The Call of the Blood

R >> Robert Smythe Hichens >> The Call of the Blood

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

"Why can one never be free in this world?" he thought, almost angrily.
"Why must there always be some one on the watch to see what one is doing,
to interfere with one's pleasure?"

He began presently almost to hate Salvatore, who evidently thought that
Maurice was ready to wrong him, and who, nevertheless, grasped greedily
at every soldo that came from the stranger's pocket, and touted
perpetually for more.

His attitude was hideous. Maurice pretended not to notice it, and was
careful to keep on the most friendly possible terms with him. But, while
they acted their parts, the secret sense of enmity grew steadily in the
two men, as things grow in the sun. When Maurice saw the fisherman, with
a smiling, bird's face, coming to meet him as he climbed up through the
trees to the sirens' house, he sometimes longed to strike him. And when
Maurice went away with Gaspare in the night towards the white road where
Tito, tied to a stake, was waiting to carry the empty pannier that had
contained a supper up the mountain to the house of the priest, Salvatore
stood handling his money, and murmuring:

"Maledetto straniero! Madonna! Ma io sono piu birbante di Lei, mille
volte piu birbante, Dio mio!"

And he laughed as he went towards the sirens' house. It amused him to
think that a stranger, an "Inglese," fancied that he could play with a
Sicilian, who had never been "worsted," even by one of his own
countrymen.

XV

Maurice had begun to dread the arrival of the post. Artois was rapidly
recovering his strength, and in each of her letters Hermione wrote with a
more glowing certainty of her speedy return to Sicily, bringing the
invalid with her. Would they come before June 11th, the day of the fair?
That was the question which preoccupied Maurice, which began to haunt
him, and set a light of anxiety in his eyes when he saw Antonino climbing
up the mountain-side with the letter-bag slung over his shoulder. He felt
as if he could not forego this last festa. When it was over, when the
lights had gone out in the houses of San Felice, and the music was
silent, and the last rocket had burst in the sky, showering down its
sparks towards the gaping faces of the peasants, he would be ready to
give up this free, unintellectual life, this life in which his youth ran
wild. He would resign himself to the inevitable, return to the existence
in which, till now, he had found happiness, and try to find it there once
more, try to forget the strange voices that had called him, the strange
impulses that had prompted him. He would go back to his old self, and
seek pleasure in the old paths, where he walked with those whom society
would call his "equals," and did not spend his days with men who wrung
their scant livelihood from the breast of the earth and from the breast
of the sea, with women whose eyes, perhaps, were full of flickering
fires, but who had never turned the leaves of a printed book, or traced a
word upon paper. He would sit again at the feet of people who were
cleverer and more full of knowledge than himself, and look up to them
with reverence.

But he must have his festa first. He counted upon that. He desired that
so strongly, almost so fiercely, that he felt as if he could not bear to
be thwarted, as if, should fate interfere between him and the fulfilment
of this longing, he might do something almost desperate. He looked
forward to the fair with something of the eagerness and the anticipation
of a child expectant of strange marvels, of wonderful and mysterious
happenings, and the name San Felice rang in his ears with a music that
was magical, suggesting curious joys.

He often talked about the fair to Gaspare, asking him many questions
which the boy was nothing loath to answer.

