Chapter 21

"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 "Aïda," 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 città, 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 città. 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 Aïda," 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."

"I remember your telling me."

"And you were so glad the signora was travelling the other way."

"Yes, yes."

He spoke hastily. Salvatore was on his feet.

"What hour have we?"

Maurice looked at his watch.

"Half-past two already! I say, Salvatore, you mustn't forget the donkeys."

Salvatore came close up to him.

"Signore," he began, in a low voice, "what do you wish me to do?"

"Bid for a good donkey."

"Si, signore."

"For the best donkey they put up for sale."

Salvatore began to look passionately eager.

"Si, signore. And if I get it?"

"Come to me and I will give you the money to pay."

"Si, signore. How high shall I go?"

Gaspare was listening intently, with a hard face and sullen eyes. His whole body seemed to be disapproving what Maurice was doing. But he said nothing. Perhaps he felt that to-day it would be useless to try to govern the actions of his padrone.

"How high? Well"--Maurice felt that, before Gaspare, he must put a limit to his price, though he did not care what it was--"say a hundred. Here, I'll give it you now."

He put his hand into his pocket and drew out his portfolio.

"There's the hundred."

Salvatore took it eagerly, spread it over his hand, stared at it, then folded it with fingers that seemed for the moment almost delicate, and put it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He meant to go presently and show it to the fishermen of Catania, who had laughed upon the steps of the church, and explain matters to them a little. They thought him a fool. Well, he would soon make them understand who was the fool.

"Grazie, signore!"

He said it through his teeth. Maurice turned to Gaspare. He felt the boy's stern disapproval of what he had done, and wanted, if possible, to make amends.

"Gaspare," he said, "here is a hundred lire for you. I want you to go to the auction and to bid for anything you think worth having. Buy something for your mother and father, for the house, some nice things!"

"Grazie, signore."

He took the note, but without alacrity, and his face was still lowering.

"And you, signore?" he asked.

"I?"

"Yes. Are you not coming with me to the auction? It will be better for you to be there to choose the things."

For an instant Maurice felt irritated. Was he never to be allowed a moment alone with Maddalena?

"Oh, but I'm no good at----" he began.

Then he stopped. To-day he must be birbante--on his guard. Once the auction was in full swing--so he thought--Salvatore and Gaspare would be as they were when they gambled beside the sea. They would forget everything. It would be easy to escape. But till that moment came he must be cautious.

"Of course I'll come," he exclaimed, heartily. "But you must do the bidding, Gaspare."

The boy looked less sullen.

"Va bene, signorino. I shall know best what the things are worth. And Salvatore"--he glanced viciously at the fisherman--"can go to the donkeys. I have seen them. They are poor donkeys this year."

Salvatore returned his vicious glance and said something in dialect which Maurice did not understand. Gaspare's face flushed, and he was about to burst into an angry reply when Maurice touched his arm.

"Come along, Gaspare!"

As they got up, he whispered:

"Remember what I said about to-day!"

"Macchè----"

Maurice closed his fingers tightly on Gaspare's arm.

"Gaspare, you must remember! Afterwards what you like, but not to-day. Andiamo!"

They all got up. The Musica della città was now playing a violent jig, undoubtedly composed by Bellini, who was considered almost as a child of San Felice, having been born close by at Catania.

"Where are the women in the wonderful blue dresses?" Maurice asked, as they stepped into the road; "and the ear-rings? I haven't seen them yet."

"They will come towards evening, signorino," replied Gaspare, "when it gets cool. They do not care to be in the sun dressed like that. It might spoil their things."

Evidently the promenade of these proud beauties was an important function.

"We must not miss them," Maurice said to Maddalena.

She looked conscious.

"No, signore."

"They will all be here this evening, signore," said Amedeo, "for the giuochi di fuoco."

"The giuochi di fuoco--they will be at the end?"

"Si, signore. After the giuochi di fuoco it is all finished."

Maurice stifled a sigh. "It is all finished," Amedeo had said. But for him? For him there would be the ride home up the mountain, the arrival upon the terrace before the house of the priest. At what hour would he be there? It would be very late, perhaps nearly at dawn, in the cold, still, sad hour when vitality is at its lowest. And Hermione? Would she be sleeping? How would they meet? How would he----?

"Andiamo! Andiamo!"

He cried out almost angrily.

"Which is the way?"

