Her mere presence had parted them, and it was impressed upon me that the conversation would have no further interest for any one.
“I am here to claim my son,” said father.
“Take him, take him,” said grandfather, abandoning me to my fate. But he could not refrain from adding, defiantly:
“Take him back if you can.”
“He ought not to be parted from God,” said my mother simply, remembering the time I had failed to come to Mass. Then, feeling that this was not the place for me, she pushed me toward them, as a token of reconciliation, with the words:
“Kiss them, and go down to Aunt Deen.”
I obeyed, and after being negligently or reluctantly kissed I rushed down stairs, not caring how the peace was made, thinking only of Nazzarena who was going away. A little later I heard some one in the garden calling me, but I did not answer.
I flew to the chestnut grove on the edge of the domain, and scrambled upon the wall, near the breach that one of the trees had once made merely by the push of its roots, and which had been closed by a grating. From this point I could see the road to Italy. Only one chance was left to me—would the circus troop go that way? I waited long, but not in vain.
They are coming, they are coming! First the waggons carrying the tent, the benches, and all the accessories. What wretched horses were drawing them! I looked about for Nazzarena’s black courser, but he was not to be distinguished from the rest of the sorry jades. Then came the roulottes that the folk lived in. Smoke was rising from one or another of the slender chimneys. They were getting dinner ready for the long journey. On one of the rear balconies an old woman was combing a little girl’s hair, the well known parroquet beside them. I was looking, with all my eyes I was looking, for the blond hair of my beloved.
Ah, I saw her at last! It was she, there, bareheaded—her clear-cut face and golden tint. She was herself driving one of the waggons. A mission of importance had been entrusted to her. She held her whip upright in the air, but she loved animals too much to strike them. She was sitting very straight, holding her head proudly—how lovely were the lines of her throat! Why had I never noticed that before? I had never really seen her, so to speak—I must see her, I must see her!