Hermione longed for quiet, for absolute silence.
It seemed strange to her that she still longed for anything--strange and
almost horrible, almost inhuman. But she did long for that, to be able to
sit beside her dead husband and to be undisturbed, to hear no voice
speaking, no human movement, to see no one. If it had been possible she
would have closed the cottage against every one, even against Gaspare and
Lucrezia. But it was not possible. Destiny did not choose that she should
have this calm, this silence. It had seemed to her, when fear first came
upon her, as if no one but herself had any real concern with Maurice, as
if her love conferred upon her a monopoly. This monopoly had been one of
joy. Now it should be one of sorrow. But now it did not exist. She was
not weeping for Maurice. But others were. She had no one to go to. But
others came to her, clung to her. She could not rid herself of the human
burden.
She might have been selfish, determined, she might have driven the
mourners out. But--and that was strange, too--she found herself pitying
them, trying to use her intellect to soothe them.
Lucrezia was terrified, almost like one assailed suddenly by robbers,
terrified and half incredulous. When her hysteria subsided she was at
first unbelieving.
"He cannot be really dead, signora!" she sobbed to Hermione. "The povero
signorino. He was so gay! He was so--"
She talked and talked, as Sicilians do when face to face with tragedy.
She recalled Maurice's characteristics, his kindness, his love of
climbing, fishing, bathing, his love of the sun--all his love of life.
Hermione had to listen to the story with that body lying on her bed.
Gaspare's grief was speechless, but needed comfort more. There was an
element in it of fury which Hermione realized without rightly
understanding. She supposed it was the fury of a boy from whom something
is taken by one whom he cannot attack.
For God is beyond our reach.
She could not understand the conflict going on in the boy's heart and
mind.
He knew that this death was probably no natural death, but a murder.
Neither Maddalena nor her father had been in the Casa delle Sirene when
he knocked upon the door in the night. Salvatore had sent Maddalena to
spend the night with relations in Marechiaro, on the pretext that he was
going to sail to Messina on some business. And he had actually sailed
before Gaspare's arrival on the island. But Gaspare knew that there had
been a meeting, and he knew what the Sicilian is when he is wronged. The
words "vengeance is mine!" are taken in Sicily by each wronged man into
his own mouth, and Salvatore was notoriously savage and passionate.
As the first shock of horror and despair passed away from Gaspare he was
devoured, as by teeth, devoured by the desire to spring upon Salvatore
and revenge the death of his padrone. But the padrone had laid a solemn
injunction upon him. Solemn, indeed, it seemed to the boy now that the
lips which had spoken were sealed forever. The padrona was never to know.
If he obeyed his impulse, if he declared the vendetta against Salvatore,
the padrona would know. The knife that spilled the murderer's blood would
give the secret to the world--and to the padrona.
Tremendous that night was the conflict in the boy's soul. He would not
leave Hermione. He was like the dog that creeps to lie at the feet of his
sorrowing mistress. But he was more than that. For he had his own sorrow
and his own fury. And he had the battle with his own instincts.
What was he going to do?
As he began to think, really to think, and to realize things, he knew
that after such a death the authorities of Marechiaro, the Pretore and
the Cancelliere, would proceed to hold a careful examination into the
causes of death. He would be questioned. That was certain. The
opportunity would be given him to denounce Salvatore.
And was he to keep silence? Was he to act for Salvatore, to save
Salvatore from justice? He would not have minded doing that, he would
have wished to do it, if afterwards he could have sprung upon Salvatore
and buried his knife in the murderer of his padrone.
But--the padrona? She was not to know. She was never to know. And she had
been the first in his life. She had found him, a poor, ragged little boy
working among the vines, and she had given him new clothes and had taken
him into her home and into her confidence. She had trusted him. She had
remembered him in England. She had written to him from far away, telling
him to prepare everything for her and the padrone when they were coming.
He began to sob violently again, thinking of it all, of how he had
ordered the donkeys to fetch the luggage from the station, of how--
"Hush, Gaspare!"
