When Artois received Hermione’s letter he asked who had brought it, and
obtained from the waiter a fairly accurate description of Gaspare.
“Please ask him to come up,” he said. “I want to speak to him.”
Two or three minutes later there was a knock at the door and Gaspare
walked in, with a large-eyed inquiring look.
“Good-day, Gaspare. You’ve never seen my quarters before, I think,” said
Artois, cordially.
“No, Signore. What a beautiful room!”
“Then smoke a cigar, and I’ll write an answer to this letter.”
“Thank you, Signore.”
Artois gave him a cigar, and sat down to answer the letter, while
Gaspare went out on to the balcony and stood looking at the bathers who
were diving from the high wooden platform of the bath establishment over
the way. When Artois had finished writing he joined Gaspare. He had a
great wish that day to break down a reserve he had respected for
many years, but he knew Gaspare’s determined character, his power of
obstinate, of dogged silence. Gaspare’s will had been strong when he
was a boy. The passing of the years had certainly not weakened it.
Nevertheless, Artois was moved to make the attempt which he foresaw
would probably end in failure.
He gave Gaspare the letter, and said:
“Don’t go for a moment. I want to have a little talk with you.”
“Si, Signore.”
Gaspare put the letter into the inner pocket of his jacket, and stood
looking at Artois, holding the cigar in his left hand. In all these
years Artois had never found out whether Gaspare liked him or not. He
wished now that he knew.
“Gaspare,” he said, “I think you know that I have a great regard for
your Padrona.”
“Si, Signore. I know it.”
The words sounded rather cold.
“She has had a great deal of sorrow to bear.”
“Si, Signore.”
“One does not wish that she should be disturbed in any way--that any
fresh trouble should come into her life.”
Gaspare’s eyes were always fixed steadily upon Artois, who, as he spoke
the last words, fancied he saw come into them an expression that was
almost severely ironical. It vanished at once as Gaspare said:
“No, Signore.”
Artois felt the iron of this faithful servant’s impenetrable reserve,
but he continued very quietly and composedly:
“You have always stood between the Padrona and trouble whenever you
could. You always will--I am sure of that.”
“Si, Signore.”
“Do you think there is any danger to the Signora’s happiness here?”
“Here, Signore?”
Gaspare’s emphasis seemed to imply where they were just then standing.
Artois was surprised, then for a moment almost relieved. Apparently
Gaspare had no thought in common with the strange, the perhaps fantastic
thought that had been in his own mind.
“Here--no!” he said, with a smile. “Only you and I are here, and we
shall not make the Signora unhappy.”
“Chi lo sa?” returned Gaspare.
And again that ironical expression was in his eyes.
“By here I meant here in Naples, where we all are--or on the island, for
instance.”
“Signore, in this life there is trouble for all.”
“But some troubles, some disasters can be avoided.”
“It’s possible.”
“Gaspare”--Artois looked at him steadily, searchingly even, and spoke
very gravely--“I respect you for your discretion of many years. But if
you know of any trouble, any danger that is near to the Signora, and
against which I could help you to protect her, I hope you will trust me
and tell me. I think you ought to do that.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Signore.”
“Are you quite sure, Gaspare? Are you quite sure that no one comes to
the island who might make the Signora very unhappy?”
Gaspare had dropped his eyes. Now he lifted them, and looked Artois
straight in the face.
“No, Signore, I am not sure of that,” he said.
There was nothing rude in his voice, but there was something stern.
Artois felt as if a strong, determined man stood in his path and blocked
the way. But why? Surely they were at cross purposes. The working of
Gaspare’s mind was not clear to him.
After a moment of silence, he said:
“What I mean is this. Do you think it would be a good thing if the
Signora left the island?”
“Left the island, Signore?”
“Yes, and went away from Naples altogether.”
“The Signorina would never let the Padrona go. The Signorina loves the
island and my Padrona loves the Signorina.”
“But the Signorina would not be selfish. If it was best for her mother
to go--”
“The Signorina would not think it was best; she would never think it was
best to leave the island.”
“But what I want to know, Gaspare, is whether you think it would be
best for them to leave the island. That’s what I want to know--and you
haven’t told me.”
“I am a servant, Signore. I cannot tell such things.”
“You are a servant--yes. But you are also a friend. And I think nobody
could tell better than you.”
“I am sure the Signora will not leave the island till October, Signore.
She says we are all to stay until the end of October.”
“And now it’s July.”
“Si, Signore. Now it’s July.”
In saying the last words Gaspare’s voice sounded fatalistic, and Artois
believed that he caught an echo of a deep-down thought of his own. With
all his virtues Gaspare had an admixture of the spirit of the East that
dwells also in Sicily, a spirit that sometimes, brooding over a nature
however fine, prevents action, a spirit that says to a man, “This is
ordained. This is destiny. This is to be.”
