XVI (continued 2)

"Dov'è il mio padrone?" he asked, as he and Amedeo pushed through the dense throng. "Dov'è il mio padrone?"

He spied Maurice and Maddalena sitting before the ristorante listening to the performance of a small Neapolitan boy with a cropped head, who was singing street songs in a powerful bass voice, and occasionally doing a few steps of a melancholy dance upon the pavement. The crowd billowed round them. A little way off the "Musica della città," surrounded by a circle of colored lamps, was playing a selection from the "Puritani." The strange ecclesiastical chant of the Roman ice venders rose up against the music as if in protest. And these three definite and fighting melodies—of the Neapolitan, the band, and the ice venders—detached themselves from a foundation of ceaseless sound, contributed by the hundreds of Sicilians who swarmed about the ancient church, infested the narrow side streets of the village, looked down from the small balconies and the windows of the houses, and gathered in mobs in the wine-shops and the trattorie.

"Signorino! Signorino! Look!"

Gaspare had reached Maurice, and now stood by the little table at which his padrone and Maddalena were sitting, and placed the tortured parcel tenderly upon it.

"Is that the clock?"

Gaspare did not reply in words, but his brown fingers deftly removed the string and paper and undressed his treasure.

"Ecco!" he exclaimed.

The clock was revealed, a great circle of blue and white standing upon short, brass legs, and ticking loudly,

bawled the little boy from Naples. Gaspare seized the clock, turned a handle, lifted his hand in a reverent gesture bespeaking attention; there was a faint whirr, and then, sure enough, the tune of the "Tre Colori" was tinkled blithely forth.

"Ecco!" repeated Gaspare, triumphantly.

"Mamma mia!" murmured Maddalena, almost exhausted with the magic of the fair.

"It's wonderful!" said Maurice.

He, too, was a little tired, but not in body.

Gaspare wound the clock again, and again the tune was trilled forth, competing sturdily with the giant noises of the fair, a little voice that made itself audible by its clearness and precision.

"Ecco!" repeated Gaspare. "Will not the signora be happy when she sees what I have brought her from the fair?"

He sighed from sheer delight in his possession and the thought of his padrona's joy and wonder in it.

"Mangiamo?" he added, descending from heavenly delights to earthly necessities.

"Yes, it is getting late," said Maurice. "The fireworks will soon be beginning, I suppose."

"Not till ten, signorino. I have asked. There will be dancing first. But—are we going to stay?"

Maurice hesitated, but only for a second.

"Yes," he said. "Even if we went now the signora would be in bed and asleep long before we got home. We will stay to the end, the very end."

"Then we can say 'Good-morning' to the signora when we get home," said Gaspare.

He was quite happy now that he had this marvellous present to take back with him. He felt that it would make all things right, would sweep away all lingering disappointment at their absence and the want of welcome.

Salvatore did not appear at the meal. He had gone off to stable his new purchase with the other donkeys, and now, having got a further sum of money out of the Inglese, was drinking and playing cards with the fishermen of Catania. But he knew where his girl and Maurice were, and that Gaspare and Amedeo were with them. And he knew, too, that the Inglese's signora had come back. He told the news to the fishermen.

"To-night, when he gets home, his 'cristiana' will be waiting for him. Per Dio! it is over for him now. We shall see little more of him."

"And get little more from him!" said one of the fishermen, who was jealous of Salvatore's good-fortune.

Salvatore laughed loudly. He had drunk a good deal of wine and he had had a great deal of money given to him.

"I shall find another English fool, perhaps!" he said. "Chi lo sa?"

"And his cristiana?" asked another fisherman. "What is she like?"

"Like!" cried Salvatore, pouring out another glass of wine and spitting on the discolored floor, over which hens were running; "what is any cristiana like?"

And he repeated the contadino's proverb:

"'La mugghieri è comu la gatta: si l'accarizzi, idda ti gratta!'"

"Perhaps the Inglese will get scratched to-night," said the first fisherman.

"I don't mind," rejoined Salvatore. "Get us a fresh pack of cards, Fortunato. I'll pay for 'em."

And he flung down a lira on the wine-stained table.

Gaspare, now quite relieved in his mind, gave himself up with all his heart to the enjoyment of the last hours of the fair, and was unwearied in calling on his padrone to do the same. When the evening meal was over he led the party forth into the crowd that was gathered about the music; he took them to the shooting-tent, and made them try their luck at the little figures which calmly presented grotesquely painted profiles to the eager aim of the contadini; he made them eat ices which they bought at the beflagged cart of the ecclesiastical Romans, whose eternally chanting voices made upon Maurice a sinister impression, suggesting to his mind—he knew not why—the thought of death. Finally, prompted by Amedeo, he drew Maurice into a room where there was dancing.

It was crowded with men and women, was rather dark and very hot. In a corner there was a grinding organ, whose handle was turned by a perspiring man in a long, woollen cap. Beside him, hunched up on a window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz, now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La Fasola." No sooner had they entered the room than Gaspare gently but firmly placed his arm round his padrone's waist, took his left hand and began to turn him about in a slow waltz, while Amedeo followed the example given with Maddalena. Round and round they went among the other couples. The organ in the corner ground out a wheezy tune. The reed-flute of the shepherd boy twittered, as perhaps, long ago, on the great mountain that looked down in the night above the village, a similar flute twittered from the woods to Empedocles climbing upward for the last time towards the plume of smoke that floated from the volcano. And then Amedeo and Gaspare danced together and Maurice's arm was about the waist of Maddalena.