Hermione again put her hand on his. She was sitting near the bed on which
the body was lying between dry sheets. For she had changed them with
Gaspare's assistance. Maurice still wore the clothes which had been on
him in the sea. Giuseppe, the fisherman, had explained to Hermione that
she must not interfere with the body till it had been visited by the
authorities, and she had obeyed him. But she had changed the sheets. She
scarcely knew why. Now the clothes had almost dried on the body, and she
did not see any more the stains of water. One sheet was drawn up over the
body, to the chin. The matted dark hair was visible against the pillow,
and had made her think several times vaguely of that day after the
fishing when she had watched Maurice taking his siesta. She had longed
for him to wake then, for she had known that she was going to Africa,
that they had only a few hours together before she started. It had seemed
almost terrible to her, his sleeping through any of those hours. And now
he was sleeping forever. She was sitting there waiting for nothing, but
she could not realize that yet. She felt as if she must be waiting for
something, that something must presently occur, a movement in the bed,
a--she scarcely knew what.
Presently the clock Gaspare had brought from the fair chimed, then played
the "Tre Colori." Lucrezia had set it to play that evening when she was
waiting for the padrone to return from the sea.
When he heard the tinkling tune Gaspare lifted his head and listened till
it was over. It recalled to him all the glories of the fair. He saw his
padrone before him. He remembered how he had decorated Maurice with
flowers, and he felt as if his heart would break.
"The povero signorino! the povero signorino!" he cried, in a choked
voice. "And I put roses above his ears! Si, signora, I did! I said he
should be a real Siciliano!"
He began to rock himself to and fro. His whole body shook, and his face
had a frantic expression that suggested violence.
"I put roses above his ears!" he repeated. "That day he was a real
Siciliano!"
"Gaspare--Gaspare--hush! Don't! Don't!"
She held his hand and went on speaking softly.
"We must be quiet in here. We must remember to be quiet. It isn't our
fault, Gaspare. We did all we could to make him happy. We ought to be
glad of that. You did everything you could, and he loved you for it. He
was happy with us. I think he was. I think he was happy till the very
end. And that is something to be glad of. Don't you think he was very
happy here?"
"Si, signora!" the boy whispered, with twitching lips.
"I'm glad I came back in time," Hermione said, looking at the dark hair
on the pillow. "It might have happened before, while I was away. I'm glad
we had one more day together."
Suddenly, as she said that, something in the mere sound of the words
seemed to reveal more clearly to her heart what had befallen her, and for
the first time she began to cry and to remember. She remembered all
Maurice's tenderness for her, all his little acts of kindness. They
seemed to pass rapidly in procession through her mind on their way to her
heart. Not one surely was absent. How kind to her he had always been! And
he could never be kind to her again. And she could never be kind to
him--never again.
Her tears went on falling quietly. She did not sob like Gaspare. But she
felt that now she had begun to cry she would never be able to stop again;
that she would go on crying till she, too, died.
Gaspare looked up at her.
"Signora!" he said. "Signora!"
Suddenly he got up, as if to go out of the room, out of the house. The
sight of his padrona's tears had driven him nearly mad with the desire to
wreak vengeance upon Salvatore. For a moment his body seemed to get
beyond his control. His eyes saw blood, and his hand darted down to his
belt, and caught at the knife that was there, and drew it out. When
Hermione saw the knife she thought the boy was going to kill himself
with it. She sprang up, went swiftly to Gaspare, and put her hand on it
over his hand.
"Gaspare, what are you doing?" she said.
For a moment his face was horrible in its savagery. He opened his mouth,
still keeping his grasp on the knife, which she tried to wrest from him.
"Lasci andare! Lasci andare!" he said, beginning to struggle with her.
"No, Gaspare."
"Allora--"
He paused with his mouth open.
At that moment he was on the very verge of a revelation of the truth. He
was on the point of telling Hermione that he was sure that the padrone
had been murdered, and that he meant to avenge the murder. Hermione
believed that for the moment he was mad, and was determined to destroy
himself in her presence. It was useless to pit her strength against his.
In a physical struggle she must be overcome. Her only chance was to
subdue him by other means.
"Gaspare," she said, quickly, breathlessly, pointing to the bed. "Don't
you think the padrone would have wished you to take care of me now? He
trusted you. I think he would. I think he would rather you were with me
than any one else in the whole world. You must take care of me. You must
take care of me. You must never leave me!"
