That afternoon, seated on the moss, under a tall eucalyptus tree near to
Frau Brandt's pavilion, Maria Dolores received a visit from Annunziata.
Annunziata's pale little face was paler, her big grave eyes were graver,
even than their wont. She nodded her head, slowly, portentously; and her
glance was heavy with significance.
Maria Dolores smiled. "What is the matter?" she cheerfully inquired.
"Ah," sighed Annunziata, deeply, with another portentous head-shake, "I
wish I knew."
Maria Dolores laughed. "Sit down," she suggested, making room beside her
on the moss, "and try to think."
Annunziata sat down, curled herself up. "Something has happened to
Prospero," she said, _de profundis_.
"Oh?" asked Maria Dolores. "What?" She seemed heartlessly cheerful, and
even rather amused.
"Ah," sighed Annunziata, "that is what I wish I knew. He has had a
friend to pass the day with him."
"Yes?" said Maria Dolores. "I expect I saw his friend walking with him
this morning?"
"_Già_," said Annunziata. "They have been walking about all day. _His_
friend Prospero he calls him. But he doesn't look very prosperous. He
looks like a slate-pencil. He is long and thin, and dark and cold, and
hard, just like a slate-pencil. He would not stay the night, though we
had a bed prepared for him. He is going to Rome, and Prospero has driven
him to the railway station at Cortello. I hate him," wound up
Annunziata, simply.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Maria Dolores, opening her eyes. "Why do you hate
him?"
"Because he must have said or done something very unkind to Prospero,"
answered Annunziata. "Oh, you should see him. He is so sad--so sad and
so angry. He keeps scowling, and shaking his head, and saying things in
English, which I cannot understand, but I am sure they are sad things
and angry things. And he would not eat any dinner,--no, not that much,"
(Annunziata measured off an inch on her finger), "he who always eats a
great deal,--_eh, ma molto, molto_," and, separating her hands, she
measured off something like twenty inches in the air.
Maria Dolores couldn't help laughing a little at this. But afterwards
she said, on a key consolatory, "Ah, well, he has gone away now, so let
us hope your friend Prospero will promptly recover his accustomed
appetite."
"Yes," said Annunziata, "I hope so. But oh, that old slate-pencil man,
how I hate him! I would like to--_uhhh!_" She clenched her little white
fist, and shook it, threateningly, vehemently, while her eyes fiercely
flashed. ... Next instant, however, her mien entirely changed. Like a
light extinguished, all the fierceness went out of her face, making way
for what seemed pain and terror. "There," she cried, pain and terror in
her voice, "I have offended God. Oh, I am so sorry, so sorry. My sin, my
sin, my sin," she murmured, bowing her head, and thrice striking her
breast.
"I take back every word I said. I do not hate him. I would not hurt
him--I would not even stick a pin in him--if I had him at my mercy.
No--I would do anything I could to help him. I would give him anything I
had that he could want. I would give him my coral rosary. I would give
him"--she hesitated, struggled, and at last, drawing a deep breath,
gritting her teeth, in supreme renunciation--"yes, I would give him my
tame kid," she forced herself to pronounce, with a kind of desperate
firmness. "But see," she wailed, her little white brow a mesh of painful
wrinkles, "it is all no good. God is still angry. Oh, what shall I do?"
And, to the surprise and distress of Maria Dolores, she burst into a
sudden passion of tears, sobbing, sobbing, with that abandonment of
grief which only children know.
"My dear, my dear," exclaimed Maria Dolores, drawing her to her. "My
dearest, you mustn't cry like that. Dear little Annunziata. What is it?
Why do you cry so, dear one? Answer me. Tell me."
But Annunziata only buried her face in Maria Dolores' sleeve, and
moaned, while long, tremulous convulsions shook her frail little body.
Maria Dolores put both arms about her, hugged her close, and laid her
cheek upon her hair.
"Darling Annunziata, don't cry. Why should you cry so, dearest? God is
not angry with you. Why should you think that God is angry with you? God
loves you, darling. Everyone loves you. There, there--dearest--don't
cry. Sweet one, dear one."
Transitions, with Annunziata, were sometimes inexplicably rapid. All at
once her sobbing ceased; she looked up, and smiled, smiled radiantly,
from a face that was wet and glistening with tears. "Thanks be to God,"
she piously exulted; "God is not angry any more."
"Of course He isn't," said Maria Dolores, tightening her hug, and
touching Annunziata's curls lightly with her lips. "But He was never
angry. What made you think that God was angry?"
Annunziata's big eyes widened. "Didn't you notice?" she asked, in a
hushed voice, amazed.
"No," wondered Maria Dolores. "What was there to notice?"
"He made them draw a cloud over the sun," Annunziata whispered. "Didn't
you notice that when I said I would like to--when I said what I said
about that friend of Prospero's--just then they drew a cloud across the
sun? That is a sign that God is angry. The sun, you know, is the window
in Heaven through which God looks down on the world, and through which
the light of Heaven shines on the world. And when the window is open, we
feel happy and thankful, and wish to sing and laugh. But when we have
done something to make God angry with us, then He sends angels to draw
clouds over the window, so that we may be shut out of His sight, and the
light of Heaven may be shut off from us. And then we are lonely and
cold, and we could quarrel with anything, even with the pigs. God wishes
to show us how bad it would be always to be shut off from His sight. But
now they have drawn the cloud away, so God is not angry any more. I made
a good act of contrition, and He has forgiven me."
Maria Dolores smiled, but under her smile there was a look of
seriousness, a look of concern.
"My dear," she said smiling, and looking concerned, "you should try to
control your vivid little imagination. If every time a cloud crosses the
sun, you are going to assume the responsibility for it, and to fancy
that you have offended God, I'm afraid you'll have rather an agitated
life."
"Oh, no; not _every_ time," exclaimed Annunziata, and she was manifestly
on the point of making a fine distinction, when abruptly the current of
her ideas was diverted. "Sh-h! There comes Prospero," she cried,
starting up. "I can see the top of his white hat above the rhododendron
bushes. He has driven his friend to Cortello, and come home. I must run
away, or he will see that I've been crying. Don't tell him," she begged,
putting her finger on her lips; and she set off running, towards the
presbytery, just as John stepped forth from behind the long hedge of
rhododendrons.