CHAPTER XV
THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO
There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cutoff from everything she belonged to. Ovid isolated in Thrace mightwell lament. The soul itself needs its own mysterious nourishment.This nourishment lacking, nothing is well.
At Pescocalascio it was the mysterious influence of the mountainsand valleys themselves which seemed always to be annihilating theEnglishwoman: nay, not only her, but the very natives themselves.Ciccio and Pancrazio clung to her, essentially, as if she saved themalso from extinction. It needed all her courage. Truly, she had tosupport the souls of the two men.
At first she did not realize. She was only stunned with thestrangeness of it all: startled, half-enraptured with the terrificbeauty of the place, half-horrified by its savage annihilation ofher. But she was stunned. The days went by.
It seems there are places which resist us, which have the power tooverthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country has itspotent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantlyrefuse our living culture. And Alvina had struck one of them, hereon the edge of the Abruzzi.
She was not in the village of Pescocalascio itself. That was a longhour's walk away. Pancrazio's house was the chief of a tiny hamletof three houses, called Califano because the Califanos had made it.There was the ancient, savage hole of a house, quite windowless,where Pancrazio and Ciccio's mother had been born: the family home.Then there was Pancrazio's villa. And then, a little below, anothernewish, modern house in a sort of wild meadow, inhabited by thepeasants who worked the land. Ten minutes' walk away was anothercluster of seven or eight houses, where Giovanni lived. But therewas no shop, no post nearer than Pescocalascio, an hour's heavyroad up deep and rocky, wearying tracks.
And yet, what could be more lovely than the sunny days: pure, hot,blue days among the mountain foothills: irregular, steep littlehills half wild with twiggy brown oak-trees and marshes and broomheaths, half cultivated, in a wild, scattered fashion. Lovely, inthe lost hollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing withtwo great white oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wildscrub that bordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered,massive desert and across stream to the other scrubby savage shore,and so up to the high-road. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina wouldaccompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid. And her sense ofthe beauty of the place was an infinite relief to him.
Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight.Sometimes Alvina and Pancrazio were late returning with the ass. Andthen gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, alreadybeginning to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again hewould balk the stream, while a violet-blue dusk descended on thewhite, wide stream-bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark,and in heaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the nearmountains was burning rose, against the dark-blue heavens. Howunspeakably lovely it was, no one could ever tell, the grand, pagantwilight of the valleys, savage, cold, with a sense of ancient godswho knew the right for human sacrifice. It stole away the soul ofAlvina. She felt transfigured in it, clairvoyant in another mysteryof life. A savage hardness came in her heart. The gods who haddemanded human sacrifice were quite right, immutably right. Thefierce, savage gods who dipped their lips in blood, these were thetrue gods.
The terror, the agony, the nostalgia of the heathen past was aconstant torture to her mediumistic soul. She did not know what itwas. But it was a kind of neuralgia in the very soul, never to belocated in the human body, and yet physical. Coming over the brow ofa heathy, rocky hillock, and seeing Ciccio beyond leaning deep overthe plough, in his white shirt-sleeves following the slow, waving,moth-pale oxen across a small track of land turned up in the heathenhollow, her soul would go all faint, she would almost swoon withrealization of the world that had gone before. And Ciccio was sosilent, there seemed so much dumb magic and anguish in him, as if hewere for ever afraid of himself and the thing he was. He seemed, inhis silence, to _concentrate_ upon her so terribly. She believed shewould not live.
Sometimes she would go gathering acorns, large, fine acorns, aprecious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object ofveneration. Silently she would crouch filling the pannier. And faroff she would hear the sound of Giovanni chopping wood, of Cicciocalling to the oxen or Pancrazio making noises to the ass, or thesound of a peasant's mattock. Over all the constant speech of thepassing river, and the real breathing presence of the upper snows.And a wild, terrible happiness would take hold of her, beyonddespair, but very like despair. No one would ever find her. She hadgone beyond the world into the pre-world, she had reopened on theold eternity.
And then Maria, the little elvish old wife of Giovanni, would comeup with the cows. One cow she held by a rope round its horns, andshe hauled it from the patches of young corn into the rough grass,from the little plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria worethe full-pleated white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a redkerchief on her head. But her dress was dirty, and her face wasdirty, and the big gold rings of her ears hung from ears whichperhaps had never been washed. She was rather smoke-dried too, fromperpetual wood-smoke.
Maria in her red kerchief hauling the white cow, and screaming atit, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afraid ofcows. And then, screaming high in dialect, Maria would talk to her.Alvina smiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was notstrictly a human speech. It was rather like the crying ofhalf-articulate animals. It certainly was not Italian. And yetAlvina by dint of constant hearing began to pick up the coagulatedphrases.
She liked Maria. She liked them all. They were all very kind to her,as far as they knew. But they did not know. And they were kind witheach other. For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines,and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They lovedher that she would strip maize-cobs or pick acorns. But they wereall anxious to serve her. And it seemed as if they needed some oneto serve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certainmagic glamour for them, and so long as she was happy, it was asupreme joy and relief to them to have her there. But it seemed toher she would not live.
And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingledwith sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and thehouse inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive bygoing about constantly working, dumb and elemental. But what wasAlvina to do?
For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were thekitchen and Alvina's bedroom: and the kitchen, with its littlegrated windows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken paneand must keep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a darkcavern vaulted and bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settlebefore the fire, the hard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keepthe fire going, with faggots of green oak. But the smoke hurt herchest, she was not clean for one moment, and she could do nothingelse. The bedroom again was just impossibly cold. And there was noother place. And from far away came the wild braying of an ass,primeval and desperate in the snow.
The house was quite large; but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on theleft of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of theweather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, wasa big, long apartment where Pancrazio kept implements and tools andpotatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hoppedunexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, wasthe cantina, a dark place with wine-barrels and more agriculturalstores. This was the whole of the downstairs.
Going upstairs, half way up, at the turn of the stairs was theopening of a sort of barn, a great wire-netting behind which showeda glow of orange maize-cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were fourrooms. But Alvina's room alone was furnished. Pancrazio slept in theunfurnished bedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was aroom with litter in it, a chest of drawers, and rubbish of old booksand photographs Pancrazio had brought from England. There was abattered photograph of Lord Leighton, among others. The fourth room,approached through the corn-
chamber, was always locked.