The boy looked at her. His face changed, grew softer.
"I've got nobody now," she added. "Nobody but you."
The knife fell on the floor.
In that moment Gaspare's resolve was taken. The battle within him was
over. He must protect the padrona. The padrone would have wished it. Then
he must let Salvatore go.
He bent down and kissed Hermione's hand.
"Lei non piange!" he muttered. "Forse Dio la aiuterà."
In the morning, early, Hermione left the body for the first time, went
into the dressing-room, changed her clothes, then came back and said to
Gaspare:
"I am going a little way up the mountain, Gaspare. I shall not be long.
No, don't come with me. Stay with him. Are you dreadfully tired?"
"No, signora."
"We shall be able to rest presently," she said.
She was thinking of the time when they would take Maurice from her. She
left Gaspare sitting near the bed, and went out onto the terrace.
Lucrezia and Gaspare, both thoroughly tired out, were sleeping soundly.
She was thankful for that. Soon, she knew, she would have to be with
people, to talk, to make arrangements. But now she had a short spell of
solitude.
She went slowly up the mountain-side till she was near the top. Then she
sat down on a rock and looked out towards the sea.
The world was not awake yet, although the sun was coming. Etna was like a
great phantom, the waters at its foot were pale in their tranquillity.
The air was fresh, but there was no wind to rustle the leaves of the
oak-trees, upon whose crested heads Hermione gazed down with quiet,
tearless eyes.
She had a strange feeling of being out of the world, as if she had left
it, but still had the power to see it. She wondered if Maurice felt like
that.
He had said it would be good to lie beneath those oak-trees in sight of
Etna and the sea. How she wished that she could lay his body there,
alone, away from all other dead. But that was impossible, she supposed.
She remembered the doctor's words. What were they going to do? She did
not know anything about Italian procedure in such an event. Would they
take him away? She had no intention of trying to resist anything, of
offering any opposition. It would be useless, and besides he had gone
away. Already he was far off. She did not feel, as many women do, that so
long as they are with the body of their dead they are also with the soul.
She would like to keep the dear body, to have it always near to her, to
live close to the spot where it was committed to the earth. But Maurice
was gone. Her Mercury had winged his way from her, obedient to a summons
that she had not heard. Always she had thought of him as swift, and
swiftly, without warning, he had left her. He had died young. Was that
wonderful? She thought not. No; age could have nothing to say to him,
could hold no commerce with him. He had been born to be young and never
to be anything else. It seemed to her now strange that she had not felt
this, foreseen that it must be so. And yet, only yesterday, she had
imagined a far future, and their child laying them in the ground of
Sicily, side by side, and murmuring "Buon riposo" above their mutual
sleep.
Their child! A life had been taken from her. Soon a life would be given
to her. Was that what is called compensation? Perhaps so. Many strange
thoughts, come she could not tell why, were passing through her mind as
she sat upon this height in the dawn. The thought of compensation
recalled to her the Book of Job. Everything was taken from Job; not only
his flocks and his herds, but his sons and his daughters. And then at the
last he was compensated. He was given new flocks and herds and new sons
and daughters. And it was supposed to be well with Job. If it was well
with Job, then Job had been a man without a heart.
Never could she be compensated for this loss, which she was trying to
realize, but which she would not be able to realize until the days went
by, and the nights, the days and the nights of the ordinary life, when
tragedy was supposed to be over and done with, and people would say, and
no doubt sincerely believe, that she was "getting accustomed" to her
loss.
Thinking of Job led her on to think of God's dealings with His creatures.
Hermione was a woman who clung to no special religion, but she had
always, all her life, had a very strong personal consciousness of a
directing Power in the world, had always had an innate conviction that
this directing Power followed with deep interest the life of each
individual in the scheme of His creation. She had always felt, she felt
now, that God knew everything about her and her life, was aware of all
her feelings, was constantly intent upon her.
He was intent. But was He kindly or was He cruelly intent?
Surely He had been dreadfully cruel to her!
Only yesterday she had been wondering what bereaved women felt about God.
