IV
Annunziata's delirium had passed, but in spite of all their efforts to persuade her not to talk, talk she would.
"This is the month of May, isn't it?" she asked, next morning.
"Yes, dear one," said Maria Dolores, whose watch it was.
"And that is the month of Mary. San Luca ought to hurry up and make me well, so that I can keep flowers on the Lady Altar."
"Then if you wish to get well quickly," said Maria Dolores, "you must try not to talk,—nor even to think, if you can help it. You know the doctor does not want you to talk."
"All right. I won't talk. A going clock may be always wrong, but a stopped clock is right twice a day. So stop your tongue, and avoid folly. My uncle told me that. He never talks."
"And now shall you and I imitate his example?" proposed Maria Dolores. Her lips, compressed, were plainly the gaolers of a laugh.
"Yes," said Annunziata. "But I can't help thinking of those poor flowers. All May flowers are born to be put on the Lady Altar. Those poor flowers are missing what they were born for. They must be very sad."
"This afternoon, every afternoon," Maria Dolores promised, "I will put flowers on the Lady Altar. Now see if you can't shut your eyes, and rest for a little while."
"I once found a toad on the Lady Altar. What do you think he was there for?" asked Annunziata.
"I can't think, I'm sure," said Maria Dolores.
"Well, when I first saw him I was angry, and I was going to get a broom and sweep him away. But then I thought it must be very hard to be a toad, and that you can't help being a toad if you are born one, and I thought that perhaps that toad was there praying that he might be changed from a toad to something else. So I didn't sweep him away. Have you ever heard of the little Mass of Corruption that lay in a garden?"
"No," said Maria Dolores.
"Well," said Annunziata, "once upon a time a little Mass of Corruption lay in a garden. But it did not know it was a Mass of Corruption, and it did not wish to be a Mass of Corruption, and it never did any harm or wished any harm to any one, but just lay there all day long, and thought how beautiful the sky was, and how good and warm the sun, and how sweet the flowers were and the bird-songs, and thanked God with all its heart for having given it such a lovely place to lie in. Yet all the while, you know, it couldn't help being what it was, a little Mass of Corruption. And at the close of the day some people who were walking in the garden saw it, and cried out, 'Oh, what a horrible little Mass of Corruption!' and they called the gardener, and had it buried in the earth. But the little Mass of Corruption, when it heard that it was a little Mass of Corruption, felt very, very sad, and it made a supplication to Our Lady. 'I do not wish to be a Mass of Corruption,' it said. 'Queen of Heaven, pray for me, that I may be purified, and made clean, and not be a Mass of Corruption any longer, and that I may then go back to the garden, out of this dark earth.' So Our Lady prayed for it, and it was cleansed with water and purified, and—what do you think the Little Mass of Corruption became? It became a rose—a red rose in that very garden, just where they had buried it. From which we see—But I don't quite remember what we see from it," she broke off the pain of baffled effort on her brow. "My uncle could tell you that."
Afterwards, for a few minutes, she was silent, lying quite still, with her eyes on the ceiling.
"Why do sunny lands produce dark people, and dark lands light people?" she asked all at once.
"Ah, don't begin to talk again, dear," Maria Dolores pleaded. "The doctor will he coming soon now, and he will be angry if he finds that I have let you talk."
"Oh, I will tell him that it isn't your fault," said Annunziata. "I will tell him that you didn't let me, but that I talked because it is so hard to lie here and think, think, think, and not be allowed to say what you are thinking. Prospero asked me that question about sunny lands a long time ago. I've been thinking and thinking, but I can't think it out. Have you a great deal of money? Are you very rich?"
"Darling, won't you please not talk any more?" Maria Dolores implored her.
"I'll stop pretty soon," said Annunziata. "I think you are very rich. I think, in spite of his saying her name is not Maria Dolores, that you are the dark woman whom Prospero is to marry. He is to marry a dark woman who will be very rich. But then he will also he very rich himself. Is Austria a sunny land? England must be a dark land, for Prospero is light. Let me see your left hand, please, and I will tell you whether you are to marry a light man.
"Hush!" said Maria Dolores, trying not to laugh. "That shall be some other time."
"Wouldn't you like to marry Prospero? I would," said Annunziata.
"I think I hear the wheels of the doctor's gig," said Maria Dolores. "Now we shall both be scolded."
"But of course, if you do marry him, I can't," Annunziata pursued, undaunted by this menace. "A man isn't allowed to have two wives,—unless he is a king. He may have two sisters or two daughters, but not two wives or two mothers. There was once a king named Salomone who had a thousand wives, but even he had only one mother, I think. I hope you will live at Sant' Alessina after your marriage. Will you?"
Maria Dolores bit her lip and vouchsafed no answer; and again for a minute or two Annunziata lay silent. But presently, "Have you ever waked up in the middle of the night, and felt terribly frightened?" she asked.
"Yes, dear, sometimes. I suppose every one has," said Maria Dolores.
"Well, do you know why people feel so frightened when they wake like that?" pursued the child.
"No," said Maria Dolores.
"I do," said Annunziata. "The middle of the night is the Devil's Noon. Nobody is awake in the middle of the night except wicked people, like thieves or roysterers, or people who are suffering. All people who are good, and who are well and happy, are sound asleep. So it is the time the Devil likes best, and he and all his evil spirits come to the earth to enjoy the great pleasure of seeing people wicked or suffering. And that is why we feel so frightened when we wake. The air all round us is full of evil spirits, though we can't see them, and they are watching us, to run and tell the Devil if we do anything wicked or suffer any pain. But it is foolish of us to feel frightened, because our Guardian Angels are always there too, and they are a hundred times stronger than the evil spirits. Angels, you know, are very big, very much bigger than men. Some of them are as tall as mountains, but even the quite small ones are as tall as trees."
"This time I really do hear wheels," said Maria Dolores, with an accent of thanksgiving.
And she rose to meet the doctor.