Outside was just as hopeless. There had been a little garden withinthe stone enclosure. But fowls, geese, and the ass had made an endof this. Fowl-droppings were everywhere, indoors and out, the assleft his pile of droppings to steam in the winter air on thethreshold, while his heartrending bray rent the air. Roads therewere none: only deep tracks, like profound ruts with rocks in them,in the hollows, and rocky, grooved tracks over the brows. The hollowgrooves were full of mud and water, and one struggled slipperilyfrom rock to rock, or along narrow grass-ledges.
What was to be done, then, on mornings that were dark with sleet?Pancrazio would bring a kettle of hot water at about half-pasteight. For had he not travelled Europe with English gentlemen, as asort of model-valet! Had he not _loved_ his English gentlemen? Evennow, he was infinitely happier performing these little attentionsfor Alvina than attending to his wretched domains.
Ciccio rose early, and went about in the hap-hazard, useless way ofItalians all day long, getting nothing done. Alvina came out of theicy bedroom to the black kitchen. Pancrazio would be gallantlyheating milk for her, at the end of a long stick. So she would siton the settle and drink her coffee and milk, into which she dippedher dry bread. Then the day was before her.
She washed her cup and her enamelled plate, and she tried to cleanthe kitchen. But Pancrazio had on the fire a great black pot,dangling from the chain. He was boiling food for the eternalpig--the only creature for which any cooking was done. Ciccio wastramping in with faggots. Pancrazio went in and out, back and forthfrom his pot.
Alvina stroked her brow and decided on a method. Once she was rid ofPancrazio, she would wash every cup and plate and utensil in boilingwater. Well, at last Pancrazio went off with his great black pan,and she set to. But there were not six pieces of crockery in thehouse, and not more than six cooking utensils. These were soonscrubbed. Then she scrubbed the two little tables and the shelves.She lined the food-chest with clean paper. She washed the highwindow-ledges and the narrow mantel-piece, that had large mounds ofdusty candle-wax, in deposits. Then she tackled the settle. Shescrubbed it also. Then she looked at the floor. And even she,English housewife as she was, realized the futility of trying towash it. As well try to wash the earth itself outside. It was just apiece of stone-laid earth. She swept it as well as she could, andmade a little order in the faggot-heap in the corner. Then shewashed the little, high-up windows, to try and let in light.
And what was the difference? A dank wet soapy smell, and not muchmore. Maria had kept scuffling admiringly in and out, crying herwonderment and approval. She had most ostentatiously chased out anobtrusive hen, from this temple of cleanliness. And that was all.
It was hopeless. The same black walls, the same floor, the same coldfrom behind, the same green-oak wood-smoke, the same bucket of waterfrom the well--the same come-and-go of aimless busy men, the samecackle of wet hens, the same hopeless nothingness.
Alvina stood up against it for a time. And then she caught a badcold, and was wretched. Probably it was the wood-smoke. But herchest was raw, she felt weak and miserable. She could not sit in herbedroom, for it was too cold. If she sat in the darkness of thekitchen she was hurt with smoke, and perpetually cold behind herneck. And Pancrazio rather resented the amount of faggots consumedfor nothing. The only hope would have been in work. But there wasnothing in that house to be done. How could she even sew?
She was to prepare the mid-day and evening meals. But with no pots,and over a smoking wood fire, what could she prepare? Black andgreasy, she boiled potatoes and fried meat in lard, in along-handled frying pan. Then Pancrazio decreed that Maria shouldprepare macaroni with the tomato sauce, and thick vegetable soup,and sometimes polenta. This coarse, heavy food was wearying beyondwords.
Alvina began to feel she would die, in the awful comfortlessmeaninglessness of it all. True, sunny days returned and some magic.But she was weak and feverish with her cold, which would not getbetter. So that even in the sunshine the crude comfortlessness andinferior savagery of the place only repelled her.
The others were depressed when she was unhappy.
"Do you wish you were back in England?" Ciccio asked her, with alittle sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looked at him withoutanswering. He ducked and went away.
"We will make a fire-place in the other bedroom," said Pancrazio.
No sooner said than done. Ciccio persuaded Alvina to stay in bed afew days. She was thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rarecome-and-go. Pancrazio, Ciccio, Giovanni, Maria and a mason all setabout the fire-place. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carryingstone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvina's doorway, withher burden perched aloft, to shout a few unintelligible words. Inthe intervals of lime-carrying she brought the invalid her soup orher coffee or her hot milk.
It turned out quite a good job--a pleasant room with two windows,that would have all the sun in the afternoon, and would see themountains on one hand, the far-off village perched up on the other.When she was well enough they set off one early Monday morning tothe market in Ossona. They left the house by starlight, but dawnwas coming by the time they reached the river. At the high-road,Pancrazio harnessed the ass, and after endless delay they jogged offto Ossona. The dawning mountains were wonderful, dim-green and mauveand rose, the ground rang with frost. Along the roads many peasantswere trooping to market, women in their best dresses, some of thickheavy silk with the white, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green,lavender, dark-red, with gay kerchiefs on the head: men muffled incloaks, treading silently in their pointed skin sandals: asses withloads, carts full of peasants, a belated cow.
The market was lovely, there in the crown of the pass, in the oldtown, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pigs, goatsstood and lay about under the bare little trees on the platform highover the valley: some one had kindled a great fire of brush-wood,and men crowded round, out of the blue frost. From laden assesvegetables were unloaded, from little carts all kinds of things,boots, pots, tin-ware, hats, sweet-things, and heaps of corn andbeans and seeds. By eight o'clock in the December morning the marketwas in full swing: a great crowd of handsome mountain people, allpeasants, nearly all in costume, with different head-dresses.
Ciccio and Pancrazio and Alvina went quietly about. They bought potsand pans and vegetables and sweet-things and thick rush matting andtwo wooden arm-chairs and one old soft arm-chair, going quietly andbargaining modestly among the crowd, as Anglicized Italians do.
The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock, and then, fromthe terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderfulsight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the blackhats of the men, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the palelovely cattle, the many tethered asses--and she wondered if shewould die before she became one with it altogether. It wasimpossible for her to become one with it altogether. Ciccio wouldhave to take her to England again, or to America. He was alwayshinting at America.
