Late that night Dr. Marini, the doctor of the commune of Marechiaro, was
roused from sleep in his house in the Corso by a violent knocking on his
street door. He turned over in his bed, muttered a curse, then lay still
for a moment and listened. The knocking was renewed more violently.
Evidently the person who stood without was determined to gain admission.
There was no help for it. The good doctor, who was no longer young,
dropped his weary legs to the floor, walked across to the open window,
and thrust his head out of it. A man was standing below.
"What is it? What do you want?" said the doctor, in a grumbling voice.
"Is it another baby? Upon my word, these--"
"Signor Dottore, come down, come down instantly! The signore of Monte
Amato, the signore of the Casa del Prete has had an accident. You must
come at once. I will go to fetch a donkey."
The doctor leaned farther out of the window.
"An accident! What--?"
But the man, a fisherman of Marechiaro, was already gone, and the doctor
saw only the narrow, deserted street, black with the shadows of the tall
houses.
He drew in quickly and began to dress himself with some expedition. An
accident, and to a forestiere! There would be money in this case. He
regretted his lost sleep less now and cursed no more, though he thought
of the ride up into the mountains with a good deal of self-pity. It was
no joke to be a badly paid Sicilian doctor, he thought, as he tugged at
his trousers buttons, and fastened the white front that covered the
breast of his flannel shirt, and adjusted the cuffs which he took out of
a small drawer. Without lighting a candle he went down-stairs, fumbled
about, and found his case of instruments. Then he opened the street door
and waited, yawning on the stone pavement. In two or three minutes he
heard the tripping tip-tap of a donkey's hoofs, and the fisherman came up
leading a donkey apparently as disinclined for a nocturnal flitting as
the doctor.
"Ah, Giuseppe, it's you, is it?"
"Si, Signor Dottore!"
"What's this accident?"
The fisherman looked grave and crossed himself.
"Oh, signore, it is terrible! They say the poor signore is dead!"
"Dead!" exclaimed the doctor, startled. "You said is was an accident.
Dead you say now?"
"Signore, he is dead beyond a doubt. I was going to the fishing when I
heard dreadful cries in the water by the inlet--you know, by Salvatore's
terreno!"
"In the water?"
"Si, signore. I went down quickly and I found Gaspare, the signore's--"
"I know--I know!"
"Gaspare in a boat with the padrone lying at the bottom, and the signora
standing up to her middle in the sea."
"Z't! z't!" exclaimed the doctor, "the signora in the sea! Is she mad?"
"Signor Dottore, how do I know? I brought the boat to shore. Gaspare was
like one crazed. Then we lifted the signore out upon the stones. Oh, he
is dead, Signor Dottore; dead beyond a doubt. They had found him in the
sea--"
"They?"
"Gaspare--under the rocks between Salvatore's terreno and the main-land.
He had all his clothes on. He must have been there in the dark--"
"Why should he go in the dark?"
"How do I know, Signor Dottore?--and have fallen, and struck his head
against the rocks. For there was a wound and--"
"The body should not have been moved from where it lay till the Pretore
had seen it. Gaspare should have left the body."
"But perhaps the povero signore is not really dead, after all! Madonna!
How--"
"Come! come! we must not delay! One minute! I will get some lint and--"
He disappeared into the house. Almost directly he came out again with a
package under his arm and a long, black cigar lighted in his mouth.
"Take these, Giuseppe! Carry them carefully. Now then!"
He hoisted himself onto the donkey.
"A-ah! A-ah!"
They set off, the fisherman walking on naked feet beside the donkey.
"Then we have to go down to the sea?"
"No, Signor Dottore. There were others on the road, Antonio and--"
"The rest of you going to the boats--I know. Well?"
"And the signora would have him carried up to Monte Amato."
"She could give directions?"
"Si, signore. She ordered everything. When she came out of the sea she
was all wet, the poor signora, but she was calm. I called the others.
When they saw the signore they all cried out. They knew him. Some of them
had been to the fishing with him. Oh, they were sorry! They all began to
speak and to try to--"
"Diavolo! They could only make things worse! If the breath of life was
in the signore's body they would drive it out. Per Dio!"
"But the signora stopped them. She told them to be silent and to carry
the signore up to the Casa del Prete. Signore, she--the povera
signora--she took his head in her hands. She held his head and she never
cried, not a tear!"
The man brushed his hand across his eyes.
"Povera signora! Povera signora!" murmured the doctor.
"And she comforted Gaspare, too!" Giuseppe added. "She put her arm round
him and told him to be brave, and help her. She made him walk by her and
put his hand under the padrone's shoulder. Madonna!"
They turned away from the village into a narrow path that led into the
hills.
"And I came to fetch you, Signor Dottore. Perhaps the povero signore is
not really dead. Perhaps you can save him, Signor Dottore!"
"Chi lo sa?" replied the doctor.
