct had not deceived him. He was certain, too, that it did not deceive him now. He was certain that this was the letter that fixed the date of her coming with Artois. He opened the two other letters and glanced over them, and then at last he tore the covering from Hermione's. A swift, searching look was enough. The letter dropped from his hand to the seat. He had seen these words:
"Isn't it splendid? Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat till the tenth. We shall take that, and be at Cattaro on the eleventh at five o'clock in the afternoon...."
"Isn't it splendid?"
For a moment he sat quite still in the glare of the sun, mentally repeating to himself these words of his wife. So the inevitable had happened. For he felt it was inevitable. Fate was against him. He was not to have his pleasure.
"Signorino! Come sta lei? Lei sta bene?"
He started and looked up. He had heard no footstep. Salvatore stood by him, smiling at him, Salvatore with bare feet, and a fish-basket slung over his arm.
"Buon giorno, Salvatore!" he answered, with an effort.
Salvatore looked at Maurice's cigarette, put down the basket, and sat down on the seat by Maurice's side.
"I haven't smoked to-day, signore," he began. "Dio mio! But it must be good to have plenty of soldi!"
"Ecco!"
Maurice held out his cigarette-case.
"Take two—three!"
"Grazie, signore, mille grazie!"
He took them greedily.
"And the fair, signorino—only four days now to the fair! I have been to order the donkeys for me and Maddalena."
"Davvero?" Maurice said, mechanically.
"Si, signore. From Angelo of the mill. He wanted fifteen lire, but I laughed at him. I was with him a good hour and I got them for nine. Per Dio! Fifteen lire and to a Siciliano! For he didn't know you were coming. I took care not to tell him that."
"Oh, you took care not to tell him that I was coming!"
Maurice was looking over the wall at the platform of the station far down below. He seemed to see himself upon it, waiting for the train to glide in on the day of the fair, waiting among the smiling Sicilian facchini.
"Si, signore. Was not I right?"
"Quite right."
"Per Dio, signore, these are good cigarettes. Where do they come from?"
"From Cairo, in Egypt."
"Egitto! They must cost a lot."
He edged nearer to Maurice.
"You must be very happy, signorino."
"I!" Maurice laughed. "Madonna! Why?"
"Because you are so rich!"
There was a fawning sound in the fisherman's voice, a fawning look in his small, screwed-up eyes.
"To you it would be nothing to buy all the donkeys at the fair of San Felice."
Maurice moved ever so little away from him.
"Ah, signorino, if I had been born you how happy I should be!"
And he heaved a great sigh and puffed at the cigarette voluptuously.
Maurice said nothing. He was still looking at the railway platform. And now he seemed to see the train gliding in on the day of the fair of San Felice.
"Signorino! Signorino!"
"Well, what is it, Salvatore?"
"I have ordered the donkeys for ten o'clock. Then we can go quietly. They will be at Isola Bella at ten o'clock. I shall bring Maddalena round in the boat."
"Oh!"
Salvatore chuckled.
"She has got a surprise for you, signore."
"A surprise?"
"Per Dio!"
"What is it?"
His voice was listless, but now he looked at Salvatore.
"I ought not to tell you, signore. But—if I do—you won't ever tell her?"
"No."
"A new gown, signorino, a beautiful new gown, made by Maria Compagni here in the Corso. Will you be at Isola Bella with Gaspare by ten o'clock on the day, signorino?"
"Yes, Salvatore!" Maurice said, in a loud, firm, almost angry voice. "I will be there. Don't doubt it. Addio Salvatore!"
He got up.
"A rivederci, signore. Ma—"
He got up, too, and bent to pick up his fish-basket.
"No, don't come with me. I'm going up now, straight up by the Castello."
"In all this heat? But it's steep there, signore, and the path is all covered with stones. You'll never—"
"That doesn't matter. I like the sun. Addio!"
"And this evening, signorino? You are coming to bathe this evening?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. Don't wait for me. Go to sea if you want to!"
"Birbanti!" muttered the fisherman, as he watched Maurice stride away across the Piazza, and strike up the mountain-side by the tiny path that led to the Castello. "You want to get me out of the way, do you? Birbanti! Ah, you fine strangers from England! You think to come here and find men that are babies, do you? men that—"
He went off noiselessly on his bare feet, muttering to himself with the half-smoked cigarette in his lean, brown hand.