But then, Italy might enter the war. Even here it was the greattheme of conversation. She looked down on the seethe of the market.The sun was warm on her. Ciccio and Pancrazio were bargaining fortwo cowskin rugs: she saw Ciccio standing with his head ratherforward. Her husband! She felt her heart die away within her.
All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did?--the samesort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believedthey did. The same helpless passion for the man, the same remotenessfrom the world's actuality? Probably, under all their tension ofmoney and money-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality and ratherhorrible religion, probably they felt the same. She was one withthem. But she could never endure it for a life-time. It was only atest on her. Ciccio must take her to America, or England--to Americapreferably.
And even as he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrillingin her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneousto her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking upfor her from the market beneath, searching with that quick,
hastylook. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicatelight for him, there beyond all the women. He came straight towardsher, smiling his slow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if helost her. She knew how he loved her--almost inhumanly, elementally,without communication. And she stood with her hand to her side, herface frightened. She hardly noticed him. It seemed to her she waswith child. And yet in the whole market-place she was aware ofnothing but him.
"We have bought the skins," he said. "Twenty-seven lire each."
She looked at him, his dark skin, his golden eyes--so near to her,so unified with her, yet so incommunicably remote. How far off washis being from hers!
"I believe I'm going to have a child," she said.
"Eh?" he ejaculated quickly. But he had understood. His eyes shoneweirdly on her. She felt the strange terror and loveliness of hispassion. And she wished she could lie down there by that town gate,in the sun, and swoon for ever unconscious. Living was almost toogreat a demand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her andenveloped her. There was nothing for her but to yield, yield, yield.And yet she could not sink to earth.
She saw Pancrazio carrying the skins to the little cart, which wastilted up under a small, pale-stemmed tree on the platform above thevalley. Then she saw him making his way quickly back through thecrowd, to rejoin them.
"Did you feel something?" said Ciccio.
"Yes--here--!" she said, pressing her hand on her side as thesensation trilled once more upon her consciousness. She looked athim with remote, frightened eyes.
"That's good--" he said, his eyes full of a triumphant,incommunicable meaning.
"Well!--And now," said Pancrazio, coming up, "shall we go and eatsomething?"
They jogged home in the little flat cart in the wintry afternoon. Itwas almost night before they had got the ass untackled from theshafts, at the wild lonely house where Pancrazio left the cart.Giovanni was there with the lantern. Ciccio went on ahead withAlvina, whilst the others stood to load up the ass by the high-way.
Ciccio watched Alvina carefully. When they were over the river, andamong the dark scrub, he took her in his arms and kissed her withlong, terrible passion. She saw the snow-ridges flare with evening,beyond his cheek. They had glowed dawn as she crossed the riveroutwards, they were white-fiery now in the dusk sky as she returned.What strange valley of shadow was she threading? What was theterrible man's passion that haunted her like a dark angel? Why wasshe so much beyond herself?
CHAPTER XVI
SUSPENSE
Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs stillunstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them, in thecorn-place.
"Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born?" he asked her.
She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning goldmaize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruition. Theheap of maize on one side burned like hot sunshine, she felt itreally gave off warmth, it glowed, it burned. On the other side thefilmy, crackly, sere sheaths were also faintly sunny. Again andagain the long, red-gold, full ear of corn came clear in his hands,and was put gently aside. He looked up at her, with his yellow eyes.
"Yes, I think so," she said. "Will you?"
"Yes, if they let me. I should like it to be born here."
"Would you like to bring up a child here?" she asked.
"You wouldn't be happy here, so long," he said, sadly.
"Would you?"
He slowly shook his head: indefinite.
She was settling down. She had her room upstairs, her cups andplates and spoons, her own things. Pancrazio had gone back to hisold habit, he went across and ate with Giovanni and Maria, Ciccioand Alvina had their meals in their pleasant room upstairs. Theywere happy alone. Only sometimes the terrible influence of the placepreyed on her.
However, she had a clean room of her own, where she could sew andread. She had written to the matron and Mrs. Tuke, and Mrs. Tuke hadsent books. Also she helped Ciccio when she could, and Maria wasteaching her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread.
This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere, Alvinaand Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last maize.Suddenly, in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out: thedrone of a bagpipe, and a man's high voice half singing, halfyelling a brief verse, at the end of which a wild flourish on someother reedy wood instrument. Alvina sat still in surprise. It was astrange, high, rapid, yelling music, the very voice of themountains. Beautiful, in our musical sense of the word, it was not.But oh, the magic, the nostalgia of the untamed, heathen past whichit evoked.
"It is for Christmas," said Ciccio. "They will come every day now."
Alvina rose and went round to the little balcony. Two men stoodbelow, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the elder,had a bagpipe whose bag was patched with shirting: the younger wasdressed in greenish clothes, he had his face lifted, and was yellingthe verses of the unintelligible Christmas ballad: short, rapidverses, followed by a brilliant flourish on a short wooden pipe heheld ready in his hand. Alvina felt he was going to be out ofbreath. But no, rapid and high came the next verse, verse afterverse, with the wild scream on the little new pipe in between, overthe roar of the bagpipe. And the crumbs of snow were like a speckledveil, faintly drifting the atmosphere and powdering the litteredthreshold where they stood--a threshold littered with faggots,leaves, straw, fowls and geese and ass droppings, and rag thrown outfrom the house, and pieces of paper.
The carol suddenly ended, the young man snatched off his hat toAlvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followedby the bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly down the inclinebetween the twiggy wild oaks.
"They will come every day now, till Christmas," said Ciccio. "Theygo to every house."
And sure enough, when Alvina went down, in the cold, silent house,and out to the well in the still crumbling snow, she heard the soundfar off, strange, yelling, wonderful: and the same ache for she knewnot what overcame her, so that she felt one might go mad, there inthe veiled silence of these mountains, in the great hilly valley cutoff from the world.
Ciccio worked all day on the land or round about. He was building alittle earth closet also: the obvious and unscreened place outsidewas impossible. It was curious how little he went to Pescocalascio,how little he mixed with the natives. He seemed always to withholdsomething from them. Only with his relatives, of whom he had many,he was more free, in a kind of family intimacy.