He had let his cigar go out and did not know it.
"Chi lo sa?" he repeated, mechanically.
Then they went on in silence--till they reached the shoulder of the
mountain under Castel Vecchio. From here they could see across the ravine
to the steep slope of Monte Amato. Upon it, high up, a light shone, and
presently a second light detached itself from the first, moved a little
way, and then was stationary.
Giuseppe pointed.
"Ecco, Signor Dottore! They have carried the poor signore up."
The second light moved waveringly back towards the first.
"They are carrying him into the house, Signor Dottore. Madonna! And all
this to happen in the night!"
The doctor nodded without speaking. He was watching the lights up there
in that lonely place. He was not a man of strong imagination, and was
accustomed to look on misery, the misery of the poor. But to-night he
felt a certain solemnity descend upon him as he rode by these dark
by-paths up into the bosom of the hills. Perhaps part of this feeling
came from the fact that his mission had to do with strangers, with rich
people from a distant country who had come to his island for pleasure,
and who were now suddenly involved in tragedy in the midst of their
amusement. But also he had a certain sense of personal sympathy. He had
known Hermione on her former visit to Sicily and had liked her; and
though this time he had seen scarcely anything of her he had seen enough
to be aware that she was very happy with her young husband. Maurice, too,
he had seen, full of the joy of youth and of bounding health. And now all
that was put out, if Giuseppe's account were true. It was a pity, a sad
pity.
The donkey crossed the mouth of the ravine, and picked its way upward
carefully amid the loose stones. In the ravine a little owl hooted twice.
"Giuseppe!" said the doctor.
"Signore?"
"The signora has been away, hasn't she?"
"Si signore. In Africa."
"Nursing that sick stranger. And now directly she comes back here's this
happening to her! Per Dio!"
He shook his head.
"Somebody must have looked on the povera signora with the evil-eye,
Signor Dottore."
Giuseppe crossed himself.
"It seems so," the doctor replied, gravely.
He was almost as superstitious as the contadini among whom he labored.
"Ecco, Signor Dottore!"
The doctor looked up. At the arch stood a figure holding a little lamp.
Almost immediately, two more figures appeared behind it.
"Il dottore! Ecco il dottore!"
There was a murmur of voices in the dark. As the donkey came up the
excited fishermen crowded round, all speaking at once.
"He is dead, Signor Dottore. The povero signore is dead!"
"Let the Signor Dottore come to him, Beppe! What do you know? Let the--"
"Sure enough he is dead! Why, he must have been in the water a good hour.
He is all swollen with the water and--"
"It is his head, Signor Dottore! If it had not been for his coming
against the rocks he would not have been hurt. Per Dio, he can swim like
a fish, the povero signorino. I have seen him swim. Why, even Peppino--"
"The signora wants us all to go away, Signor Dottore. She begs us to go
and leave her alone with the povero signore!"
"Gaspare is in such a state! You would not know him. And the povera
signora, she is all dripping wet. She has been into the sea, and now she
has carried the head of the povero signore all the way up the mountain.
She would not let any one--"
A succession of cries came out of the darkness, hysterical cries that
ended in prolonged sobbing.
"That is Lucrezia!" cried one of the fishermen. "Madonna! That is
Lucrezia!"
"Mamma mia! Mamma mia!"
Their voices were loud in the night. The doctor pushed his way between
the men and came onto the terrace in front of the steps that led into the
sitting-room.
Gaspare was standing there alone. His face was almost unrecognizable. It
looked battered, puffy, and inflamed, as if he had been drinking and
fighting. There were no tears in his eyes now, but long, violent sobs
shook his body from time to time, and his blistered lips opened and shut
mechanically with each sob. He stared dully at the doctor, but did not
say a word, or move to get out of the way.
"Gaspare!" said the doctor. "Where is the padrona?"
The boy sobbed and sobbed, always in the same dry and terribly mechanical
way.
"Gaspare!" repeated the doctor, touching him. "Gaspare!"
"E' morto!" the boy suddenly cried out, in a loud voice.
And he flung himself down on the ground.
The doctor felt a thrill of cold in his veins. He went up the steps into
the little sitting-room. As he did so Hermione came to the door of the
bedroom. Her dripping skirts clung about her. She looked quite calm.
Without greeting the doctor she said, quietly:
"You heard what Gaspare said?"
"Si, signora, ma--"
The doctor stopped, staring at her. He began to feel almost dazed. The
fishermen had followed him and stood crowding together on the steps and
staring into the room.
"He is dead. I am sorry you came all this way."
They stood there facing one another. From the kitchen came the sound of
Lucrezia's cries. Hermione put her hands up to her ears.
"Please--please--oh, there should be a little silence here now!" she
said.
For the first time there was a sound of something like despair in her
voice.
"Let me come in, signora!" stammered the doctor. "Let me come in and
examine him."