"All the auctions are held outside the town, signore," said Amedeo. "Follow me."

Proudly he took the lead, glad to be useful and important after the benefits that had been bestowed upon him, and hoping secretly that perhaps the rich Inglese would give him something to spend, too, since money was so plentiful for donkeys and clocks.

"They are in the fiume, near the sea and the railway line."

The railway line! When he heard that Maurice had a moment's absurd sensation of reluctance, a desire to hold back, such as comes to a man who is unexpectedly asked to confront some danger. It seemed to him that if he went to the watercourse he might be seen by Hermione and Artois as they passed by on their way to Marechiaro. But of course they were coming from Messina! What a fool he was to-day! His recklessness seemed to have deserted him just when he wanted it most. To-day he was not himself. He was a coward. What it was that made him a coward he did not tell himself.

"Then we can all go together," he said. "Salvatore and all."

"Si, signore."

Salvatore's voice was close at his ear, and he knew by the sound of it that the fisherman was smiling.

"We can all keep together, signore; then we shall be more gay."

They threaded their way through the throng. The violent jig of Bellini died away gradually, till it was faint in the distance. At the end of the narrow street Maurice saw the large bulk of Etna. On this clear afternoon it looked quite close, almost as if, when they got out of the street, they would be at its very foot, and would have to begin to climb. Maurice remembered his wild longing to carry Maddalena off upon the sea, or to some eyrie in the mountains, to be alone with her in some savage place. Why not give all these people the slip now--somehow--when the fun of the fair was at its height, mount the donkeys and ride straight for the huge mountain? There were caverns there and desolate lava wastes; there were almost impenetrable beech forests. Sebastiano had told him tales of them, those mighty forests that climbed up to green lawns looking down upon the Lipari Isles. He thought of their silence and their shadows, their beds made of the drifted leaves of the autumn. There, would be no disturbance, no clashing of wills and of interests, but calm and silence and the time to love. He glanced at Maddalena. He could hardly help imagining that she knew what he was thinking of. Salvatore had dropped behind for a moment. Maurice did not know it, but the fisherman had caught sight of his comrades of Catania drinking in a roadside wine-shop, and had stopped to show them the note for a hundred francs, and to make them understand the position of affairs between him and the forestiere. Gaspare was talking eagerly to Amedeo about the things that were likely to be put up for sale at the auction.

"Maddalena," Maurice said to the girl, in a low voice, "can you guess what I am thinking about?"

She shook her head.

"No, signore."

"You see the mountain!"

He pointed to the end of the little street.

"Si, signore."

"I am thinking that I should like to go there now with you."

"Ma, signorino--the fiera!"

Her voice sounded plaintive with surprise and she glanced at her pea-green skirt.

"And this, signorino!"--she touched it carefully with her slim fingers. "How could I go in this?"

"When the fair is over, then, and you are in your every-day gown, Maddalena, I should like to carry you off to Etna."

"They say there are briganti there."

"Brigands--would you be afraid of them with me?"

"I don't know, signore. But what should we do there on Etna far away from the sea and from Marechiaro?"

"We should"--he whispered in her ear, seizing this chance almost angrily, almost defiantly, with the thought of Salvatore in his mind--"we should love each other, Maddalena. It is quiet in the beech forests on Etna. No one would come to disturb us, and----"

A chuckle close to his ear made him start. Salvatore's hand was on his arm, and Salvatore's face, looking wily and triumphant, was close to his.

"Gaspare was wrong, there are splendid donkeys here. I have been talking to some friends who have seen them."

There was a tramp of heavy boots on the stones behind them. The fishermen from Catania were coming to see the fun. Salvatore was in glory. To get all and give nothing was, in his opinion, to accomplish the legitimate aim of a man's life. And his friends, those who had dared to sneer and to whisper, and to imagine that he was selling his daughter for money, now knew the truth and were here to witness his ingenuity. Intoxicated by his triumph, he began to show off his power over the Inglese for the benefit of the tramplers behind. He talked to Maurice with a loud familiarity, kept laying his hand on Maurice's arm as they walked, and even called him, with a half-jocose intonation, "compare." Maurice sickened at his impertinence, but was obliged to endure it with patience, and this act of patience brought to the birth within him a sudden, fierce longing for revenge, a longing to pay Salvatore out for his grossness, his greed, his sly and leering affectation of playing the slave when he was really indicating to his compatriots that he considered himself the master. Again Maurice heard the call of the Sicilian blood within him, but this time it did not call him to the tarantella or to love. It called him to strike a blow. But this blow could only be struck through Maddalena, could only be struck if he were traitor to Hermione. For a moment he saw everything red. Again Salvatore called him "compare." Suddenly Maurice could not bear it.