Yet even here he was guarded. His uncle at the mill, an unwashed,fat man with a wife who tinkled with gold and grime, and who shouteda few lost words of American, insisted on giving Alvina wine and asort of cake made with cheese and rice. Ciccio too was feasted, inthe dark hole of a room. And the two natives seemed to press theircheer on Alvina and Ciccio whole-heartedly.
"How nice they are!" said Alvina when she had left. "They give sofreely."
But Ciccio smiled a wry smile, silent.
"Why do you make a face?" she said.
"It's because you are a foreigner, and they think you will go awayagain," he said.
"But I should have thought that would make them less generous," shesaid.
"No. They like to give to foreigners. They don't like to give to thepeople here. Giocomo puts water in the wine which he sells to thepeople who go by. And if I leave the donkey in her shed, I giveMarta Maria something, or the next time she won't let me have it.Ha, they are--they are sly ones, the people here."
"They are like that everywhere," said Alvina.
"Yes. But nowhere they say so many bad things about people ashere--nowhere where I have ever been."
It was strange to Alvina to feel the deep-bed-rock distrust whichall the hill-peasants seemed to have of one another. They werewatchful, venomous, dangerous.
"Ah," said Pancrazio, "I am glad there is a woman in my house oncemore."
"But did _nobody_ come in and do for you before?" asked Alvina. "Whydidn't you pay somebody?"
"Nobody will com
e," said Pancrazio, in his slow, aristocraticEnglish. "Nobody will come, because I am a man, and if somebodyshould see her at my house, they will all talk."
"Talk!" Alvina looked at the deeply-lined man of sixty-six, "Butwhat will they say?"
"Many bad things. Many bad things indeed. They are not good peoplehere. All saying bad things, and all jealous. They don't like mebecause I have a house--they think I am too much a _signore_. Theysay to me 'Why do you think you are a signore?' Oh, they are badpeople, envious, you cannot have anything to do with them."
"They are nice to me," said Alvina.
"They think you will go away. But if you stay, they will say badthings. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people, evil against oneanother, against everybody but strangers who don't know them--"
Alvina felt the curious passion in Pancrazio's voice, the passion of aman who has lived for many years in England and known the socialconfidence of England, and who, coming back, is deeply injured by theancient malevolence of the remote, somewhat gloomy hill-peasantry. Sheunderstood also why he was so glad to have her in his house, so proud,why he loved serving her. She seemed to see a fairness, a luminousnessin the northern soul, something free, touched with divinity such as"these people here" lacked entirely.
When she went to Ossona with him, she knew everybody questioned himabout her and Ciccio. She began to get the drift of thequestions--which Pancrazio answered with reserve.
"And how long are they staying?"
This was an invariable, envious question. And invariably Pancrazioanswered with a reserved--
"Some months. As long as _they_ like."
And Alvina could feel waves of black envy go out against Pancrazio,because she was domiciled with him, and because she sat with him inthe flat cart, driving to Ossona.
Yet Pancrazio himself was a study. He was thin, and very shabby, andrather out of shape. Only in his yellow eyes lurked a strangesardonic fire, and a leer which puzzled her. When Ciccio happened tobe out in the evening he would sit with her and tell her stories ofLord Leighton and Millais and Alma Tadema and other academiciansdead and living. There would sometimes be a strange passivity on hisworn face, an impassive, almost Red Indian look. And then again hewould stir into a curious, arch, malevolent laugh, for all the worldlike a debauched old tom-cat. His narration was like this: eithersimple, bare, stoical, with a touch of nobility; or else satiric,malicious, with a strange, rather repellent jeering.
"Leighton--he wasn't Lord Leighton then--he wouldn't have me to sitfor him, because my figure was too poor, he didn't like it. He likedfair young men, with plenty of flesh. But once, when he was doing apicture--I don't know if you know it? It is a crucifixion, with aman on a cross, and--" He described the picture. "No! Well, themodel had to be tied hanging on to a wooden cross. And it made yousuffer! Ah!" Here the odd, arch, diabolic yellow flare lit upthrough the stoicism of Pancrazio's eyes. "Because Leighton, he wascruel to his model. He wouldn't let you rest. 'Damn you, you've gotto keep still till I've finished with you, you devil,' so he said.Well, for this man on the cross, he couldn't get a model who woulddo it for him. They all tried it once, but they would not go again.So they said to him, he must try Califano, because Califano was theonly man who would stand it. At last then he sent for me. 'I don'tlike your damned figure, Califano,' he said to me, 'but nobody willdo this if you won't. Now will you do it? 'Yes!' I said, 'I will.'So he tied me up on the cross. And he paid me well, so I stood it.Well, he kept me tied up, hanging you know forwards naked on thiscross, for four hours. And then it was luncheon. And after luncheonhe would tie me again. Well, I suffered. I suffered so much, that Imust lean against the wall to support me to walk home. And in thenight I could not sleep, I could cry with the pains in my arms andmy ribs, I had no sleep. 'You've said you'd do it, so now you must,'he said to me. 'And I will do it,' I said. And so he tied me up.This cross, you know, was on a little raised place--I don't knowwhat you call it--"
"A platform," suggested Alvina.
"A platform. Now one day when he came to do something to me, when Iwas tied up, he slipped back over this platform, and he pulled me,who was tied on the cross, with him. So we all fell down, he withthe naked man on top of him, and the heavy cross on top of us both.I could not move, because I was tied. And it was so, with me on topof him, and the heavy cross, that he could not get out. So he had tolie shouting underneath me until some one came to the studio tountie me. No, we were not hurt, because the top of the cross fell sothat it did not crush us. 'Now you have had a taste of the cross,' Isaid to him. 'Yes, you devil, but I shan't let you off,' he said tome.
"To make the time go he would ask me questions. Once he said, 'Now,Califano, what time is it? I give you three guesses, and if youguess right once I give you sixpence.' So I guessed three o'clock.'That's one. Now then, what time is it? 'Again, three o'clock.'That's two guesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time isit? 'So now I was obstinate, and I said _Three o'clock_. He took outhis watch. 'Why damn you, how did you know? I give you a shilling--'It was three o'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead ofsixpence as he had said--"
It was strange, in the silent winter afternoon, downstairs in theblack kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancrazio andhearing these stories of English painters. It was strange to look atthe battered figure of Pancrazio, and think how much he had beencrucified through the long years in London, for the sake of lateVictorian art. It was strangest of all to see through his yellow,often dull, red-rimmed eyes these blithe and well-conditionedpainters. Pancrazio looked on them admiringly and contemptuously, asan old, rakish tom-cat might look on such frivolous well-groomedyoung gentlemen.
