The loneliness of this mountain summit was a fit setting for her
loneliness, and these two solitudes, of nature and of this woman's soul,
took hold of Artois and made him feel as if he were infinitely small, as
if he could not matter to either. He loved nature, and he loved this
woman. And of what use were he and his love to them?
She stretched up her hand to him, and he bent down and took it and held
it.
"You said some day I should leave my Garden of Paradise, Emile."
"Don't hurt me with my own words," he said.
"Sit by me."
He sat down on the warm ground close to the heap of stones.
"You said I should leave the garden, but I don't think you meant like
this. Did you?"
"No," he said.
"I think you thought we should be unhappy together. Well, we were never
that. We were always very happy. I like to think of that. I come up here
to think of that; of our happiness, and that we were always kind and
tender to each other. Emile, if we hadn't been, if we had ever had even
one quarrel, even once said cruel things to each other, I don't think I
could bear it now. But we never did. God did watch us then, I think. God
was with me so long as Maurice was with me. But I feel as if God had gone
away from me with Maurice, as if they had gone together. Do you think any
other woman has ever felt like that?"
"I don't think I am worthy to know how some women feel," he said, almost
falteringly.
"I thought perhaps God would have stayed with me to help me, but I feel
as if He hadn't. I feel as if He had only been able to love me so long as
Maurice was with me."
"That feeling will pass away."
"Perhaps when my child comes," she said, very simply.
Artois had not known about the coming of the child, but Hermione did not
remember that now.
"Your child!" he said.
"I am glad I came back in time to tell him about the child," she said. "I
think at first he was almost frightened. He was such a boy, you see. He
was the very spirit of youth, wasn't he? And perhaps that--but at the end
he seemed happy. He kissed me as if he loved not only me. Do you
understand, Emile? He seemed to kiss me the last time--for us both. Some
day I shall tell my baby that."
She was silent for a little while. She looked out over the great view,
now falling into a strange repose. This was the land he had loved, the
land he had belonged to.
"I should like to hear the 'Pastorale' now," she said, presently. "But
Sebastiano--" A new thought seemed to strike her. "I wonder how some
women can bear their sorrows," she said. "Don't you, Emile?"
"What sorrows do you mean?" he asked.
"Such a sorrow as poor Lucrezia has to bear. Maurice always loved me.
Lucrezia knows that Sebastiano loves some one else. I ought to be trying
to comfort Lucrezia. I did try. I did go to pray with her. But that was
before. I can't pray now, because I can't feel sure of almost anything. I
sometimes think that this happened without God's meaning it to happen."
"God!" Artois said, moved by an irresistible impulse. "And the gods, the
old pagan gods?"
"Ah!" she said, understanding. "We called him Mercury. Yes, it is as if
he had gone to them, as if they had recalled their messenger. In the
spring, before I went to Africa, I often used to think of legends, and
put him--my Sicilian--"
She did not go on. Yet her voice had not faltered. There was no
contortion of sorrow in her face. There was a sort of soft calmness about
her almost akin to the calmness of the evening. It was the more
remarkable in her because she was not usually a tranquil woman. Artois
had never known her before in deep grief. But he had known her in joy,
and then she had been rather enthusiastic than serene. Something of her
eager humanity had left her now. She made upon him a strange impression,
almost as of some one he had never previously had any intercourse with.
And yet she was being wonderfully natural with him, as natural as if she
were alone.
"What are you going to do, my friend?" he said, after a long silence.
"Nothing. I have no wish to do anything. I shall just wait--for our
child."
"But where will you wait? You cannot wait here. The heat would weaken
you. In your condition it would be dangerous."
"He spoke of going. It hurt me for a moment, I remember. I had a wish to
stay here forever then. It seemed to me that this little bit of earth and
rock was the happiest place in all the world. Yes, I will go, Emile, but
I shall come back. I shall bring our child here."
He did not combat this intention then, for he was too thankful to have
gained her assent to the departure for which he longed. The further
future must take care of itself.
"I will take you to Italy, to Switzerland, wherever you wish to go."
"I have no wish for any other place. But I will go somewhere in Italy.
Wherever it is cool and silent will do. But I must be far away from
people; and when you have taken me there, dear Emile, you must leave me
there."
"Quite alone?"
