The Call of the Blood Part 103

He had evidently nothing more to say, yet Artois did not leave him immediately.

"Gaspare," he said, "the signora will not stay here through the great heat, will she?"

"Non lo so, signore."

"She ought to go away. It will be better if she goes away."

"Si, signore. But perhaps she will not like to leave the povero signorino."

Tears came into the boy's eyes. He turned away and went to the wall, and looked over into the ravine, and thought of many things: of readings under the oak-trees, of the tarantella, of how he and the padrone had come up from the fis.h.i.+ng singing in the suns.h.i.+ne. His heart was full, and he felt dazed. He was so accustomed to being always with his padrone that he did not know how he was to go on without him. He did not remember his former life, before the padrone came. Everything seemed to have begun for him on that morning when the train with the padrone and the padrona in it ran into the station of Cattaro. And now everything seemed to have finished.

Artois did not say any more to him, but walked slowly up the mountain leaning on his stick. Close to the top, by a heap of stones that was something like a cairn, he saw, presently, a woman sitting. As he came nearer she turned her head and saw him. She did not move. The soft rays of the evening sun fell on her, and showed him that her square and rugged face was pale and grave and, he thought, empty-looking, as if something had deprived it of its former possession, the ardent vitality, the generous enthusiasm, the look of swiftness he had loved.

When he came up to her he could only say: "Hermione, my friend--"

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. G.o.d did watch us then, I think. G.o.d was with me so long as Maurice was with me. But I feel as if G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d's meaning it to happen."

"G.o.d!" Artois said, moved by an irresistible impulse. "And the G.o.ds, the old pagan G.o.ds?"

"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 a.s.sent 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 wors.h.i.+p. His thought was to reverence and to wors.h.i.+p 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 companions.h.i.+p. 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.