As a matter of fact Pancrazio had never been rakish or debauched,but mountain-moral, timid. So that the queer, half-sinister drop ofhis eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare thatcame into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man asort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in hisbattered body and give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt thatif she were left much alone with him she would need all her Englishascendancy not to be afraid of him.
It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Ciccioand Pancrazio set off for Pescocalascio for the first time. Snow hadfallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as theyclimbed. And the sun was very bright. So that the mountains weredazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound betweenoak-trees and under the broom-scrub, climbing over the jumbled hillsthat lay between the mountains, until the village came near. Theygot on to a broader track, where the path from a distant villagejoined theirs. They were all talking, in the bright clear air of themorning.
A little man came down an upper path. As he joined them near thevillage he hailed them in English:
"Good morning. Nice morning."
"Does everybody speak English here?" asked Alvina.
"I have been eighteen years in Glasgow. I am only here for a trip."
He was a little Italian shop-keeper from Glasgow. He was mostfriendly, insisted on paying for drinks, and coffee and almondbiscuits for Alvina. Evidently he also was grateful to Britain.
The village was wonderful. It occupied the crown of an eminence inthe midst of the wide valley. From the terrace of the high-road thevalley spread below, with all its jumble of hills, and two rivers,set in the walls of the mountains, a wide space, but imprisoned. Itglistened with snow under the blue sky. But the lowest hollows werebrown. In the distance, Ossona hung at the edge of a platform. Manyvillages clung like pale swarms of birds to the far slopes, orperched on the hills beneath. It was a world within a world, avalley of many hills and townlets and streams shut in beyond access.
Pescocalascio itself was crowded. The roads were sloppy with snow.But none the less, peasants in full dress, their feet soaked in theskin sandals, were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling,bargaining for cloth, talking all the time. In the shop, which wasalso a sort of inn, an ancient woman was making coffee over acharcoal brazier, while a c
rowd of peasants sat at the tables at theback, eating the food they had brought.
Post was due at mid-day. Ciccio went to fetch it, whilst Pancraziotook Alvina to the summit, to the castle. There, in the levelregion, boys were snowballing and shouting. The ancient castle,badly cracked by the last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on thevalley of many hills beneath, Califano a speck down the left, Ossonaa blot to the right, suspended, its towers and its castle clear inthe light. Behind the castle of Pescocalascio was a deep, steepvalley, almost a gorge, at the bottom of which a river ran, andwhere Pancrazio pointed out the electricity works of the village,deep in the gloom. Above this gorge, at the end, rose the longslopes of the mountains, up to the vivid snow--and across again wasthe wall of the Abruzzi.
They went down, past the ruined houses broken by the earthquake.Ciccio still had not come with the post. A crowd surged at thepost-office door, in a steep, black, wet side-street. Alvina's feetwere sodden. Pancrazio took her to the place where she could drinkcoffee and a strega, to make her warm. On the platform of thehigh-way, above the valley, people were parading in the hot sun.Alvina noticed some ultra-smart young men. They came up toPancrazio, speaking English. Alvina hated their Cockney accent andflorid showy vulgar presence. They were more models. Pancrazio wascool with them.
Alvina sat apart from the crowd of peasants, on a chair the oldcrone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancrazio ordered beer forhimself. Ciccio came with letters--long-delayed letters, that hadbeen censored. Alvina's heart went down.
The first she opened was from Miss Pinnegar--all war and fear andanxiety. The second was a letter, a real insulting letter from Dr.Mitchell. "I little thought, at the time when I was hoping to makeyou my wife, that you were carrying on with a dirty Italianorgan-grinder. So your fair-seeming face covered the schemes andvice of your true nature. Well, I can only thank Providence whichspared me the disgust and shame of marrying you, and I hope that,when I meet you on the streets of Leicester Square, I shall haveforgiven you sufficiently to be able to throw you a coin--"
Here was a pretty little epistle! In spite of herself, she went paleand trembled. She glanced at Ciccio. Fortunately he was turninground talking to another man. She rose and went to the ruddybrazier, as if to warm her hands. She threw on the screwed-upletter. The old crone said something unintelligible to her. Shewatched the letter catch fire--glanced at the peasants at thetable--and out at the wide, wild valley. The world beyond could nothelp, but it still had the power to injure one here. She felt shehad received a bitter blow. A black hatred for the Mitchells of thisworld filled her.
She could hardly bear to open the third letter. It was from Mrs.Tuke, and again, all war. Would Italy join the Allies? She ought to,her every interest lay that way. Could Alvina bear to be so far off,when such terrible events were happening near home? Could shepossibly be happy? Nurses were so valuable now. She, Mrs. Tuke, hadvolunteered. She would do whatever she could. She had had to leaveoff nursing Jenifer, who had an _excellent_ Scotch nurse, muchbetter than a mother. Well, Alvina and Mrs. Tuke might yet meet insome hospital in France. So the letter ended.
Alvina sat down, pale and trembling. Pancrazio was watching hercuriously.
"Have you bad news?" he asked.
"Only the war."
"Ha!" and the Italian gesture of half-bitter "what can one do?"
They were talking war--all talking war. The dandy young models hadleft England because of the war, expecting Italy to come in. Andeverybody talked, talked, talked. Alvina looked round her. It allseemed alien to her, bruising upon the spirit.
"Do you think I shall ever be able to come here alone and do myshopping by myself?" she asked.
"You must never come alone," said Pancrazio, in his curious,benevolent courtesy. "Either Ciccio or I will come with you. Youmust never come so far alone."
"Why not?" she said.
"You are a stranger here. You are not a contadina--" Alvina couldfeel the oriental idea of women, which still leaves its mark on theMediterranean, threatening her with surveillance and subjection. Shesat in her chair, with cold wet feet, looking at the sunshineoutside, the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, themen drinking at the counter, the cluster of peasant women bargainingfor dress-material. Ciccio was still turning talking in the rapidway to his neighbour. She knew it was war. She noticed the movementof his finely-modelled cheek, a little sallow this morning.
And she rose hastily.
"I want to go into the sun," she said.