“Gaspare,” Artois said, strong in this conviction, “I have heard you
say, ‘e il destino.’ But you know we can often get away from things if
we are quick-witted.”
“Some things, Signore.”
“Most things, perhaps. Don’t you trust me?”
“Signore!”
“Don’t you think, after all these years, you can trust me?”
“Signore, I respect you as I respect my father.”
“Well, Gaspare, remember this. The Signora has had trouble enough in her
life. We must keep out any more.”
“Signore, I shall always do what I can to spare my Padrona. Thank you
for the cigar, Signore. I ought to go now. I have to go to Mergellina
for the boat.”
“To Mergellina?”
Again Artois looked at him searchingly.
“Si, Signore; I left the boat at Mergellina. It is very hot to row all
the way here.”
“Yes. A rivederci, Gaspare. Perhaps I shall sail round to the island
to-night after dinner. But I’m not sure. So you need not say I am
coming.”
“A rivederci, Signore.”
When Gaspare had gone, Artois said to himself, “He does not trust me.”
Artois was surprised to realize how hurt he felt at Gaspare’s attitude
towards him that day. Till now their mutual reserve had surely linked
them together. Then silence had been a bond. But there was a change, and
the bond seemed suddenly loosened.
“Damn the difference between the nations!” Artois thought. “How can we
grasp the different points of view? How can even the cleverest of us
read clearly in others of a different race from our own?”
He felt frustrated, as he had sometimes felt frustrated by Orientals.
And he knew an anger of the brain as well as an anger of the heart. But
this anger roused him, and he resolved to do something from which till
now he had instinctively shrunk, strong-willed man though he was.
If Gaspare would not help him he would act for himself. Possibly the
suspicion, the fear that beset him was groundless. He had put it
away from him more than once, had said that it was absurd, that his
profession of an imaginative writer rendered him, perhaps, more liable
to strange fancies than were other men, that it encouraged him to
seek instinctively for drama, and that what a man instinctively and
perpetually seeks he will often imagine that he has found. Now he would
try to prove what was the truth.
He had written to Hermione saying that he would be glad to dine with her
on any evening that suited the Marchesino, that he had no engagements.
Why she wished him to meet the Marchesino he did not know. No doubt
she had some woman’s reason. The one she gave was hardly enough, and
he divined another beneath it. Certainly he did not love Doro on the
island, but perhaps it was as well that they should meet there once, and
get over their little antagonism, an antagonism that Artois thought of
as almost childish. Life was not long enough for quarrels with boys like
Doro. Artois had refused Hermione’s invitation on the sea abruptly. He
had felt irritated for the moment, because he had for the moment been
unusually expansive, and her announcement that Doro was to be there had
fallen upon him like a cold douche. And then he had been nervous, highly
strung from overwork. Now he was calm, and could look at things as
they were. And if he noticed anything leading him to suppose that the
Marchesino was likely to try to abuse Hermione’s hospitality he meant
to have it out with him. He would speak plainly and explain the English
point of view. Doro would no doubt attack him on the ground of his
interview with Maria Fortunata. He did not care. Somehow his present
preoccupation with Hermione’s fate, increased by the visit of Gaspare,
rendered his irritation against the Marchesino less keen than it had
been. But he thought he would probably visit the island to-night--after
another visit which he intended to pay. He could not start at once. He
must give Gaspare time to take the boat and row off. For his first visit
was to Mergellina.
After waiting an hour he started on foot, keeping along by the sea, as
he did not wish to meet acquaintances, and was likely to meet them in
the Villa. As he drew near to Mergellina he felt a great and growing
reluctance to do what he had come to do, to make inquiries into a
certain matter; and he believed that this reluctance, awake within him
although perhaps he had scarcely been aware of it, had kept him inactive
during many days. Yet he was not sure of this. He was not sure when a
faint suspicion had first been born in his mind. Even now he said to
himself that what he meant to do, if explained to the ordinary man,
would probably seem to him ridiculous, that the ordinary man would
say, “What a wild idea! Your imagination runs riot.” But he thought of
certain subtle things which had seemed like indications, like shadowy
pointing fingers; of a look in Gaspare’s eyes when they had met his--a
hard, defiant look that seemed shutting him out from something; of a
look in another face one night under the moon; of some words spoken in
a cave with a passion that had reached his heart; of two children
strangely at ease in each other’s society. And again the thought pricked
him, “Is not everything possible--even that?” All through his life he
had sought truth with persistence, sometimes almost with cruelty, yet
now he was conscious of timidity, almost of cowardice--as if he feared
to seek it.