Meanwhile, Maurice climbed rapidly up the steep track over the stones in the eye of the sun. He had not lied to Salvatore. While the fisherman had been speaking to him he had come to a decision. A disgraceful decision he knew it to be, but he would keep to it. Nothing should prevent him from keeping to it. He would be at Isola Bella on the day of the fair. He would go to San Felice. He would stay there till the last rocket burst in the sky over Etna, till the last song had been sung, the last toast shouted, the last tarantella danced, the last—kiss given—the last, the very last. He would ignore this message from Africa. He would pretend he had never received it. He would lie about it. Yes, he would lie—but he would have his pleasure. He was determined upon that, and nothing should shake him, no qualms of conscience, no voices within him, no memories of past days, no promptings of duty.
He hurried up the stony path. He did not feel the sun upon him. The sweat poured down over his face, his body. He did not know it. His heart was set hard, and he felt villanous, but he felt quite sure what he was going to do, quite sure that he was going to the fair despite that letter.
When he reached the priest's house he felt exhausted. Without knowing it he had come up the mountain at a racing pace. But he was not tired merely because of that. He sank down in a chair in the sitting-room. Lucrezia came and peeped at him.
"Where is Gaspare?" he asked, putting his hand instinctively over the pocket in which were the letters.
"He is still out after the birds, signore. He has shot five already."
"Poor little wretches! And he's still out?"
"Si, signore. He has gone on to Don Peppino's terreno now. There are many birds there. How hot you are, signorino! Shall I—"
"No, no. Nothing, Lucrezia! Leave me alone!"
She disappeared.
Then Maurice drew the letters from his pocket and slowly spread out Hermione's in his lap. He had not read it through yet. He had only glanced at it and seen what he had feared to see. Now he read it word by word, very slowly and carefully. When he had come to the end he kept it on his knee and sat for some time quite still.
In the letter Hermione asked him to go to the Hôtel Regina Margherita at Marechiaro, and engage two good rooms facing the sea for Artois, a bedroom and a sitting-room. They were to be ready for the eleventh. She wrote with her usual splendid frankness. Her soul was made of sincerity as a sovereign is made of gold.
"I know"—these were her words—"I know you will try and make Emile's coming to Sicily a little festa. Don't think I imagine you are personally delighted at his coming, though I am sure you are delighted at his recovery. He is my old friend, not yours, and I am not such a fool as to suppose that you can care for him at all as I do, who have known him intimately and proved his loyalty and his nobility of nature. But I think, I am certain, Maurice, that you will make his coming a festa for my sake. He has suffered very much. He is as weak almost as a child still. There's something tremendously pathetic in the weakness of body of a man so brilliant in mind, so powerful of soul. It goes right to my heart as I think it would go to yours. Let us make his return to life beautiful and blessed. Sha'n't we? Put flowers in the rooms for me, won't you? Make them look homey. Put some books about. But I needn't tell you. We are one, you and I, and I needn't tell you any more. It would be like telling things to myself—as unnecessary as teaching an organ-grinder how to turn the handle of his organ! Oh, Maurice, I can laugh to-day! I could almost—I—get up and dance the tarantella all alone here in my little, bare room with no books and scarcely any flowers. And at the station show Emile he is welcome. He is a little diffident at coming. He fancies perhaps he will be in the way. But one look of yours, one grasp of your hand will drive it all out of him! God bless you, my dearest. How he has blessed me in giving you to me!"
As Maurice sat there, under his skin, burned deep brown by the sun, there rose a hot flush of red! Yes, he reddened at the thought of what he was going to do, but still he meant to do it. He could not forego his pleasure. He could not. There was something wild and imperious within him that defied his better self at this moment. But the better self was not dead. It was even startlingly alive, enough alive to stand almost aghast at that which was going, it knew, to dominate it—to dominate it for a time, but only for a time. On that he was resolved, as he was resolved to have this one pleasure to which he had looked forward, to which he was looking forward now. Men often mentally put a period to their sinning. Maurice put a period to his sinning as he sat staring at the letter on his knees. And the period which he put was the day of the fair at SanFelice. After that day this book of his wild youth was to be closed forever.
After the day of the fair he would live rightly, sincerely, meeting as it deserved to be met the utter sincerity of his wife. He would be, after that date, entirely straight with her. He loved her. As he looked at her letter he felt that he did love, must love, such love as hers. He was not a bad man, but he was a wilful man. The wild heart of youth in him was wilful. Well, after San Felice, he would control that wilfulness of his heart, he would discipline it. He would do more, he would forget that it existed. After San Felice!