It was the first time that he had danced with her, and the mutual act seemed to him to increase their intimacy, to carry them a step forward in this short and curious friendship which was now, surely, very close to its end. They did not speak as they danced. Maddalena's face was very solemn, like the face of one taking part in an important ceremonial. And Maurice, too, felt serious, even sad. The darkness and heat of the room, the melancholy with which all the tunes of a grinding organ seem impregnated, the complicated sounds from the fair outside, from which now and again the voices of the Roman ice-venders detached themselves, even the tapping of the heavy boots of the dancers upon the floor of brick—all things in this hour moved him to a certain dreariness of the spirit which was touched with sentimentality. This fair day was coming to an end. He felt as if everything were coming to an end.

Every dog has his day. The old saying came to his mind. "Every dog has his day—and mine is over."

He saw in the dimness of the room the face of Hermione at the railway carriage window. It was the face of one on the edge of some great beginning. But she did not know. Hermione did not know.

The dance was over. Another was formed, a country dance. Again Maurice was Maddalena's partner. Then came "La Fasola," in which Amedeo proudly showed forth his well-known genius and Gaspare rivalled him. But Maurice thought it was not like the tarantella upon the terrace before the house of the priest. The brilliancy, the gayety of that rapture in the sun were not present here among farewells. A longing to be in the open air under the stars came to him, and when at last the grinding organ stopped he said to Gaspare:

"I'm going outside. You'll find me there when you've finished dancing."

"Va bene, signorino. In a quarter of an hour the fireworks will be beginning."

"And then we must start off at once."

"Si, signore."

The organ struck up again and Amedeo took hold of Gaspare by the waist.

"Maddalena, come out with me."

She followed him. She was tired. Festivals were few in her life, and the many excitements of this long day had told upon her, but her fatigue was the fatigue of happiness. They sat down on a wooden bench set against the outer wall of the house. No one else was sitting there, but many people were passing to and fro, and they could see the lamps round the "Musica Leoncavallo," and hear it fighting and conquering the twitter of the shepherd boy's flute and the weary wheezing of the organ within the house. A great, looming darkness rising towards the stars dominated the humming village. Etna was watching over the last glories of the fair.

"Have you been happy to-day, Maddalena?" Maurice asked.

"Si, signore, very happy. And you?"

He did not answer.

"It will all be very different to-morrow," he said.

He was trying to realize to-morrow, but he could not.

"We need not think of to-morrow," Maddalena said.

She arranged her skirt with her hands, and crossed one foot over the other.

"Do you always live for the day?" Maurice asked her.

She did not understand him.

"I do not want to think of to-morrow," she said. "There will be no fair then."

"And you would like always to be at the fair?"

"Si, signore, always."

There was a great conviction in her simple statement.

"And you, signorino?"

She was curious about him to-night.

"I don't know what I should like," he said.

He looked up at the great darkness of Etna, and again a longing came to him to climb up, far up, into those beech forests that looked towards the Isles of Lipari. He wanted greater freedom. Even the fair was prison.

"But I think," he said, after a pause—"I think I should like to carry you off, Maddalena, up there, far up on Etna."

He remembered his feeling when he had put his arms round her in the dance. It had been like putting his arms round ignorance that wanted to be knowledge. Who would be Maddalena's teacher? Not he. And yet he had almost intended to have his revenge upon Salvatore.

"Shall we go now?" he said. "Shall we go off to Etna, Maddalena?"

"Signorino!"

She gave a little laugh.

"We must go home after the fireworks."

"Why should we? Why should we not take the donkeys now? Gaspare is dancing. Your father is playing cards. No one would notice. Shall we? Shall we go now and get the donkeys, Maddalena?"

But she replied:

"A girl can only go like that with a man when she is married."

"That's not true," he said. "She can go like that with a man she loves."

"But then she is wicked, and the Madonna will not hear her when she prays, signorino."

"Wouldn't you do anything for a man you really loved? Wouldn't you forget everything? Wouldn't you forget even the Madonna?"

She looked at him.

"Non lo so."

It seemed to him that he was answered.

"Wouldn't you forget the Madonna for me?" he whispered, leaning towards her.

There was a loud report close to them, a whizzing noise, a deep murmur from the crowd, and in the clear sky above Etna the first rocket burst, showering down a cataract of golden stars, which streamed towards the earth, leaving trails of fire behind them.

The sound of the grinding organ and of the shepherd boy's flute ceased in the dancing-room, and the crowd within rushed out into the market-place.

"Signorino! Signorino! Come with me! We cannot see properly here! I know where to go. There will be wheels of fire, and masses of flowers, and a picture of the Regina Margherita. Presto! Presto!"

Gaspare had hold of Maurice by the arm.

"E' finito!" Maurice murmured.

It seemed to him that the last day of his wild youth was at an end.

"E' finito!" he repeated.

But there was still an hour.

And who can tell what an hour will bring forth?