Long ago he had known a cowardice akin to this, in Sicily. Then he
had been afraid, not for himself but for another. To-day again the
protective instinct was alive in him. It was that instinct which made
him afraid, but it was also that instinct which kept him to his first
intention, which pushed him on to Mergellina. No safety can be in
ignorance for a strong man. He must know. Then he can act.
When Artois reached Mergellina he looked about for Ruffo, but he could
not see the boy. He had never inquired Ruffo’s second name. He might
make a guess at it. Should he? He looked at a group of fishermen who
were talking loudly on the sand just beyond the low wall. One of them
had a handsome face bronzed by the sun, frank hazel eyes, a mouth oddly
sensitive for one of his class. His woolen shirt, wide open, showed a
medal resting on his broad chest, one of those amulets that are said to
protect the fishermen from the dangers of the sea. Artois resolved to
ask this man the question he wished, yet feared to put to some one.
Afterwards he wondered why he had picked out this man. Perhaps it was
because he looked happy.
Artois caught the man’s eye.
“You want a boat, Signore?”
With a quick movement the fellow was beside him on the other side of the
wall.
“I’ll take your boat--perhaps this evening.”
“At what hour, Signore?”
“We’ll see. But first perhaps you can tell me something.”
“What is it?”
“You live here at Mergellina?”
“Si, Signore.”
“Do you know any one called--called Buonavista?”
The eyes of Artois were fixed on the man’s face.
“Buonavista--si, Signore.”
“You do?”
“Ma si, Signore,” said the man, looking at Artois with a sudden flash of
surprise. “The family Buonavista, I have known it all my life.”
“The family? Oh, then there are many of them?”
The man laughed.
“Enrico Buonavista has made many children, and is proud of it, I can
tell you. He has ten--his father before him--”
“Then they are Neapolitans?”
“Neapolitans! No, Signore. They are from Mergellina.”
Artois smiled. The tension which had surprised the sailor left his face.
“I understand. But there is no Sicilian here called Buonavista?”
“A Sicilian, Signore? I never heard of one. Are there Buonavistas in
Sicily?”
“I have met with the name there once. But perhaps you can tell me of a
boy, one of the fishermen, called Ruffo?”
“Ruffo Scarla? You mean Ruffo Scarla, who fishes with Giuseppe--Mandano
Giuseppe, Signore?”
“It may be. A young fellow, a Sicilian by birth, I believe.”
“Il Siciliano! Si, Signore. We call him that, but he has never been in
Sicily, and was born in America.”
“That’s the boy.”
“Do you want him, Signore? But he is not here to-day. He is at sea
to-day.”
“I did want to speak to him.”
“But he is not a boatman, Signore. He does not go with the travellers.
He is a fisherman.”
“Yes. Do you know his mother?”
“Si, Signore.”
“What is her name?”
“Bernari, Signore. She is married to Antonio Bernari, who is in prison.”
“In prison? What’s he been doing?”
“He is always after the girls, Signore. And now he has put a knife into
one.”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Diavolo! He is jealous. He has not been tried yet, perhaps he never
will be. His wife has gone into Naples to-day to see him.”
“Oh, she’s away?”
“Si, Signore.”
“And her name, her Christian name? It’s Maria, isn’t it?”
“No, Signore, Maddalena--Maddalena Bernari.”
Artois said nothing for a minute. Then he added:
“I suppose there are plenty of Maddalenas here in Mergellina?”
The man laughed.
“Si Signore. Marias and Maddalenas--you find them everywhere. Why, my
own mamma is Maddalena, and my wife is Maria, and so is my sister.”
“Exactly. And your name? I want it, so that when next I take a boat here
I can ask for yours.”
“Fabiano, Signore, Lari Fabiano, and my boat is the _Stella del Mare_.”
“Thank you, Fabiano.”
Artois put a lira into his hand.
“I shall take the _Star of the Sea_ very soon.”
“This evening, Signore; it will be fine for sailing this evening.”
“If not this evening, another day. A rivederci, Fabiano.”
“A rivederci, Signore. Buon passeggio.”
The man went back to his companions, and, as Artois walked on began
talking eagerly to them, and pointing after the stranger.
Artois did not know what he would do later on in the evening, but he
had decided on the immediate future. He would walk up the hill to the
village of Posilipo, then turn down to the left, past the entrance to
the Villa Rosebery, and go to the Antico Giuseppone, where he could
dine by the waterside. It was quiet there, he knew; and he could have a
cutlet and a zampaglione, a cup of coffee and a cigar, and sit and watch
the night fall. And when it had fallen? Well, he would not be far from
the island, nor very far from Naples, and he could decide then what to
do.