With a sigh, like that of a burdened man, he got up, took the letter in his hand, and went out up the mountain-side. There he tore the letter and its envelope into fragments, and hid the fragments in a heap of stones hot with the sun.
When Gaspare came in that evening with a string of little birds in his hand and asked Maurice if there were any letter from Africa to say when the signora would arrive, Maurice answered "No."
"Then the signora will not be here for the fair, signorino?" said the boy.
"I don't suppose—no, Gaspare, she will not be here for the fair."
"She would have written by now if she were coming.
"Yes, if she were coming she would certainly have written by now."
"Signorino! Signorino! Are you ready?"
It was Gaspare's voice shouting vivaciously from the sunny terrace, where Tito and another donkey, gayly caparisoned and decorated with flowers and little streamers of colored ribbon, were waiting before the steps.
"Si, si! I'm coming in a moment!" replied Maurice's voice from the bedroom.
Lucrezia stood by the wall looking very dismal. She longed to go to the fair, and that made her sad. But there was also another reason for her depression. Sebastiano was still away, and for many days he had not written to her. This was bad enough. But there was something worse. News had come to Marechiaro from a sailor of Messina, a friend of Sebastiano's, that Sebastiano was lingering in the Lipari Isles because he had found a girl there, a pretty girl called Teodora Amalfi, to whom he was paying attentions. And although Lucrezia laughed at the story, and pretended to disbelieve it, her heart was rent by jealousy and despair, and a longing to travel away, to cross the sea, to tear her lover from temptation, to—to speak for a few moments quietly—oh, very quietly—with this Teodora. Even now, while she stared at the donkeys, and at Gaspare in his festa suit, with two large, pink roses above his ears, she put up her hands instinctively to her own ears, as if to pluck the ear-rings out of them, as the Sicilian women of the lower classes do, deliberately, sternly, before they begin to fight their rivals, women who have taken their lovers or their husbands from them.
Ah, if she were only in the Lipari Isles she would speak with Teodora Amalfi, speak with her till the blood flowed! She set her teeth, and her face looked almost old in the sunshine.
"Coraggio, Lucrezia!" laughed Gaspare. "He will come back some day when—when he has sold enough to the people of the isles! But where is the padrone, Dio mio? Signorino! Signorino!"
Maurice appeared at the sitting-room door and came slowly down the steps.
Gaspare stared. "Eccomi!"
"Why, signorino, what is the matter? What has happened?"
"Happened? Nothing!"
"Then why do you look so black?"
"I! It's the shadow of the awning on my face."
He smiled. He kept on smiling.
"I say, Gasparino, how splendid the donkeys are! And you, too!"
He took hold of the boy by the shoulders and turned him round.
"Per Bacco! We shall make a fine show at the fair! I've got money, lot's of money, to spend!"
He showed his portfolio, full of dirty notes. Gaspare's eyes began to sparkle.
"Wait, signorino!"
He lifted his hands to Maurice's striped flannel jacket and thrust two large bunches of flowers and ferns into the two button-holes, to right and left.
"Bravo! Now, then."
"No, no, signorino! Wait!"
"More flowers! But where—what, over my ears, too!"
He began to laugh.
"But—"
"Si, signore, si! To-day you must be a real Siciliano!"
"Va bene!"
He bent down his head to be decorated.
"Pouf! They tickle! There, then! Now let's be off!"
He leaped onto Tito's back. Gaspare sprang up on the other donkey.
"Addio, Lucrezia!"
Maurice turned to her.
"Don't leave the house to-day."
"No, signore," said poor Lucrezia, in a deplorable voice.
"Mind, now! Don't go down to Marechiaro this afternoon."
There was an odd sound, almost of pleading, in his voice.
"No, signore."
"I trust you to be here—remember."
"Va bene, signorino!"
"Ah—a—a—ah!" shouted Gaspare.
They were off.
"Signorino," said Gaspare, presently, when they were in the shadow of the ravine, "why did you say all that to Lucrezia?"
"All what?"
"All that about not leaving the house to-day?"
"Oh—why—it's better to have some one there."
"Si, signore. But why to-day specially?"
"I don't know. There's no particular reason."
"I thought there was."
"No, of course not. How could there be?"
"Non lo so."