To Gaspare the fair of San Felice was the great event of the Sicilian
year. He had only been to it twice; the first time when he was but ten
years old, and was taken by an uncle who had gone to seek his fortune in
South America, and had come back for a year to his native land to spend
some of the money he had earned as a cook, and afterwards as a restaurant
proprietor, in Buenos Ayres; the second time when he was sixteen, and had
succeeded in saving up a little of the money given to him by travellers
whom he had accompanied as a guide on their excursions. And these two
days had been red-letter days in his life. His eyes shone with excitement
when he spoke of the festivities at San Felice, of the bands of
music--there were three "musics" in the village; of the village beauties
who sauntered slowly up and down, dressed in brocades and adorned with
jewels which had been hoarded in the family chests for generations, and
were only taken out to be worn at the fair and at wedding-feasts; of the
booths where all the desirable things of the world were exposed for
sale--rings, watches, chains, looking-glasses, clocks that sang and
chimed with bells like church towers, yellow shoes, and caps of all
colors, handkerchiefs, and shawls with fringes that, when worn, drooped
almost to the ground; ballads written by native poets, relating the life
and the trial of Musolino, the famous brigand, his noble address to his
captors, and his despair when he was condemned to eternal confinement;
and the adventures of Giuseppe Moroni, called "Il Niccheri"
(illetterato), composed in eight-lined verses, and full of the most
startling and passionate occurrences. There were donkeys, too--donkeys
from all parts of Sicily, mules from Girgenti, decorated with
red-and-yellow harness, with pyramids of plumes and bells upon their
heads, painted carts with pictures of the miracles of the saints and the
conquests of the Saracens, turkeys and hens, and even cages containing
yellow birds that came from islands far away and that sang with the
sweetness of the angels. The ristoranti were crowded with people, playing
cards and eating delicious food, and outside upon the pavements were
dozens of little tables at which you could sit, drinking syrups of
beautiful hues and watching at your ease the marvels of the show. Here
came boys from Naples to sing and dance, peddlers with shining knives and
elegant walking-sticks for sale, fortune-tellers with your fate already
printed and neatly folded in an envelope, sometimes a pigeon-man with a
high black hat, who made his doves hop from shoulder to shoulder along a
row of school-children, or a man with a monkey that played antics to the
sound of a grinding organ, and that was dressed up in a red worsted
jacket and a pair of cloth trousers. And there were shooting-galleries
and puppet-shows and dancing-rooms, and at night, when the darkness came,
there were giuochi di fuoco which lit up the whole sky, till you could
see Etna quite plainly.

"E' veramente un paradiso!" concluded Gaspare.

"A paradise!" echoed Maurice. "A paradise! I say, Gaspare, why can't we
always live in paradise? Why can't life be one long festa?"

"Non lo so, signore. And the signora? Do you think she will be here for
the fair?"

"I don't know. But if she is here, I am not sure that she will come to
see it."

"Why not, signorino? Will she stay with the sick signore?"

"Perhaps. But I don't think she will be here. She does not say she will
be here."

"Do you want her to be here, signorino?" Gaspare asked, abruptly.

"Why do you ask such a question? Of course I am happy, very happy, when
the signora is here."

As he said the words Maurice remembered how happy he had been in the
house of the priest alone with Hermione. Indeed, he had thought that he
was perfectly happy, that he had nothing left to wish for. But that
seemed long ago. He wondered if he could ever again feel that sense of
perfect contentment. He could scarcely believe so. A certain feverishness
had stolen into his Sicilian life. He felt often like a man in suspense,
uncertain of the future, almost apprehensive. He no longer danced the
tarantella with the careless abandon of a boy. And yet he sometimes had a
strange consciousness that he was near to something that might bring to
him a joy such as he had never yet experienced.

"I wish I knew what day Hermione is arriving," he thought, almost
fretfully. "I wish she wouldn't keep me hung up in this condition of
uncertainty. She seems to think that I have nothing to do but just wait
here upon the pleasure of Artois."

With that last thought the old sense of injury rose in him again. This
friend of Hermione's was spoiling everything, was being put before every
one. It was really monstrous that even during their honeymoon this old
friendship should intrude, should be allowed to govern their actions and
disturb their serenity. Now that Artois was out of danger Maurice began
to forget how ill he had been, began sometimes to doubt whether he had
ever been so ill as Hermione supposed. Perhaps Artois was one of those
men who liked to have a clever woman at his beck and call. These literary
fellows were often terribly exigent, eaten up with the sense of their own
importance. But he, Maurice, was not going to allow himself to be made a
cat's-paw of. He would make Artois understand that he was not going to
permit his life to be interfered with by any one.

"I'll let him see that when he comes," he said to himself. "I'll take a
strong line. A man must be the master of his own life if he's worth
anything. These Sicilians understand that."

He began secretly to admire what before he had thought almost hateful,
the strong Arab characteristics that linger on in many Sicilians, to
think almost weak and unmanly the Western attitude to woman.

"I will be master," he said to himself again. "All these Sicilians are
wondering that I ever let Hermione go to Africa. Perhaps they think I'm a
muff to have given in about it. And now, when Hermione comes back with a
man, they'll suppose--God knows what they won't imagine!"

He had begun so to identify himself with the Sicilians about Marechiaro
that he cared what they thought, was becoming sensitive to their opinion
of him as if he had been one of themselves. One day Gaspare told him a
story of a contadino who had bought a house in the village, but who,
being unable to complete the payment, had been turned out into the
street.

"And now, signorino," Gaspare concluded, "they are all laughing at him in
Marechiaro. He dare not show himself any more in the Piazza. When a man
cannot go any more into the Piazza--Madonna!"

He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in a gesture of
contemptuous pity.

"E' finito!" he exclaimed.

"Certo!" said Maurice.

He was resolved that he would never be in such a case. Hermione, he felt
now, did not understand the Sicilians as he understood them. If she did
she would not bring back Artois from Africa, she would not arrive openly
with him. But surely she ought to understand that such an action would
make people wonder, would be likely to make them think that Artois was
something more than her friend. And then Maurice thought of the day of
their arrival, of his own descent to the station, to wait upon the
platform for the train. Artois was not going to stay in the house of the
priest. That was impossible, as there was no guest-room. He would put up
at the hotel in Marechiaro. But that would make little difference. He was
to arrive with Hermione. Every one would know that she had spent all this
time with him in Africa. Maurice grew hot as he thought of the smiles on
the Sicilian faces, of the looks of astonishment at the strange doings of
the forestieri. Hermione's enthusiastic kindness was bringing her husband
almost to shame. It was a pity that people were sometimes thoughtless in
their eager desire to be generous and sympathetic.

One day, when Maurice had been brooding over this matter of the
Sicilian's view of Hermione's proceedings, the spirit moved him to go
down on foot to Marechiaro to see if there were any letters for him at
the post. It was now June 7th. In four days would come the fair. As the
time for it drew near, his anxiety lest anything should interfere to
prevent his going to it with Maddalena increased, and each day at post
time he was filled with a fever of impatience to know whether there
would be a letter from Africa or not. Antonino generally appeared about
four o'clock, but the letters were in the village long before then, and
this afternoon Maurice felt that he could not wait for the boy's coming.
He had a conviction that there was a letter, a decisive letter from
Hermione, fixing at last the date of her arrival with Artois. He must
have it in his hands at the first possible moment. If he went himself to
the post he would know the truth at least an hour and a half sooner than
if he waited in the house of the priest. He resolved, therefore, to go,
got his hat and stick, and set out, after telling Gaspare, who was
watching for birds with his gun, that he was going for a stroll on the
mountain-side and might be away for a couple of hours.

It was a brilliant afternoon. The landscape looked hard in the fiery
sunshine, the shapes of the mountains fierce and relentless, the dry
watercourses almost bitter in their barrenness. Already the devastation
of the summer was beginning to be apparent. All tenderness had gone from
the higher slopes of the mountains which, jocund in spring and in autumn
with growing crops, were now bare and brown, and seamed like the hide of
a tropical reptile gleaming with metallic hues. The lower slopes were
still panoplied with the green of vines and of trees, but the ground
beneath the trees was arid. The sun was coming into his dominion with
pride and cruelty, like a conqueror who loots the land he takes to be his
own.

But Maurice did not mind the change, which drove the tourists northward,
and left Sicily to its own people. He even rejoiced in it. As each day
the heat increased he was conscious of an increasing exultation, such as
surely the snakes and the lizards feel as they come out of their
hiding-places into the golden light. He was filled with a glorious sense
of expansion, as if his capabilities grew larger, as if they were
developed by heat like certain plants. None of the miseries that afflict
many people in the violent summers which govern southern lands were his.
His skin did not peel, his eyes did not become inflamed, nor did his head
ache under the action of the burning rays. They came to him like brothers
and he rejoiced in their company. To-day, as he descended to Marechiaro,
he revelled in the sun. Its ruthlessness made him feel ruthless. He was
conscious of that. At this moment he was in absolutely perfect physical
health. His body was lithe and supple, yet his legs and arms were hard
with springing muscle. His warm blood sang through his veins like music
through the pipes of an organ. His eyes shone with the superb animation
of youth that is radiantly sound. For, despite his anxiety, his sometimes
almost fretful irritation when he thought about the coming of Artois and
the passing of his own freedom, there were moments when he felt as if he
could leap with the sheer joy of life, as if he could lift up his arms
and burst forth into a wild song of praise to his divinity, the sun. And
this grand condition of health made him feel ruthless, as the man who
conquers and enters a city in triumph feels ruthless. As he trod down
towards Marechiaro to-day, thinking of the letter that perhaps awaited
him, it seemed to him that it would be monstrous if anything, if any one,
were to interfere with his day of joy, the day he was looking forward to
with such eager anticipation. He felt inclined to trample over
opposition. Yet what could he do if, by some evil chance, Hermione and
Artois arrived the day before the fair, or on the very day of the fair?
He hurried his steps. He wanted to be in the village, to know whether
there was a letter for him from Africa.

When he came into the village it was about half-past two o'clock, and the
long, narrow main street was deserted. The owners of some of the
antiquity shops had already put up their shutters for the summer. Other
shops, still open, showed gaping doorways, through which no travellers
passed. Inside, the proprietors were dozing among their red brocades,
their pottery, their Sicilian jewelry and obscure pictures thick with
dust, guarded by squadrons of large, black flies, which droned on walls
and ceilings, crept over the tiled floors, and clung to the draperies and
laces which lay upon the cabinets. In the shady little rooms of the
barbers small boys in linen jackets kept a drowsy vigil for the
proprietors, who were sleeping in some dark corner of bedchamber or
wine-shop. But no customer came to send them flying. The sun made the
beards push on the brown Sicilian faces, but no one wanted to be shaved
before the evening fell. Two or three lads lounged by on their way to the
sea with towels and bathing-drawers over their arms. A few women were
spinning flax on the door-lintels, or filling buckets of water from the
fountain. A few children were trying to play mysterious games in the
narrow alleys that led downward to the sea and upward to the mountains on
the left and right of the street. A donkey brayed under an archway as if
to summon its master from his siesta. A cat stole along the gutter, and
vanished into a hole beneath a shut door. But the village was almost like
a dead village, slain by the sun in his carelessness of pride.

On his way to the post Maurice passed through the Piazza that was the
glory of Marechiaro and the place of assemblage for its people. Here the
music sounded on festa days before the stone steps that led up to the
church of San Giuseppe. Here was the principal caffe, the Caffe Nuovo,
where granite and ices were to be had, delicious yellow cakes, and
chocolate made up into shapes of crowing cocks, of pigs, of little men
with hats, and of saints with flowing robes. Here, too, was the club,
with chairs and sofas now covered with white, and long tables adorned
with illustrated journals and the papers of Catania, of Messina, and
Palermo. But at this hour the caffe was closed and the club was empty.
For the sun beat down with fury upon the open space with its tiled
pavement, and the seats let into the wall that sheltered the Piazza from
the precipice that frowned above the sea were untenanted by loungers. As
Maurice went by he thought of Gaspare's words, "When a man cannot go any
more into the Piazza--Madonna, it is finished!" This was the place where
the public opinion of Marechiaro was formed, where fame was made and
characters were taken away. He paused for an instant by the church, then
went on under the clock tower and came to the post.

"Any letters for me, Don Paolo?" he asked of the postmaster.

The old man saluted him languidly through the peep-hole.

"Si, signore, ce ne sono."

He turned to seek for them while Maurice waited. He heard the flies
buzzing. Their noise was loud in his ears. His heart beat strongly and he
was gnawed by suspense. Never before had he felt so anxious, so impatient
to know anything as he was now to know if among the letters there was one
from Hermione.

"Ecco, signore!"

"Grazie!"

Maurice took the packet.

"A rivederci!"

"A rivederlo, signore."

He went away down the street. But now he had his letters he did not look
at them immediately. Something held him back from looking at them until
he had come again into the Piazza. It was still deserted. He went over to
the seat by the wall, and sat down sideways, so that he could look over
the wall to the sea immediately below him. Then, very slowly, he drew out
his cigarette-case, selected a cigarette, lit it, and began to smoke like
a man who was at ease and idle. He glanced over the wall. At the foot of
the precipice by the sea was the station of Cattaro, at which Hermione
and Artois would arrive when they came. He could see the platform, some
trucks of merchandise standing on the rails, the white road winding by
towards San Felice and Etna. After a long look down he turned at last to
the packet from the post which he had laid upon the hot stone at his
side. The _Times_, the "Pink 'un," the _Illustrated London News_, and
three letters. The first was obviously a bill forwarded from London. The
second was also from England. He recognized the handwriting of his
mother. The third? He turned it over. Yes, it was from Hermione. His
instinct had not deceived him. He was certain, too, that it did not
deceive him now. He was certain that this was the letter that fixed the
date of her coming with Artois. He opened the two other letters and
glanced over them, and then at last he tore the covering from Hermione's.
A swift, searching look was enough. The letter dropped from his hand to
the seat. He had seen these words:

"Isn't it splendid? Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat
till the tenth. We shall take that, and be at Cattaro on the eleventh at
five o'clock in the afternoon...."

"Isn't it splendid?"

For a moment he sat quite still in the glare of the sun, mentally
repeating to himself these words of his wife. So the inevitable had
happened. For he felt it was inevitable. Fate was against him. He was not
to have his pleasure.

"Signorino! Come sta lei? Lei sta bene?"

He started and looked up. He had heard no footstep. Salvatore stood by
him, smiling at him, Salvatore with bare feet, and a fish-basket slung
over his arm.

"Buon giorno, Salvatore!" he answered, with an effort.

Salvatore looked at Maurice's cigarette, put down the basket, and sat
down on the seat by Maurice's side.

"I haven't smoked to-day, signore," he began. "Dio mio! But it must be
good to have plenty of soldi!"

"Ecco!"

Maurice held out his cigarette-case.

"Take two--three!"

"Grazie, signore, mille grazie!"

He took them greedily.

"And the fair, signorino--only four days now to the fair! I have been to
order the donkeys for me and Maddalena."

"Davvero?" Maurice said, mechanically.

"Si, signore. From Angelo of the mill. He wanted fifteen lire, but I
laughed at him. I was with him a good hour and I got them for nine. Per
Dio! Fifteen lire and to a Siciliano! For he didn't know you were coming.
I took care not to tell him that."

"Oh, you took care not to tell him that I was coming!"

Maurice was looking over the wall at the platform of the station far down
below. He seemed to see himself upon it, waiting for the train to glide
in on the day of the fair, waiting among the smiling Sicilian facchini.

"Si, signore. Was not I right?"

"Quite right."

"Per Dio, signore, these are good cigarettes. Where do they come from?"

"From Cairo, in Egypt."

"Egitto! They must cost a lot."

He edged nearer to Maurice.

"You must be very happy, signorino."

"I!" Maurice laughed. "Madonna! Why?"

"Because you are so rich!"

There was a fawning sound in the fisherman's voice, a fawning look in his
small, screwed-up eyes.

"To you it would be nothing to buy all the donkeys at the fair of San
Felice."

Maurice moved ever so little away from him.

"Ah, signorino, if I had been born you how happy I should be!"

And he heaved a great sigh and puffed at the cigarette voluptuously.

Maurice said nothing. He was still looking at the railway platform. And
now he seemed to see the train gliding in on the day of the fair of San
Felice.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

"Well, what is it, Salvatore?"

"I have ordered the donkeys for ten o'clock. Then we can go quietly. They
will be at Isola Bella at ten o'clock. I shall bring Maddalena round in
the boat."

"Oh!"

Salvatore chuckled.

"She has got a surprise for you, signore."

"A surprise?"

"Per Dio!"

"What is it?"

His voice was listless, but now he looked at Salvatore.

"I ought not to tell you, signore. But--if I do--you won't ever tell
her?"

"No."

"A new gown, signorino, a beautiful new gown, made by Maria Compagni here
in the Corso. Will you be at Isola Bella with Gaspare by ten o'clock on
the day, signorino?"

"Yes, Salvatore!" Maurice said, in a loud, firm, almost angry voice. "I
will be there. Don't doubt it. Addio Salvatore!"

He got up.

"A rivederci, signore. Ma--"

He got up, too, and bent to pick up his fish-basket.

"No, don't come with me. I'm going up now, straight up by the Castello."

"In all this heat? But it's steep there, signore, and the path is all
covered with stones. You'll never--"

"That doesn't matter. I like the sun. Addio!"

"And this evening, signorino? You are coming to bathe this evening?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Don't wait for me. Go to sea if you want
to!"

"Birbanti!" muttered the fisherman, as he watched Maurice stride away
across the Piazza, and strike up the mountain-side by the tiny path that
led to the Castello. "You want to get me out of the way, do you?
Birbanti! Ah, you fine strangers from England! You think to come here and
find men that are babies, do you? men that--"

He went off noiselessly on his bare feet, muttering to himself with the
half-smoked cigarette in his lean, brown hand.

Meanwhile, Maurice climbed rapidly up the steep track over the stones in
the eye of the sun. He had not lied to Salvatore. While the fisherman had
been speaking to him he had come to a decision. A disgraceful decision he
knew it to be, but he would keep to it. Nothing should prevent him from
keeping to it. He would be at Isola Bella on the day of the fair. He
would go to San Felice. He would stay there till the last rocket burst in
the sky over Etna, till the last song had been sung, the last toast
shouted, the last tarantella danced, the last--kiss given--the last, the
very last. He would ignore this message from Africa. He would pretend he
had never received it. He would lie about it. Yes, he would lie--but he
would have his pleasure. He was determined upon that, and nothing should
shake him, no qualms of conscience, no voices within him, no memories of
past days, no promptings of duty.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32