When she stood above the valley in the strong, tiring light, sheglanced round. Ciccio inside the shop had risen, but he was stillturning to his neighbour and was talking with all his hands and allhis body. He did not talk with his mind and lips alone. His wholephysique, his whole living body spoke and uttered and emphasizeditself.
A certain weariness possessed her. She was beginning to realizesomething about him: how he had no sense of home and domestic life,as an Englishman has. Ciccio's home would never be his castle. Hiscastle was the piazza of Pescocalascio. His home was nothing to himbut a possession, and a hole to sleep in. He didn't _live_ in it. Helived in the open air, and in the community. When the true Italiancame out in him, his veriest home was the piazza of Pescocalascio,the little sort of market-place where the roads met in the village,under the castle, and where the men stood in groups and talked,talked, talked. This was where Ciccio belonged: his active, mindfulself. His active, mindful self was none of hers. She only had hispassive self, and his family passion. His masculine mind andintelligence had its home in the little public square of hisvillage. She knew this as she watched him now, with all his bodytalking politics. He could not break off till he had finished. Andthen, with a swift, intimate handshake to the group with whom he hadbeen engaged, he came away, putting all his interest off fromhimself.
She tried to make him talk and discuss with her. But he wouldn't. Anobstinate spirit made him darkly refuse masculine conversation withher.
"If Italy goes to war, you will have to join up?" she asked him.
"Yes," he said, with a smile at the futility of the question.
"And I shall have to stay here?"
He nodded, rather gloomily.
"Do you want to go?" she persisted.
"No, I don't want to go."
"But you think Italy ought to join in?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then you _do_ want to go--"
"I want to go if Italy goes in--and she ought to go in--"
Curious, he was somewhat afraid of her, he half venerated her, andhalf despised her. When she tried to make him discuss, in themasculine way, he shut obstinately against her, something like achild, and the slow, fine smile of dislike came on his face.Instinctively he shut off all masculine communication from her,particularly politics and religion. He would discuss both,violently, with other men. In politics he was something of aSocialist, in religion a freethinker. But all this had nothing to dowith Alvina. He would not enter on a discussion in English.
Somewhere in her soul, she knew the finality of his refusal to holddiscussion with a woman. So, though at times her heart hardened withindignant anger, she let herself remain outside. The more so, asshe felt that in matters intellectual he was rather stupid. Let himgo to the piazza or to the wine-shop, and talk.
To do him justice, he went little. Pescocalascio was only half hisown village. The nostalgia, the campanilismo from which Italianssuffer, the craving to be in sight of the native church-tower, tostand and talk in the native market place or piazza, this was onlyhalf formed in Ciccio, taken away as he had been from Pescocalasciowhen so small a boy. He spent most of his time working in the fieldsand woods, most of his evenings at home, often weaving a specialkind of fishnet or net-basket from fine, frail strips of cane. Itwas a work he had learned at Naples long ago. Alvina meanwhile wouldsew for the child, or spin wool. She became quite clever at drawingthe strands of wool from her distaff, rolling them fine and evenbetween her fingers, and keeping her bobbin rapidly spinning awaybelow, d
angling at the end of the thread. To tell the truth, she washappy in the quietness with Ciccio, now they had their own pleasantroom. She loved his presence. She loved the quality of his silence,so rich and physical. She felt he was never very far away: that hewas a good deal a stranger in Califano, as she was: that he clung toher presence as she to his. Then Pancrazio also contrived to serveher and shelter her, he too, loved her for being there. They bothrevered her because she was with child. So that she lived more andmore in a little, isolate, illusory, wonderful world then, content,moreover, because the living cost so little. She had sixty pounds ofher own money, always intact in the little case. And after all, thehigh-way beyond the river led to Ossona, and Ossona gave access tothe railway, and the railway would take her anywhere.
So the month of January passed, with its short days and its bits ofsnow and bursts of sunshine. On sunny days Alvina walked down to thedesolate river-bed, which fascinated her. When Pancrazio wascarrying up stone or lime on the ass, she accompanied him. AndPancrazio was always carrying up something, for he loved theextraneous jobs like building a fire-place much more than the heavywork of the land. Then she would find little tufts of wild narcissusamong the rocks, gold-centred pale little things, many on one stem.And their scent was powerful and magical, like the sound of the menwho came all those days and sang before Christmas. She loved them.There was green hellebore too, a fascinating plant--and one or twolittle treasures, the last of the rose-coloured Alpine cyclamens,near the earth, with snake-skin leaves, and so rose, so rose, likeviolets for shadowiness. She sat and cried over the first she found:heaven knows why.
In February, as the days opened, the first almond trees floweredamong grey olives, in warm, level corners between the hills. But itwas March before the real flowering began. And then she hadcontinual bowl-fuls of white and blue violets, she had sprays ofalmond blossom, silver-warm and lustrous, then sprays of peach andapricot, pink and fluttering. It was a great joy to wander lookingfor flowers. She came upon a bankside all wide with lavendercrocuses. The sun was on them for the moment, and they were openedflat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars, with burningcentres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen somemetal burn lilac-flamed in the laboratory of the hospital atIslington. All down the oak-dry bankside they burned their greatexposed stars. And she felt like going down on her knees and bendingher forehead to the earth in an oriental submission, they were soroyal, so lovely, so supreme. She came again to them in the morning,when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs,wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and oldgrass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripes runningup their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear proud stripes on abadger's face, or on some proud cat. She took a handful of thesappy, shut, striped flames. In her room they opened into a grandbowl of lilac fire.
March was a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills. Shewandered, extending her range. Sometimes with a strange fear. But itwas a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she wentalong the high-road with her letters, towards the village of CasaLatina. The high-road was depressing, wherever there were houses.For the houses had that sordid, ramshackle, slummy look almostinvariable on an Italian high-road. They were patched with ahideous, greenish mould-colour, blotched, as if with leprosy. Itfrightened her, till Pancrazio told her it was only the coppersulphate that had sprayed the vines hitched on to the walls. Butnone the less the houses were sordid, unkempt, slummy. One house byitself could make a complete slum.
Casa Latina was across the valley, in the shadow. Approaching itwere rows of low cabins--fairly new. They were the one-storeydwellings commanded after the earthquake. And hideous they were. Thevillage itself was old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain.Streams of cold water ran round it. The piazza was gloomy, forsaken.But there was a great, twin-towered church, wonderful from outside.