"Gaspare will be with me. I shall always keep Gaspare. Maurice and he
were like two brothers in their happiness. I know they loved each other,
and I know Gaspare loves me."
Artois only said:
"I trust the boy."
The word "trust" seemed to wake Hermione into a stronger life.
"Ah, Emile," she said, "once you distrusted the south. I remember your
very words. You said, 'I love the south, but I distrust what I love, and
I see the south in him.' I want to tell you, I want you to know, how
perfect he was always to me. He loved joy, but his joy was always
innocent. There was always something of the child in him. He was
unconscious of himself. He never understood his own beauty. He never
realized that he was worthy of worship. His thought was to reverence and
to worship others. He loved life and the sun--oh, how he loved them! I
don't think any one can ever have loved life and the sun as he did, ever
will love them as he did. But he was never selfish. He was just quite
natural. He was the deathless boy. Emile, have you noticed anything about
me--since?"
"What, Hermione?"
"How much older I look now. He was like my youth, and my youth has gone
with him."
"Will it not revive--when--?"
"No, never. I don't wish it to. Gaspare gathered roses, all the best
roses from his father's little bit of land, to throw into the grave. And
I want my youth to lie there with my Sicilian under Gaspare's roses. I
feel as if that would be a tender companionship. I gave everything to him
when he was alive, and I don't want to keep anything back now. I would
like the sun to be with him under Gaspare's roses. And yet I know he's
elsewhere. I can't explain. But two days ago at dawn I heard a child
playing the tarantella, and it seemed to me as if my Sicilian had been
taken away by the blue, by the blue of Sicily. I shall often come back to
the blue. I shall often sit here again. For it was here that I heard the
beating of the heart of youth. And there's no other music like that. Is
there, Emile?"
"No," he said.
Had the music been wild? He suspected that the harmony she worshipped had
passed on into the hideous crash of discords. And whose had been the
fault? Who creates human nature as it is? In what workshop, of what
brain, are forged the mad impulses of the wild heart of youth, are mixed
together subtly the divine aspirations which leap like the winged Mercury
to the heights, and the powerful appetites which lead the body into the
dark places of the earth? And why is the Giver of the divine the
permitter of those tremendous passions, which are not without their
glory, but which wreck so many human lives?
Perhaps a reason may be found in the sacredness of pity. Evil and agony
are the manure from which spring some of the whitest lilies that have
ever bloomed beneath that enigmatic blue which roofs the terror and the
triumph of the world. And while human beings know how to pity, human
beings will always believe in a merciful God.
A strange thought to come into such a mind as Artois's! Yet it came in
the twilight, and with it a sense of tears such as he had never felt
before.
With the twilight had come a little wind from Etna. It made something
near him flutter, something white, a morsel of paper among the stones by
which he was sitting. He looked down and saw writing, and bent to pick
the paper up.
"Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat till the 10th.
We shall take that...."
Hermione's writing!
Artois understood at once. Maurice had had Hermione's letter. He had
known they were coming from Africa, and he had gone to the fair despite
that knowledge. He had gone with the girl who wept and prayed beside the
sea.
His hand closed over the paper.
"What is it, Emile? What have you picked up?"
"Only a little bit of paper."
He spoke quietly, tore it into tiny fragments and let them go upon the
wind.
"When will you come with me, Hermione? When shall we go to Italy?"
"I am saying 'a rivederci' now"--she dropped her voice--"and buon
riposo."
The white fragments blew away into the gathering night, separated from
one another by the careful wind.
* * * * *
Three days later Hermione and Artois left Sicily, and Gaspare, leaning
out of the window of the train, looked his last on the Isle of the
Sirens. A fisherman on the beach by the inlet, not Salvatore, recognized
the boy and waved a friendly hand. But Gaspare did not see him.
There they had fished! There they had bathed! There they had drunk the
good red wine of Amato and called for brindisi! There they had lain on
the warm sand of the caves! There they had raced together to Madre
Carmela and her frying-pan! There they had shouted "O sole mio!"
There--there they had been young together!
The shining sea was blotted out from the boy's eyes by tears.
"Povero signorino!" he whispered. "Povero signorino!"
And then, as his "Paese" vanished, he added for the last time the words
which he had whispered in the dawn by the grave of his padrone, "Dio ci
mandi buon riposo in Paradiso."