Now she was one of these women.
"Was Maurice dead?" she thought--"was he already dead when I was praying
before the shrine of the Madonna della Rocca?"
She longed to know. Yet she scarcely knew why she longed. It was like a
strange, almost unnatural curiosity which she could not at first explain
to herself. But presently her mind grew clearer and she connected this
question with that other question--of God and what He really was, what He
really felt towards His creatures, towards her.
Had God allowed her to pray like that, with all her heart and soul, and
then immediately afterwards deliberately delivered her over to the fate
of desolate women, or had Maurice been already dead? If that were so, and
it must surely have been so, for when she prayed it was already night,
she had been led to pray for herself ignorantly, and God had taken away
her joy before He had heard her prayer. If He had heard it first He
surely could not have dealt so cruelly with her--so cruelly! No human
being could have, she thought, even the most hard-hearted.
But perhaps God was not all-powerful.
She remembered that once in London she had asked a clever and good
clergyman if, looking around upon the state of things in the world, he
was able to believe without difficulty that the world was governed by an
all-wise, all-powerful, and all-merciful God. And his reply to her had
been, "I sometimes wonder whether God is all-powerful--yet." She had not
pursued the subject, but she had not forgotten this answer; and she
thought of it now.
Was there a conflict in the regions beyond the world which was the only
one she knew? Had an enemy done this thing, an enemy not only of hers,
but of God's, an enemy who had power over God?
That thought was almost more terrible than the thought that God had been
cruel to her.
She sat for a long time wondering, thinking, but not praying. She did not
feel as if she could ever pray any more. The world was lighted up by the
sun. The sea began to gleam, the coast-line to grow more distinct, the
outlines of the mountains and of the Saracenic Castle on the height
opposite to her more hard and more barbaric against the deepening blue.
She saw smoke coming from the mouth of Etna, sideways, as if blown
towards the sea. A shepherd boy piped somewhere below her. And still the
tune was the tarantella. She listened to it--the tarantella. So short a
time ago Maurice had danced with the boys upon the terrace! How can such
life be so easily extinguished? How can such joy be not merely clouded
but utterly destroyed? A moment, and from the body everything is
expelled; light from the eyes, speech from the lips, movement from the
limbs, joy, passion from the heart. How can such a thing be?
The little shepherd boy played on and on. He was nearer now. He was
ascending the slope of the mountain, coming up towards heaven with his
little happy tune. She heard him presently among the oak-trees
immediately below her, passing almost at her feet.
To Hermione the thin sound of the reed-flute always had suggested Arcady.
Even now it suggested Arcady--the Arcady of the imagination: wide soft
airs, blue skies and seas, eternal sunshine and delicious shade, and
happiness where is a sweet noise of waters and of birds, a sweet and deep
breathing of kind and bounteous nature.
And that little boy with the flute would die. His foot might slip now as
he came upward, and no more could he play souls into Arcady!
The tune wound away to her left, like a gay and careless living thing
that was travelling ever upward, then once more came towards her. But now
it was above her. She turned her head and she saw the little player
against the blue. He was on a rock, and for a moment he stood still. On
his head was a long woollen cap, hanging over at one side. It made
Hermione think of the woollen cap she had seen come out of the darkness
of the ravine as she waited with Gaspare for the padrone. Against the
blue, standing on the gray and sunlit rock, with the flute at his lips,
and his tiny, deep-brown fingers moving swiftly, he looked at one with
the mountain and yet almost unearthly, almost as if the blue had given
birth to him for a moment, and in a moment would draw him back again into
the womb of its wonder. His goats were all around him, treading
delicately among the rocks. As Hermione watched he turned and went away
into the blue, and the tarantella went away into the blue with him.
Her Sicilian and his tarantella, the tarantella of his joy in
Sicily--they had gone away into the blue.
She looked at it, deep, quivering, passionate, intense; thousands and
thousands of miles of blue! And she listened as she looked; listened for
some far-off tarantella, for some echo of a fainting tarantella, that
might be a message to her, a message left on the sweet air of the
enchanted island, telling her where the winged feet of her beloved one
mounted towards the sun.