She went inside, and was almost sick with repulsion. The place waslarge, whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and exvoto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size andtinselly, that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus onthe crucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women ontheir knees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degradedfetish-worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking fromthe contamination of the dirty leather door-curtain.
Enough of Casa Latina. She would never go _there_ again. She wasbeginning to feel that, if she lived in this part of the world atall, she must avoid the _inside_ of it. She must never, if she couldhelp it, enter into any interior but her own--neither into house norchurch nor even shop or post-office, if she could help it. Themoment she went through a door the sense of dark repulsiveness cameover her. If she was to save her sanity she must keep to the openair, and avoid any contact with human interiors. When she thought ofthe insides of the native people she shuddered with repulsion, as inthe great, degraded church of Casa Latina. They were horrible.
Yet the outside world was so fair. Corn and maize were growing greenand silken, vines were in the small bud. Everywhere little grapehyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her ofthe many-breasted Artemis, a picture of whom, or of whose statue,she had seen somewhere. Artemis with her clusters of breasts washorrible to her, now she had come south: nauseating beyond words.And the milky grape hyacinths reminded her.
She turned with thankfulness to the magenta anemones that were sogay. Some one told her that wherever Venus had shed a tear forAdonis, one of these flowers had sprung. They were not tear-like.And yet their red-purple silkiness had something pre-world about it,at last. The more she wandered, the more the shadow of the by-gonepagan world seemed to come over her. Sometimes she felt she wouldshriek and go mad, so strong was the influence on her, somethingpre-world and, it seemed to her now, vindictive. She seemed to feelin the air strange Furies, Lemures, things that had haunted her withtheir tomb-frenzied vindictiveness since she was a child and hadpored over the illustrated Classical Dictionary. Black and cruelpresences were in the under-air. They were furtive and slinking.They bewitched you with loveliness, and lurked with fangs to hurtyou afterwards. There it was: the fangs sheathed in beauty: thebeauty first, and then, horribly, inevitably, the fangs.
Being a great deal alone, in the strange place, fancies possessedher, people took on strange shapes. Even Ciccio and Pancrazio. Andit came that she never wandered far from the house, from her room,after the first months. She seemed to hide herself in her room.There she sewed and spun wool and read, and learnt Italian. Her menwere not at all anxious to teach her Italian. Indeed her chiefteacher, at first, was a young fellow called Bussolo. He was a modelfrom London, and he came down to Califano sometimes, hanging about,anxious to speak English.
Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy with pale grey eyes anda heavy figure. Yet he had a certain penetrating intelligence.
"No, this country is a country for old men. It is only for old men,"he said, talking of Pescocalascio. "You won't stop here. Nobodyyoung can stop here."
The odd plangent certitude in his voice penetrated her. And all theyoung people said the same thing. They were all waiting to go away.But for the moment the war held them up.
Ciccio and Pancrazio were busy with the vines. As she watched themhoeing, crouching, tying, tending, grafting, mindless and utterlyabsorbed, hour after hour, day after day, thinking vines, livingvines, she wondered they didn't begin to sprout vine-buds and vinestems from their own elbows and neck-joints. There was something toher unnatural in the quality of the attention the men gave to thewine. It was a sort of worship, almost a degradation again. Andheaven knows, Pancrazio's wine was poor enough, his grapes almostinvariably bruised with hail-stones, and half-rotten instead ofripe.
The loveliness of April came, with hot sunshine. Astonishing theferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to blaze.Alvina was amazed. The burning day quite carried her away. She lovedit: it made her quite careless about everything, she was just sweptalong in the powerful flo
od of the sunshine. In the end, she feltthat intense sunlight had on her the effect of night: a sort ofdarkness, and a suspension of life. She had to hide in her room tillthe cold wind blew again.
Meanwhile the declaration of war drew nearer, and became inevitable.She knew Ciccio would go. And with him went the chance of herescape. She steeled herself to bear the agony of the knowledge thathe would go, and she would be left alone in this place, whichsometimes she hated with a hatred unspeakable. After a spell of hot,intensely dry weather she felt she would die in this valley, witherand go to powder as some exposed April roses withered and dried intodust against a hot wall. Then the cool wind came in a storm, thenext day there was grey sky and soft air. The rose-coloured wildgladioli among the young green corn were a dream of beauty, themorning of the world. The lovely, pristine morning of the world,before our epoch began. Rose-red gladioli among corn, in among therocks, and small irises, black-purple and yellow blotched withbrown, like a wasp, standing low in little desert places, that wouldseem forlorn but for this weird, dark-lustrous magnificence. Thenthere were the tiny irises, only one finger tall, growing in dryplaces, frail as crocuses, and much tinier, and blue, blue as theeye of the morning heaven, which was a morning earlier, morepristine than ours. The lovely translucent pale irises, tiny andmorning-blue, they lasted only a few hours. But nothing could bemore exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that broughtback to Alvina the passionate nostalgia for the place. The humaninfluence was a bit horrible to her. But the flowers that came outand uttered the earth in magical expression, they cast a spell onher, bewitched her and stole her own soul away from her.
She went down to Ciccio where he was weeding armfuls of rose-redgladioli from the half-grown wheat, and cutting the lushness of thefirst weedy herbage. He threw down his sheaves of gladioli, and withhis sickle began to cut the forest of bright yellow corn-marigolds.He looked intent, he seemed to work feverishly.
"Must they all be cut?" she said, as she went to him.
He threw aside the great armful of yellow flowers, took off his cap,and wiped the sweat from his brow. The sickle dangled loose in hishand.
"We have declared war," he said.
In an instant she realized that she had seen the figure of the oldpost-carrier dodging between the rocks. Rose-red and gold-yellow ofthe flowers swam in her eyes. Ciccio's dusk-yellow eyes werewatching her. She sank on her knees on a sheaf of corn-marigolds.Her eyes, watching him, were vulnerable as if stricken to death.Indeed she felt she would die.
"You will have to go?" she said.
"Yes, we shall all have to go." There seemed a certain sound oftriumph in his voice. Cruel!
She sank lower on the flowers, and her head dropped. But she wouldnot be beaten. She lifted her face.
"If you are very long," she said, "I shall go to England. I can'tstay here very long without you."
"You will have Pancrazio--and the child," he said.