"If Lucrezia goes down to the village they'll be filling her ears with that stupid gossip about Sebastiano and that girl—Teodora."
"It was for Lucrezia then, signorino?"
"Yes, for Lucrezia. She's miserable enough already. I don't want her to be a spectacle when—when the signora returns."
"I wonder when she is coming? I wonder why she has not written all these days?"
"Oh, she'll soon come. We shall—we shall very soon have her here with us."
He tried to speak naturally, but found the effort difficult, knowing what he knew, that in the evening of that day Hermione would arrive at the house of the priest and find no preparations made for her return, no one to welcome her but Lucrezia—if, indeed, Lucrezia obeyed his orders and refrained from descending to the village on the chance of hearing some fresh news of her fickle lover. And Artois! There were no rooms engaged for him at the Hôtel Regina Margherita. There were no flowers, no books. Maurice tingled—his whole body tingled for a moment—and he felt like a man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for which he had trampled down his self-respect in the dust.
When they reached the road by Isola Bella, Salvatore's boat was just coming round the point, vigorously propelled by the fisherman's strong arms over the radiant sea. It was a magnificent day, very hot but not sultry, free from sirocco. The sky was deep blue, a passionate, exciting blue that seemed vocal, as if it were saying thrilling things to the world that lay beneath it. The waveless sea was purple, a sea, indeed, of legend, a wine-dark, lustrous, silken sea. Into it, just here along this magic coast, was surely gathered all the wonder of color of all the southern seas. They must be blanched to make this marvel of glory, this immense jewel of God. And the lemon groves were thick along the sea. And the orange-trees stood in their decorative squadronsdrinking in the rays of the sun with an ecstatic submission. And Etna, snowless Etna, rose to heaven out of this morning world, with its base in the purple glory and its feather of smoke in the calling blue, child of the sea-god and of the god that looks down from the height, majestically calm in the riot of splendor that set the feet of June dancing in a great tarantella.
As Maurice saw the wonder of sea and sky, the boat coming in over the sea, with Maddalena in the stern holding a bouquet of flowers, his heart leaped up and he forgot for a moment the shadow in himself, the shadow of his own unworthiness. He sprang off the donkey.
"I'll go down to meet them!" he cried. "Catch hold of Tito, Gaspare!"
The railway line ran along the sea, between road and beach. He had to cross it. In doing so one of his feet struck the metal rail, which gave out a dry sound. He looked down, suddenly recalled to a reality other than the splendor of the morning, the rapture of this careless festa day. And again he was conscious of the shadow. Along this line, in a few hours, would come the train bearing Hermione and Artois. Hermione would be at the window, eagerly looking out, full of happy anticipation, leaning to catch the first sight of his face, to receive and return his smile of welcome. What would her face be like when—? But Salvatore was hailing him from the sea. Maddalena was waving her hand. The thing was done. The die was cast. He had chosen his lot. Fiercely he put away from him the thought of Hermione, lifted his voice in an answering hail, his hand in a salutation which he tried to make carelessly joyous. The boat glided in between the flat rocks. And then—then he was able to forget. For Maddalena's long eyes were looking into his, with the joyousness of a child's, and yet with something of the expectation of a woman's, too. And her brown face was alive with a new and delicious self-consciousness, asking himto praise her for the surprise she had prepared, in his honor surely, specially for him, and not for her comrades and the public of the fair.
"Maddalena!" he exclaimed.
He put out his hands to help her out. She stood on the gunwale of the boat and jumped lightly down, with a little laugh, onto the beach.
"Maddalena! Per Dio! Ma che bellezza!"
She laughed again, and stood there on the stones before him smiling and watching him, with her head a little on one side, and the hand that held the tight bouquet of roses and ferns, round as a ring and red as dawn, up to her lips, as if a sudden impulse prompted her now to conceal something of her pleasure.
"Le piace?"
It came to him softly over the roses.
Maurice said nothing, but took her hand and looked at her. Salvatore was fastening up the boat and putting the oars into their places, and getting his jacket and hat.
What a transformation it was, making an almost new Maddalena! This festival dress was really quite wonderful. He felt inclined to touch it here and there, to turn Maddalena round for new aspects, as a child turns round a marvellous doll.