He followed out this plan, and arrived at the Giuseppone at evening. As
he came down the road between the big buildings near the waterside he
saw in the distance a small group of boys and men lounging by the three
or four boats that lie at the quay, and feared to find, perhaps, a
bustle and noise of people round the corner at the ristorante. But when
he turned the corner and came to the little tables that were set out
in the open air, he was glad to see only two men who were bending over
their plates of fish soup. He glanced at them, almost without noticing
them, so preoccupied was he with his thoughts, sat down at an adjoining
table and ordered his simple meal. While it was being got ready he
looked out over the sea.
The two men near him conversed occasionally in low voices. He paid no
heed to them. Only when he had dined slowly and was sipping his black
coffee did they attract his attention. He heard one of them say to the
other in French:
“What am I to do? It would be terrible for me! How am I to prevent it
from happening?”
His companion replied:
“I thought you had been wandering all the winter in the desert.”
“I have. What has that to do with it?”
“Have you learned its lesson?”
“What lesson?”
“The lesson of resignation, of obedience to the thing that must be.”
Artois looked towards the last speaker and saw that he was an Oriental,
and that he was very old. His companion was a young Frenchman.
“What do those do who have not learned?” continued the Oriental. “They
seek, do they not? They rebel, they fight, they try to avoid things,
they try to bring things about. They lift up their hands to disperse the
grains of the sand-storm. They lift up their voices to be heard by the
wind from the South. They stretch forth their hands to gather the mirage
into their bosom. They follow the drum that is beaten among the dunes.
They are afraid of life because they know it has two kinds of gifts, and
one they snatch at, and one they would refuse. And they are afraid
still more of the door that all must enter, Sultan and Nomad--he who has
washed himself and made the threefold pilgrimage, and he who is a leper
and is eaten by flies. So it is. And nevertheless all that is to come
must come, and all that is to go must go at the time appointed; just as
the cloud falls and lifts at the time appointed, and the wind blows and
fails, and Ramadan is here and is over.”
As he ceased from speaking he got up from his chair, and, followed by
the young Frenchman, he passed in front of Artois, went down to the
waterside, stepped into a boat, and was rowed away into the gathering
shadows of night.
Artois sat very still for a time. Then he, too, got into a boat and was
rowed away across the calm water to the island.
He found Hermione sitting alone, without a lamp, on the terrace,
meditating, perhaps, beneath the stars. When she saw him she got up
quickly, and a strained look of excitement came into her face.
“You have come!”
“Yes. You--are you surprised? Did you wish to be alone?”
“No. Will you have some coffee?”
He shook his head.
“I dined at the Giuseppone. I had it there.”
He glanced round.
“Are you looking for Vere? She is out on the cliff, I suppose. Shall we
go to her?”
He was struck by her nervous uneasiness. And he thought of the words of
the old Oriental, which had made upon him a profound impression, perhaps
because they had seemed spoken, not to the young Frenchman, but in
answer to unuttered thoughts of his own.
“Let us sit here for a minute,” he said.
Hermione sat down again in silence. They talked for a little while
about trifling things. And then Artois was moved to tell her of the
conversation he had that evening overheard, to repeat to her, almost
word for word, what the old Oriental had said. When he had finished
Hermione was silent for a minute. Then she moved her chair and said, in
an unsteady voice:
“I don’t think I should ever learn the lesson of the desert. Perhaps
only those who belong to it can learn from it.”
“If it is so it is sad--for the others.”
“Let us go and find Vere,” she said.
“Are you sure she is on the cliff?” he asked, as they passed out by the
front door.
“I think so. I am almost certain she is.”
They went forward, and almost immediately heard a murmur of voices.
“Vere is with some one,” said Artois.
“It must be Ruffo. It is Ruffo.”
She stood still. Artois stood still beside her. The night was windless.
Voices travelled through the dreaming silence.
“Don’t be afraid. Sing it to me.”
Vere’s voice was speaking. Then a boy’s voice rang out in the song of
Mergellina. The obedient voice was soft and very young, though manly.
And it sounded as if it sang only for one person, who was very near.
Yet it was impersonal. It asked nothing from, it told nothing to, that
person. Simply, and very naturally, it just gave to the night a very
simple and a very natural song.
As Artois listened he felt as if he learned what he had not been able
to learn that day at Mergellina. Strange as this thing was--if indeed
it was--he felt that it must be, that it was ordained to be, it and
all that might follow from it. He even felt almost that Hermione must
already know it, have divined it, as if, therefore, any effort to hide
it from her must be fruitless, or even contemptible, as if indeed all
effort to conceal truth of whatever kind was contemptible.
The words of the Oriental had sunk deep into his soul.
When the song was over he turned resolutely away. He felt that those
children should not be disturbed. Hermione hesitated for a moment. Then
she fell in with his caprice. At the house door he bade her good-bye.
She scarcely answered. And he left her standing there alone in the still
night.