"Yes. But I shall still be myself. I can't stay here very longwithout you. I shall go to England."
He watched her narrowly.
"I don't think they'll let you," he said.
"Yes they will."
At moments she hated him. He seemed to want to crush her altogether.She was always making little plans in her mind--how she could getout of that great cruel valley and escape to Rome, to Englishpeople. She would find the English Consul and he would help her. Shewould do anything rather than be really crushed. She knew how easyit would be, once her spirit broke, for her to die and be buried inthe cemetery at Pescocalascio.
And they would all be so sentimental about her--just as Pancraziowas. She felt that in some way Pancrazio had killed his wife--notconsciously, but unconsciously, as Ciccio might kill _her_.Pancrazio would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments. And heseemed always anxious to prove that he had been so good to her. Nodoubt he had been good to her, also. But there was somethingunderneath--malevolent in his spirit, some caged-in sort of cruelty,malignant beyond his control. It crept out in his stories. And itrevealed itself in his fear of his dead wife. Alvina knew that inthe night the elderly man was afraid of his dead wife, and of herghost or her avenging spirit. He would huddle over the fire in fear.In the same way the cemetery had a fascination of horror forhim--as, she noticed, for most of the natives. It was an ugly,square place, all stone slabs and wall-cupboards, enclosed infour-square stone walls, and lying away beneath Pescocalasciovillage obvious as if it were on a plate.
"That is our cemetery," Pancrazio said, pointing it out to her,"where we shall all be carried some day."
And there was fear, horror in his voice. He told her how the men hadcarried his wife there--a long journey over the hill-tracks, almosttwo hours.
These were days of waiting--horrible days of waiting for Ciccio tobe called up. One batch of young men left the village--and there wasa lugubrious sort of saturnalia, men and women alike got ratherdrunk, the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks ofdistress. Crowds accompanied them to Ossona, whence they weremarched towards the railway. It was a horrible event.
A shiver of horror and death went through the valley. In alugubrious way, they seemed to enjoy it.
"You'll never be satisfied till you've gone," she said to Ciccio."Why don't they be quick and call you?"
"It will be next week," he said, looking at her darkly. In thetwilight he came to her, when she could hardly see him.
"Are you sorry you came here with me, Allaye?" he asked. There wasmalice in the very question.
She put down the spoon and looked up from the fire. He stoodshadowy, his head ducked forward, the firelight faint on hisenigmatic, timeless, half-smiling face.
"I'm not sorry," she answered slowly, using all her courage."Because I love you--"
She crouched quite still on the hearth. He turned aside his face.After a moment or two he went out. She stirred her pot slowly andsadly. She had to go downstairs for something.
And there on the landing she saw him standing in the darkness withhis arm over his face, as if fending a blow.
"What is it?" she said, laying her hand on him. He uncovered hisface.
"I would take you away if I could," he said.
"I can wait for you," she answered.
He threw himself in a chair that stood at a table there on the broadlanding, and buried his head in his arms.
"Don't wait for me! Don't wait for me!" he cried, his voice muffled.
"Why not?" she said, filled with terror. He made no sign. "Why not?"she insisted. And she laid her fingers on his head.
He got up and turned to her.
"I love you, even if it kills me," she said.
But he only turned aside again, leaned his arm against the wall, andhid his face, utterly noiseless.
"What is it?" she said. "What is it? I don't understand." He wipedhis sleeve across his face, and turned to her.
"I haven't any hope," he said, in a dull, dogged voice.
She felt her heart and the child die within her.
"Why?" she said.
Was she to bear a hopeless child?
"You _have_ hope. Don't make a scene," she snapped. And she wentdownstairs, as she had intended.
And when she got into the kitchen, she forgot what she had come for.She sat in the darkness on the seat, with all life gone dark andstill, death and eternity settled down on her. Death and eternitywere settled down on her as she sat alone. And she seemed to hearhim moaning upstairs--"I can't come back. I can't come back." Sheheard it. She heard it so distinctly, that she never knew whether ithad been an actual utterance, or whether it was her inner ear whichhad heard the inner, unutterable sound. She wanted to answer, tocall to him. But she could not. Heavy, mute, powerless, there shesat like a lump of darkness, in that doomed Italian kitchen. "Ican't come back." She heard it so fatally.
She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancrazio.
"Oh!" he cried, startled when, having come near the fire, he caughtsight of her. And he said something, frightened, in Ital
ian.
"Is it you? Why are you in the darkness?" he said.
"I am just going upstairs again."
"You frightened me."
She went up to finish the preparing of the meal. Ciccio came down toPancrazio. The latter had brought a newspaper. The two men sat onthe settle, with the lamp between them, reading and talking thenews.
Ciccio's group was called up for the following week, as he had said.The departure hung over them like a doom. Those were perhaps theworst days of all: the days of the impending departure. Neither ofthem spoke about it.
But the night before he left she could bear the silence no more.
"You will come back, won't you?" she said, as he sat motionless inhis chair in the bedroom. It was a hot, luminous night. There wasstill a late scent of orange blossom from the garden, thenightingale was shaking the air with his sound. At times other,honey scents wafted from the hills.
"You will come back?" she insisted.
"Who knows?" he replied.
"If you make up your mind to come back, you will come back. We haveour fate in our hands," she said.
He smiled slowly.
"You think so?" he said.
"I know it. If you don't come back it will be because you don't wantto--no other reason. It won't be because you can't. It will bebecause you don't want to."
"Who told you so?" he asked, with the same cruel smile.
"I know it," she said.
"All right," he answered.
But he still sat with his hands abandoned between his knees.
"So make up your mind," she said.
He sat motionless for a long while: while she undressed and brushedher hair and went to bed. And still he sat there unmoving, like acorpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearablepresence in the room. She blew out the light, that she need not seehim. But in the darkness it was worse.
At last he stirred--he rose. He came hesitating across to her.
"I'll come back, Allaye," he said quietly. "Be damned to them all."She heard unspeakable pain in his voice.
"To whom?" she said, sitting up.
He did not answer, but put his arms round her.
"I'll come back, and we'll go to America," he said.
"You'll come back to me," she whispered, in an ecstasy of pain andrelief. It was not her affair, where they should go, so long as hereally returned to her.
"I'll come back," he said.
"Sure?" she whispered, straining him to her.
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