“It used to be good-night over there in Paris; the boulevards were lit and there were laughter and gaiety around, happy voices, music, cabs, and pretty women. Here nothing, nothing, nothing, but the everlasting sea and sky and the pathless mountain sides. Don’t say good-night to me, sir, I am dead, irretrievably damned, damned, damned in hell!”
Gustav thought he was not the only living man who thought this world a hell, and turned round by the desolate Castro. He climbed up the rocks, overjoyed by the sensation of complete discomfort, of torn hands and bruised members. Then he stretched himself on the top of the rock, and looked out across the shadowy waters. The first faint glimmer of the crescent shone in the glossy sky, and the stars looked like drops of fire hanging above the world. There was no sound save the far-off roar of the waterfalls thundering down their marble rocks, or the musical clang of the goat and sheep bells as the shepherds gathered in their flocks for the night. Sometimes a light flamed from a distant window. Gustav thought of old stories he had read, in which maidens placed lights in their windows to light their lovers, or wives as a message to their husbands. The loneliness of his future broke in upon him in a flood of self-pity. There was only one window he wanted to see lighted for him, and that now would be eternally dark. Tears sprang to his eyes, and then, fearful of the horror of the gathering outburst he felt within him, he jumped down the rocks, now sliding, now racing on, tangling his limbs in the bushes and furzes, and shot down the path that hung over the little village of Xinara.
Demetrius saw him pass with flying feet, with set lips, and unseeing eyes; and the popular shop-keeper turned to his patient satellites, Johannes and Michael, and observed:
“He’s been to Mousoulou; I heard it all; the wedding takes place immediately.”
“He’s a good-looking fellow,” said Johannes, apprehensive of the reception of this innocent remark from so susceptible a leader.
“As for that, yes, and he’s getting a good-looking wife, though she does dress outlandishly, and turns up her nose at my stuffs. She got that yellow gown at Syra, and I can’t say I admire the big buttons she wears.”
“Well,” said Michael, reflectively, “she is a very learned young woman, and writes very fine letters for our women. I don’t know what they’ll do when she goes away. I know my girl in Constantinople won’t be in the way of hearing much from my wife.”
“Ay, that’s so,” said Demetrius, “she’ll be missed as letter-writer, and I’m not so sure that the place won’t seem a good deal smaller and duller when we’ve not her handsome face to look at.”
In the courtyard Gustav brushed up against Aristides, who glared at him and muttered a curse as he removed his frame from the doorway, where he had been airing his ill-humour for the benefit of Annunziata, busy making the new Misythra.
“Here he is,” he said to his good-tempered listener, engaged just then on the delicate process of straining off the sheep’s milk and tying up the remainder of clotted cream tightly in a linen cloth.