"Don't say that!" he said. "Don't call me that!"

He had almost hissed the words out. Salvatore started, and for an instant, as they walked side by side, the two men looked at each other with eyes that told the truth. Then Salvatore, without asking for any explanation of Maurice's sudden outburst, said:

"Va bene, signore, va bene! I thought for to-day we were all compares. Scusi, scusi."

There was a bitterness of irony in his voice. As he finished he swept off his soft hat and then replaced it more over his left ear than ever. Maurice knew at once that he had done the unforgivable thing, that he had stabbed a Sicilian's amour propre in the presence of witnesses of his own blood. The fishermen from Catania had heard. He knew it from Salvatore's manner, and an odd sensation came to him that Salvatore had passed sentence upon him. In silence, and mechanically, he walked on to the end of the street. He felt like one who, having done something swiftly, thoughtlessly, is suddenly confronted with the irreparable, abruptly sees the future spread out before him bathed in a flash of crude light, the future transformed in a second by that act of his as a landscape is transformed by an earthquake or a calm sea by a hurricane.

And when the watercourse came in sight, with its crowd, its voices, and its multitude of beasts, he looked at it dully for a moment, hardly realizing it.

In Sicily the animal fairs are often held in the great watercourses that stretch down from the foot of the mountains to the sea, and that resemble huge highroads in the making, roads upon which the stones have been dumped ready for the steam-roller. In winter there is sometimes a torrent of water rushing through them, but in summer they are dry, and look like wounds gashed in the thickly growing lemon and orange groves. The trampling feet of beasts can do no harm to the stones, and these watercourses in the summer season are of no use to anybody. They are, therefore, often utilized at fair time. Cattle, donkeys, mules are driven down to them in squadrons. Painted Sicilian carts are ranged upon their banks, with sets of harness, and the auctioneers, whose business it is to sell miscellaneous articles, household furniture, stuffs, clocks, ornaments, frequently descend into them, and mount a heap of stones to gain command of their gaping audience of contadini and the shrewder buyers from the towns.

The watercourse of San Felice was traversed at its mouth by the railway line from Catania to Messina, which crossed it on a long bridge supported by stone pillars and buttresses, the bridge which, as Gaspare had said, had recently collapsed and was now nearly built up again. It was already in use, but the trains were obliged to crawl over it at a snail's pace in order not to shake the unfinished masonry, and men were stationed at each end to signal to the driver whether he was to stop or whether he might venture to go on. Beyond the watercourse, upon the side opposite to the town of San Felice, was a series of dense lemon groves, gained by a sloping bank of bare, crumbling earth, on the top of which, close to the line and exactly where it came to the bridge, was a group of four old olive-trees with gnarled, twisted trunks. These trees cast a patch of pleasant shade, from which all the bustle of the fair was visible, but at a distance, and as Maurice and his party came out of the village on the opposite bank, he whispered to Maddalena:

"Maddalena!"

"Si, signore?"

"Let's get away presently, you and I; let's go and sit under those trees. I want to talk to you quietly."

"Si, signore?"

Her voice was lower even than his own.

"Ecco, signore! Ecco!"

Salvatore was pointing to a crowd of donkeys.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

"What is it, Gaspare?"

"That is the man who is going to sell the clock!"

The boy's face was intent. His eyes were shining, and his glum manner had vanished, under the influence of a keen excitement. Maurice realized that very soon he would be free. Once his friends were in the crowd of buyers and sellers everything but the chance of a bargain would be forgotten. His own blood quickened but for a different reason.

"What beautiful carts!" he said. "We have no such carts in England!"

"If you would like to buy a cart, signore----" began Salvatore.

But Gaspare interrupted with violence.

"Macchè! What is the use of a cart to the signorino? He is going away to England. How can he take a cart with him in the train?"

"He can leave the cart with me," said Salvatore, with open impudence. "I can take care of it for the signore as well as the donkey."

"Macchè!" cried Gaspare, furiously.

Maurice took him by the arm.