"He is dead."
"Well, but let me. I must!"
"Please come in," she said.
The doctor turned round to the fishermen.
"Go, one of you, and make that girl keep quiet," he said, angrily. "Take
her away out of the house--directly! Do you hear? And the rest of you
stay outside, and don't make a sound."
The fishermen slunk a little way back into the darkness, while Giuseppe,
walking on the toes of his bare feet, and glancing nervously at the
furniture and the pictures upon the walls, crossed the room and
disappeared into the kitchen. Then the doctor laid down his cigar on a
table and went into the bedroom whither Hermione had preceded him.
There was a lighted candle on the white chest of drawers. The window and
the shutters of the room were closed against the glances of the
fishermen. On one of the two beds--Hermione's--lay the body of a man
dripping with water. The doctor took the candle in his hand, went to this
bed and leaned down, then set down the candle at the bedhead and made a
brief examination. He found at once that Gaspare had spoken the truth.
This man had been dead for some time. Nevertheless, something--he
scarcely knew what--kept the doctor there by the bed for some moments
before he pronounced his verdict. Never before had he felt so great a
reluctance to speak the simple words that would convey a great truth. He
fingered his shirt-front uneasily, and stared at the body on the bed and
at the wet sheets and pillows. Meanwhile, Hermione had sat down on a
chair near the door that opened into what had been Maurice's
dressing-room, and folded her hands in her lap. The doctor did not look
towards her, but he felt her presence painfully. Lucrezia's cries had
died away, and there was complete silence for a brief space of time.
The body on the bed was swollen, but not very much, the face was sodden,
the hair plastered to the head, and on the left temple there was a large
wound, evidently, as the doctor had seen, caused by the forehead striking
violently against a hard, resisting substance. It was not the sea alone
which had killed this man. It was the sea and the rock in the sea. He
had fallen, been stunned and then drowned. The doctor knew the place
where he had been found. The explanation of the tragedy was very
simple--very simple.
While the doctor was thinking this, and fingering his shirt-front
mechanically, and bracing himself to turn towards the quiet woman in the
chair, he heard a loud, dry noise in the sitting-room, then in the
bedroom. Gaspare had come in, and was standing at the foot of the bed,
sobbing and staring at the doctor with hopeless eyes, that yet asked a
last question, begged desperately for a lie.
"Gaspare!"
The woman in the chair whispered to him. He took no notice.
"Gaspare!"
She got up and crossed over to the boy, and took one of his hands.
"It's no use," she said. "Perhaps he is happy."
Then the boy began to cry passionately. Tears poured out of his eyes
while he held his padrona's hand. The doctor got up.
"He is dead, signora," he said.
"We knew it," Hermione replied.
She looked at the doctor for a minute. Then she said:
"Hush, Gaspare!"
The doctor stood by the bed.
"Scusi, signora," he said, "but--but will you take him into the next
room?"
He pointed to Gaspare, who shivered as he wept.
"I must make a further examination."
"Why? You see that he is dead."
"Yes, but--there are certain formalities."
He stopped.
"Formalities!" she said. "He is dead."
"Yes. But--but the authorities will have to be informed. I am very
sorry. I should wish to leave everything undisturbed."
"What do you mean? Gaspare! Gaspare!"
"But--according to the law, our law, the body should never have been
moved. It should have been left where it was found until--"
"We could not leave him in the sea."
She still spoke quite quietly, but the doctor felt as if he could not go
on.
"Since it is done--" he began.
He pulled himself together with an effort.
"There will have to be an inquiry, signora--the cause of death will have
to be ascertained."
"You see it. He was coming from the island. He fell and was drowned. It
is very simple."
"Yes, no doubt. Still, there must be an inquiry. Gaspare will have to
explain--"
He looked at the weeping boy, then at the woman who stood there holding
the boy's hand in hers.
"But that will be for to-morrow," he muttered, fingering his shirt-front
and looking down. "That will be for to-morrow."
As he went out he added:
"Signora, do not remain in your wet clothes."
"I--oh, thank you. They do not matter."
She did not follow him into the next room. As he went down the steps to
the terrace the sound of Gaspare's passionate weeping followed him into
the night.
When the doctor was on the donkey and was riding out through the arch,
after a brief colloquy with the fishermen and with Giuseppe, whom he had
told to remain at the cottage for the rest of the night, he suddenly
remembered the cigar which he had left upon the table, and he pulled up.
"What is it, Signor Dottore?" said one of the fishermen.
"I've left something, but--never mind. It does not matter."
He rode on again.
"It does not matter," he repeated.
He was thinking of the English signora standing beside the bed in her wet
skirts and holding the hand of the weeping boy.
It was the first time in his life that he had ever sacrificed a good
cigar.
He wondered why he did so now, but he did not care to return just then to
the Casa del Prete.