Maddalena wore a tudischina, a bodice of blue cotton velvet, ornamented with yellow silken fringes, and opening over the breast to show a section of snowy white edged with little buttons of sparkling steel. Her petticoat—the sinava—was of pea-green silk and thread, and was partially covered by an apron, a real coquette of an apron, white and green, with little pockets and puckers, and a green rosette where the strings met round the supple waist. Her sleeves were of white muslin, bound with yellow silk ribbons, and her stockings were blue, the color of the bodice. On her feet were shining shoes of black leather, neatly tied with small, black ribbons, and over her shoulders was a lovely shawl ofblue and white with a pattern of flowers. She wore nothing on her head, but in her ears were heavy ear-rings, and round her neck was a thin silver chain with bright-blue stones threaded on it here and there.
"Maddalena!" Maurice said, at last. "You are a queen to-day!"
He stopped, then he added:
"No, you are a siren to-day, the siren I once fancied you might be."
"A siren, signorino? What is that?"
"An enchantress of the sea with a voice that makes men—that makes men feel they cannot go, they cannot leave it."
Maddalena lifted the roses a little higher to hide her face, but Maurice saw that her eyes were still smiling, and it seemed to him that she looked even more radiantly happy than when she had taken his hands to spring down to the beach.
Now Salvatore came up in his glory of a dark-blue suit, with a gay shirt of pink-and-white striped cotton, fastened at the throat with long, pink strings that had tasselled ends, a scarlet bow-tie with a brass anchor and the Italian flag thrust through it, yellow shoes, and a black hat, placed well over the left ear. Upon the forefinger of his left hand he displayed a thick snake-ring of tarnished metal, and he had a large, overblown rose in his button-hole. His mustaches had been carefully waxed, his hair cropped, and his hawklike, subtle, and yet violent face well washed for the great occasion. With bold familiarity he seized Maurice's hand.
"Buon giorno, signore. Come sta lei?"
"Benissimo."
"And Maddalena, signore? What do you think of Maddalena?"
He looked at his girl with a certain pride, and then back at Maurice searchingly.
"Maddalena is beautiful to-day," Maurice answered,quickly. He did not want to discuss her with her father, whom he longed to be rid of, whom he meant to get rid of if possible at the fair. Surely it would be easy to give him the slip there. He would be drinking with his companions, other fishermen and contadini, or playing cards, or—yes, that was an idea!
"Salvatore!" Maurice exclaimed, catching hold of the fisherman's arm.
"Signore?"
"There'll be donkeys at the fair, eh?"
"Donkeys—per Dio! Why, last year there were over sixty, and—"
"And isn't there a donkey auction sometimes, towards the end of the day, when they go cheap?"
"Si, signore! Si, signore!"
The fisherman's greedy little eyes were fixed on Maurice with keen interrogation.
"Don't let us forget that," Maurice said, returning his gaze. "You're a good judge of a donkey?"
Salvatore laughed.
"Per Bacco! There won't be a man at San Felice that can beat me at that!"
"Then perhaps you can do something for me. Perhaps you can buy me a donkey. Didn't I speak of it before?"
"Si, signore. For the signora to ride when she comes back from Africa?"
He smiled.
"For a lady to ride," Maurice answered, looking at Maddalena.
Salvatore made a clicking noise with his tongue, a noise that suggested eating. Then he spat vigorously and took from his jacket-pocket a long, black cigar. This was evidently going to be a great day for him.
"Avanti, signorino! Avanti!"
Gaspare was shouting and waving his hat frantically from the road.
"Come along, Maddalena!"
They left the beach and climbed the bank, Maddalena walking carefully in the shining shoes, and holding her green skirt well away from the bushes with both hands. Maurice hurried across the railway line without looking at it. He wanted to forget it. He was determined to forget it, and what it was bringing to Cattaro that afternoon. They reached the group of four donkeys which were standing patiently in the dusty white road.
"Mamma mia!" ejaculated Gaspare, as Maddalena came full into his sight. "Madre mia! But you are like a burgisa dressed for the wedding-day, Donna Maddalena!"
He wagged his head at her till the big roses above his ears shook like flowers in a wind.
"Ora basta, ch' è tardu: jamu ad accumpagnari li Zitti!" he continued, pronouncing the time-honored sentence which, at a rustic wedding, gives the signal to the musicians to stop their playing, and to the assembled company the hint that the moment has come to escort the bride to the new home which her bridegroom has prepared for her.
Maddalena laughed and blushed all over her face, and Salvatore shouted out a verse of a marriage song in high favor at Sicilian weddings: