James Athearn Jones - "Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3)"

W.C.C. Weetman - "The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 1919"

Daniel C. Eddy - "Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission"

Fred W. Ward - "The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's)"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Call of the Blood

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




It seemed as if they would never get away from the street. At every
moment they halted. One man begged them to wait a moment till his donkey
was saddled, so that he might join them. Another, a wine-shop keeper,
insisted on Maurice's testing his moscato, and thereupon Maurice felt
obliged to order glasses all round, to the great delight of Gaspare, who
always felt himself to be glorified by the generosity of his padrone, and
who promptly took the proceedings in charge, measured out the wine in
appropriate quantities, handed it about, and constituted himself master
of the ceremony. Already, at eleven o'clock, brindisi were invented, and
Maurice was called upon to "drop into poetry." Then Maddalena caught
sight of some girl friends, and must needs show them all her finery. For
this purpose she solemnly dismounted from her donkey to be closely
examined on the pavement, turned about, shook forth her pea-green skirt,
took off her chain for more minute inspection, and measured the silken
fringes of her shawl in order to compare them with other shawls which
were hastily brought out from a house near-by.

But Gaspare, always a little ruthless with women, soon tired of such
vanities.

"Avanti! Avanti!" he shouted. "Dio mio! Le donne sono pazze! Andiamo!
Andiamo!"

He hustled Maddalena, who yielded, blushing and laughing, to his
importunities, and at last they were really off again, and drowned in a
sea of odor as they passed some buildings where lemons were being packed
to be shipped away from Sicily. This smell seemed to Maurice to be the
very breath of the island. He drank it in eagerly. Lemons, lemons, and
the sun! Oranges, lemons, yellow flowers under the lemons, and the sun!
Always yellow, pale yellow, gold yellow, red-gold yellow, and white, and
silver-white, the white of the roads, the silver-white of dusty olive
leaves, and green, the dark, lustrous, polished green of orange leaves,
and purple and blue, the purple of sea, the blue of sky. What a riot of
talk it was, and what a riot of color! It made Maurice feel almost drunk.
It was heady, this island of the south--heady in the summer-time. It had
a powerful influence, an influence that was surely an excuse for much.
Ah, the stay-at-homes, who condemned the far-off passions and violences
of men! What did they know of the various truths of the world? How should
one in Clapham judge one at the fair of San Felice? Avanti! Avanti!
Avanti along the blinding white road by the sea, to the village on which
great Etna looked down, not harshly for all its majesty. Nature
understood. And God, who made Nature, who was behind Nature--did not He
understand? There is forgiveness surely in great hearts, though the small
hearts have no space to hold it.

Something like this Maurice thought for a moment, ere a large
thoughtlessness swept over him, bred of the sun and the odors, the
movement, the cries and laughter of his companions, the gay gown and the
happy glances of Maddalena, even of the white dust that whirled up from
the feet of the cantering donkeys.

And so, ever laughing, ever joking, gayly, almost tumultuously, they
rushed upon the fair.

San Felice is a large village in the plain at the foot of Etna. It lies
near the sea between Catania and Messina, but beyond the black and
forbidding lava land. Its patron saint, Protettore di San Felice, is
Sant' Onofrio, and this was his festival. In the large, old church in the
square, which was the centre of the life of the fiera, his image,
smothered in paint, sumptuously decorated with red and gold and bunches
of artificial flowers, was exposed under a canopy with pillars; and thin
squares of paper reproducing its formal charms--the oval face with large
eyes and small, straight nose, the ample forehead, crowned with hair that
was brought down to a point in the centre, the undulating, divided beard
descending upon the breast, one hand holding a book, the other upraised
in a blessing--were sold for a soldo to all who would buy them.

The first thing the party from Isola Bella and from Marechiaro did, when
they had stabled their donkeys at Don Leontini's, in the Via Bocca di
Leone, was to pay the visit of etiquette to Sant' Onofrio. Their laughter
was stilled at the church doorway, through which women and men draped in
shawls, lads and little children, were coming and going. Their faces
assumed expressions of superstitious reverence and devotion. And, going
up one by one to the large image of the saint, they contemplated it with
awe, touched its hand or the hem of its robe, made the sign of the cross,
and retreated, feeling that they were blessed for the day.

Maddalena approached the saint with Maurice and Gaspare. She and Gaspare
touched the hand that held the book, made the sign of the cross, then
stared at Maurice to see why he did nothing. He quickly followed their
example. Maddalena, who was pulling some of the roses from her tight
bouquet, whispered to him:

"Sant' Onofrio will bring us good-fortune."

"Davvero?" he whispered back.

"Si! Si!" said Gaspare, nodding his head.

While Maddalena laid her flowers upon the lap of the saint, Gaspare
bought from a boy three sheets of paper containing Sant' Onofrio's
reproduction, and three more showing the effigies of San Filadelfo, Sant'
Alfio, and San Cirino.

"Ecco, Donna Maddalena! Ecco, signorino!"

He distributed his purchases, keeping two for himself. These last he very
carefully and solemnly folded up and bestowed in the inner pocket of his
jacket, which contained a leather portfolio, given to him by Maurice to
carry his money in.

"Ecco!" he said, once more, as he buttoned the flap of the pocket as a
precaution against thieves.

And with that final exclamation he dismissed all serious thoughts.

"Mangiamo, signorino!" he said. "Ora basta!"

And they went forth into the sunshine. Salvatore was talking to some
fishermen from Catania upon the steps. They cast curious glances at
Maurice as he came out with Maddalena, and, when Salvatore went off with
his daughter and the forestiere, they laughed among themselves and
exchanged some remarks that were evidently merry. But Maurice did not
heed them. He was not a self-conscious man. And Maddalena was far too
happy to suppose that any one could be saying nasty things about her.

"Where are we going to eat?" asked Maurice.

"This way, this way, signorino!" replied Gaspare, elbowing a passage
through the crowd. "You must follow me. I know where to go. I have many
friends here."

The truth of this statement was speedily made manifest. Almost every
third person they met saluted Gaspare, some kissing him upon both cheeks,
others grasping his hand, others taking him familiarly by the arm. Among
the last was a tall boy with jet-black, curly hair and a long, pale face,
whom Gaspare promptly presented to his padrone, by the name of Amedeo
Buccini.

"Amedeo is a parrucchiere, signorino," he said, "and my compare, and the
best dancer in San Felice. May he eat with us?"

"Of course."

Gaspare informed Amedeo, who took off his hat, held it in his hand, and
smiled all over his face with pleasure.

"Yes, Gaspare is my compare, signore," he affirmed. "Compare, compare,
compareddu"--he glanced at Gaspare, who joined in with him:

"Compare, compare, compareddu,
Io ti voglio molto bene,
Mangiamo sempre insieme--
Mangiamo carne e riso
E andiamo in Paradiso!"

"Carne e riso--si!" cried Maurice, laughing. "But Paradise! Must you go
to Paradise directly afterwards, before the dancing and before the
procession and before the fireworks?"

"No, signore," said Gaspare. "When we are very old, when we cannot dance
any more--non e vero, Amedeo?--then we will go to Paradiso."

"Yes," agreed the tall boy, quite seriously, "then we will go to
Paradiso."

"And I, too," said Maurice; "and Maddalena, but not till then."

What a long time away that would be!

"Here is the ristorante!"

They had reached a long room with doors open onto the square, opposite to
the rows of booths which were set up under the shadow of the church.
Outside of it were many small tables and numbers of chairs on which
people were sitting, contemplating the movement of the crowd of buyers
and sellers, smoking, drinking syrups, gazzosa, and eating ices and flat
biscuits.

Gaspare guided them through the throng to a long table set on a sanded
floor.

"Ecco, signorino!"

He installed Maurice at the top of the table.

"And you sit here, Donna Maddalena."

He placed her at Maurice's right hand, and was going to sit down himself
on the left, when Salvatore roughly pushed in before him, seized the
chair, sat in it, and leaned his arms on the table with a loud laugh that
sounded defiant. An ugly look came into Gaspare's face.

"Macche--" he began, angrily.

But Maurice silenced him with a quick look.

"Gaspare, you come here, by Maddalena!"

"Ma--"

"Come along, Gasparino, and tell us what we are to have. You must order
everything. Where's the cameriere? Cameriere! Cameriere!"

He struck on his glass with a fork. A waiter came running.

"Don Gaspare will order for us all," said Maurice to him, pointing to
Gaspare.

His diplomacy was successful. Gaspare's face cleared, and in a moment he
was immersed in an eager colloquy with the waiter, another friend of his
from Marechiaro. Amedeo Buccini took a place by Gaspare, and all those
from Marechiaro, who evidently considered that they belonged to the
Inglese's party for the day, arranged themselves as they pleased and
waited anxiously for the coming of the macaroni.

A certain formality now reigned over the assembly. The movement of the
road in the outside world by the sea had stirred the blood, had loosened
tongues and quickened spirits. But a meal in a restaurant, with a rich
English signore presiding at the head of the table, was an unaccustomed
ceremony. Dark faces that had been lit up with laughter now looked almost
ludicrously discreet. Brown hands which had been in constant activity,
talking as plainly, and more expressively, than voices, now lay limply
upon the white cloth or were placed upon knees motionless as the knees of
statues. And all eyes were turned towards the giver of the feast, mutely
demanding of him a signal of conduct to guide his inquiring guests. But
Maurice, too, felt for the moment tongue-tied. He was very sensitive to
influences, and his present position, between Maddalena and her father,
created within him a certain confusion of feelings, an odd sensation of
being between two conflicting elements. He was conscious of affection and
of enmity, both close to him, both strong, the one ready to show itself,
the other determined to remain in hiding. He glanced at Salvatore, and
met the fisherman's keen gaze. Behind the instant smile in the glittering
eyes he divined, rather than saw, the shadow of his hatred. And for a
moment he wondered. Why should Salvatore hate him? It was reasonable to
hate a man for a wrong done, even for a wrong deliberately contemplated
with intention--the intention of committing it. But he had done no real
wrong to Salvatore. Nor had he any evil intention with regard to him or
his. So far he had only brought pleasure into their lives, his life and
Maddalena's--pleasure and money. If there had been any secret pain
engendered by their mutual intercourse it was his. And this day was the
last of their intimacy, though Salvatore and Maddalena did not know it.
Suddenly a desire, an almost weak desire, came to him to banish
Salvatore's distrust of him, a distrust which he was more conscious of at
this moment than ever before.

He did not know of the muttered comments of the fishermen from Catania as
he and Maddalena passed down the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio.
But Salvatore's sharp ears had caught them and the laughter that followed
them, and his hot blood was on fire. The words, the laughter had touched
his sensitive Sicilian pride--the pride of the man who means never to be
banished from the Piazza--as a knife touches a raw wound. And as Maurice
had set a limit to his sinning--his insincerity to Hermione, his betrayal
of her complete trust in him, nothing more--so Salvatore now, while he
sat at meat with the Inglese, mentally put a limit to his own
complaisance, a complaisance which had been born of his intense avarice.
To-day he would get all he could out of the Inglese--money, food, wine, a
donkey--who knew what? And then--good-bye to soft speeches. Those
fishermen, his friends, his comrades, his world, in fact, should have
their mouths shut once for all. He knew how to look after his girl, and
they should know that he knew, they and all Marechiaro, and all San
Felice, and all Cattaro. His limit, like Maurice's, was that day of the
fair, and it was nearly reached. For the hours were hurrying towards the
night and farewells.

Moved by his abrupt desire to stand well with everybody during this last
festa, Maurice began to speak to Salvatore of the donkey auction. When
would it begin?

"Chi lo sa?"

No one knew. In Sicily all feasts are movable. Even mass may begin an
hour too late or an hour too early. One thought the donkey auction would
start at fourteen, another at sixteen o'clock. Gaspare was imperiously
certain, over the macaroni, which had now made its appearance, that the
hour was seventeen. There were to be other auctions, auctions of
wonderful things. A clock that played music--the "Marcia Reale" and the
"Tre Colori"--was to be put up; suits of clothes, too; boots, hats, a
chair that rocked like a boat on the sea, a revolver ornamented with
ivory. Already--no one knew when, for no one had missed him--he had been
to view these treasures. As he spoke of them tongues were loosed and eyes
shone with excitement. Money was in the air. Prices were passionately
discussed, values debated. All down the table went the words "soldi,"
"lire," "lire sterline," "biglietti da cinque," "biglietti da dieci."
Salvatore's hatred died away, suffocated for the moment under the weight
of his avarice. A donkey--yes, he meant to get a donkey with the
stranger's money. But why stop there? Why not have the clock and the
rocking-chair and the revolver? His sharpness of the Sicilian, a
sharpness almost as keen and sure as that of the Arab, divined the
intensity, the recklessness alive in the Englishman to-day, bred of that
limit, "my last day of the careless life," to which his own limit was
twin-brother, but of which he knew nothing. And as Maurice was intense
to-day, because there were so few hours left to him for intensity, so was
Salvatore intense in a different way, but for a similar reason. They were
walking in step without being aware of it. Or were they not rather racing
neck to neck, like passionate opponents?

There was little time. Then they must use what there was to the full.
They must not let one single moment find them lazy, indifferent.

[Illustration: "'I AM CONTENT WITHOUT ANYTHING, SIGNORINO,' SHE SAID"]

Under the cover of the flood of talk Maurice turned to Maddalena. She was
taking no part in it, but was eating her macaroni gently, as if it
were a new and wonderful food. So Maurice thought as he looked at her.
To-day there was something strange, almost pathetic, to him in Maddalena,
a softness, an innocent refinement that made him imagine her in another
life than hers, and with other companions, in a life as free but less
hard, with companions as natural but less ruthless to women.

"Maddalena," he said to her. "They all want to buy things at the
auction."

"Si, signore."

"And you?"

"I, signorino?"

"Yes, don't you want to buy something?"

He was testing her, testing her memory. She looked at him above her fork,
from which the macaroni streamed down.

"I am content without anything, signorino," she said.

"Without the blue dress and the ear-rings, longer than that?" He measured
imaginary ear-rings in the air. "Have you forgotten, Maddalena?"

She blushed and bent over her plate. She had not forgotten. All the day
since she rose at dawn she had been thinking of Maurice's old promise.
But she did not know that he remembered it, and his remembrance of it
came to her now as a lovely surprise. He bent his head down nearer to
her.

"When they are all at the auction, we will go to buy the blue dress and
the ear-rings," he almost whispered. "We will go by ourselves. Shall we?"

"Si, signore."

Her voice was very small and her cheeks still held their flush. She
glanced, with eyes that were unusually conscious, to right and left of
her, to see if the neighbors had noticed their colloquy. And that look of
consciousness made Maurice suddenly understand that this limit which he
had put to his sinning--so he had called it with a sort of angry mental
sincerity, summoned, perhaps, to match the tremendous sincerity of his
wife which he was meeting with a lie to-day--his sinning against Hermione
was also a limit to something else. Had he not sinned against Maddalena,
sinned when he had kissed her, when he had shown her that he delighted to
be with her? Was he not sinning now when he promised to buy for her the
most beautiful things of the fair? For a moment he thought to himself
that his fault against Maddalena was more grave, more unforgivable than
his fault against Hermione. But then a sudden anger that was like a
storm, against his own condemnation of himself, swept through him. He had
come out to-day to be recklessly happy, and here he was giving himself up
to gloom, to absurd self-torture. Where was his natural careless
temperament? To-day his soul was full of shadows, like the soul of a man
going to meet a doom.

"Where's the wine?" he called to Gaspare. "Wine, cameriere, wine!"

"You must not drink wine with the pasta, signorino!" cried Gaspare. "Only
afterwards, with the vitello."

"Have you ordered vitello? Capital! But I've finished my pasta and I'm
thirsty. Well, what do you want to buy at the auction, Gaspare, and you,
Amedeo, and you Salvatore?"

He plunged into the talk and made Salvatore show his keen desires,
encouraging and playing with his avarice, now holding it off for a
moment, then coaxing it as one coaxes an animal, stroking it, tempting it
to a forward movement. The wine went round now, for the vitello was on
the table, and the talk grew more noisy, the laughter louder. Outside,
too, the movement and the tumult of the fair were increasing. Cries of
men selling their wares rose up, the hard melodies of a piano-organ, and
a strange and ecclesiastical chant sung by three voices that, repeated
again and again, at last attracted Maurice's attention.

"What's that?" he asked of Gaspare. "Are those priests chanting?"

"Priests! No, signore. Those are the Romani."

"Romans here! What are they doing?"

"They have a cart decorated with flags, signorino, and they are selling
lemon-water and ices. All the people say that they are Romans and that is
how they sing in Rome."

The long and lugubrious chant of the ice-venders rose up again, strident
and melancholy as a song chanted over a corpse.

"It's funny to sing like that to sell ices," Maurice said. "It sounds
like men at a funeral."

"Oh, they are very good ices, signorino. The Romans make splendid ices."

Turkey followed the vitello.

Maurice's guests were now completely at ease and perfectly happy. The
consciousness that all this was going to be paid for, that they would not
have to put their hands in their pockets for a soldo, warmed their hearts
as the wine warmed their bodies. Amedeo's long, white face was becoming
radiant, and even Salvatore softened towards the Inglese. A sort of
respect, almost furtive, came to him for the wealth that could carelessly
entertain this crowd of people, that could buy clocks, chairs, donkeys at
pleasure, and scarcely know that soldi were gone, scarcely miss them. As
he attacked his share of the turkey vigorously, picking up the bones with
his fingers and tearing the flesh away with his white teeth, he tried to
realize what such wealth must mean to the possessor of it, an effort
continually made by the sharp-witted, very poor man. And this wealth--for
the moment some of it was at his command! To ask to-day would be to have.
Instinctively he knew that, and felt like one with money in the bank. If
only it might be so to-morrow and for many days! He began to regret the
limit, almost to forget the sound of the laughter of the Catania
fishermen upon the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio. His pride was
going to sleep, and his avarice was opening its eyes wider.

When the meal was over they went out onto the pavement to take coffee in
the open air. The throng was much greater than it had been when they
entered, for people were continually arriving from the more distant
villages, and two trains had come in from Messina and Catania. It was
difficult to find a table. Indeed, it might have been impossible had not
Gaspare ruthlessly dislodged a party of acquaintances who were
comfortably established around one in a prominent position.

"I must have a table for my padrone," he said. "Go along with you!"

And they meekly went, smiling, and without ill-will--indeed, almost as if
they had received a compliment.

"But, Gaspare," began Maurice, "I can't--"

"Here is a chair for you, signorino. Take it quickly."

"At any rate, let us offer them something."

"Much better spare your soldi now, signorino, and buy something at the
auction. That clock plays the 'Tre Colori' just like a band."

"Buy it. Here is some money."

He thrust some notes into the boy's ready hand.

"Grazie, signorino. Ecco la musica!"

In the distance there rose the blare of a processional march from "Aida,"
and round the corner of the Via di Polifemo came a throng of men and boys
in dark uniforms, with epaulets and cocked hats with flying plumes,
blowing with all their might into wind instruments of enormous size.

"That is the musica of the citta, signore," explained Amedeo. "Afterwards
there will be the Musica Mascagni and the Musica Leoncavallo."

"Mamma mia! And will they all play together?"

"No, signore. They have quarrelled. At Pasqua we had no music, and the
archpriest was hooted by all in the Piazza."

"Why?"

"Non lo so. I think he had forbidden the Musica Mascagni to play at Madre
Lucia's funeral, and the Musica Mascagni went to fight with the Musica
della citta. To-day they will all play, because it is the festa of the
Santo Patrono, but even for him they will not play together."

The bandsmen had now taken their places upon a wooden dais exactly
opposite to the restaurant, and were indulging in a military rendering of
"Celeste Aida," which struck most of the Sicilians at the small tables to
a reverent silence. Maddalena's eyes had become almost round with
pleasure, Gaspare was singing the air frankly with Amedeo, and even
Salvatore seemed soothed and humanized, as he sipped his coffee, puffed
at a thin cigar, and eyed the women who were slowly sauntering up and
down to show their finery. At the windows of most of the neighboring
houses appeared parties of dignified gazers, important personages of the
town, who owned small balconies commanding the piazza, and who now
stepped forth upon these coigns of vantage, and leaned upon the rails
that they might see and be seen by the less favored ones below. Amedeo
and Gaspare began to name these potentates. The stout man with a gray
mustache, white trousers, and a plaid shawl over his shoulders was Signor
Torloni, the syndic of San Felice. The tall, angry-looking gentleman,
with bulging, black eyes and wrinkled cheeks, was Signor Carata, the
avvocato; and the lady in black and a yellow shawl was his wife, who was
the daughter of the syndic. Close by was Signorina Maria Sacchetti, the
beauty of San Felice, already more than plump, but with a good
complexion, and hair so thick that it stood out from her satisfied face
as if it were trained over a trellis. She wore white, and long, thread
gloves which went above her elbows. Maddalena regarded her with awe when
Amedeo mentioned a rumor that she was going to be "promised" to Dr.
Marinelli, who was to be seen at her side, wearing a Gibus hat and
curling a pair of gigantic black mustaches.

Maurice listened to the music and the chatter which, silenced by the
arrival of the music, had now burst forth again, with rather indifferent
ears. He wanted to get away somewhere and to be alone with Maddalena. The
day was passing on. Soon night would be falling. The fair would be at an
end. Then would come the ride back, and then----But he did not care to
look forward into that future. He had not done so yet. He would not do so
now. It would be better, when the time came, to rush upon it blindly.
Preparation, forethought, would only render him unnatural. And he must
seem natural, utterly natural, in his insincere surprise, in his
insincere regret.

"Pay for the coffee, Gaspare," he said, giving the boy some money. "Now I
want to walk about and see everything. Where are the donkeys?"

He glanced at Salvatore.

"Oh, signore," said Gaspare, "they are outside the town in the
watercourse that runs under the bridge--you know, that broke down this
spring where the line is? They have only just finished mending it."

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