The red shield of the sun had slipped into the sea, the warm twilight had glided into warm night, and the yellow circle of the perfect moon glowed in a sea-blue sky. To your Sicilian the moon is ever a marvel, a mystical influence, now generous, now maleficent, always portentous. One salutes in her the spirit of Diana; another sees on that yellow disk only the awful face of Cain; to yet a third the moon is nothing more nor less than a baker’s daughter; while a fourth will swear that she is the sister of the sun, who loved her brother too well and is condemned, in punishment for her sin, to drift forever in solitude through the skies. But whatever the moon meant to each, all paid the moon homage. Lovers in Syracuse, wandering in grove or garden, looked up at it, thinking sweet thoughts, uttering sweet words, and then, looking into each other’s eyes, forgot the world as their lips met. Poets in Syracuse, catching sight of the moon through their open casemates, abandoned lamp and parchment, and, propping their chins on their hands, stared at that enigmatic field of silver and believed themselves to be inspired. Philosophers in Syracuse, pacing quiet streets, smiled at the ancient of days and sighed over their flying shadows, symbolical of much. Needy folk, greedy folk, showed pieces of silver to it, singing:
“O Holy Moon, I beg a boon: Keep me healthy, Make me wealthy Very soon.”
Children not yet abed played quaint blindfold games in which they made the moon their playmate, shrilling the distich:
“Tell us, Mistress Moon, who ask it, What you carry in your basket.”
Fishermen in Syracuse, hanging out their little lanterns at the prows of their boats, compared on the dancing waters the lustre of the moonlight with the reflection of their little wicks, and were proud of the power of their fish-oil. Dogs in Syracuse bayed.
In the hills above Syracuse all was silent. The moonlight, flooding slope and valley, wood and ruin and church, shone on the figure of a man in motley lying motionless upon the grass. It shone, too, on the sad face of a girl wandering, wandering through the pine woods. The moonlight shone caressingly upon her crown of flame-colored hair, upon his deep, tearless eyes.
Since she had fled from the false hunter into the thickets of the wood Perpetua had wandered hither and thither in its familiar deeps, drinking the cup of pain. In one short day she had learned from foul face and from fair face such knowledge of the evil of the world as tortured her brave heart. Nothing could stagger her belief in goodness as the law of life, but she had not dreamed until this day of the strength of its enemies. The bright of face, made in the mould of beauty, stamped with the seal of grace, these could be traitors to God, slayers of peace.
Torn by such thoughts, she drifted almost unconsciously, fighting with her sorrow, to all the dear places of her daily visits—the companionable tree, the well-spring of cool waters, the bowl-shaped hollow in which she loved to lie and see nothing but the sky, the little shrine in the clearing where a path ran through the wood—to each of these spots she went in turn as one who makes a pilgrimage. All were the same in the sweet moonlight as they had been that morning in the light of the sweet sun. How green the world had seemed that morning!—and now it had grown gray and the birds sang nothing but dirges. But the girl was too strong to let her young sadness master her. Stoutly she told herself she was a fool to think that the world was changed because of a maid’s sorrow; bravely she bade herself bear her cross. To-morrow, perhaps, she would tell her father, and they would climb higher on the hills, hide deeper in the woods—fly somewhere from the envy of the evil King. To-night she might not sleep, but at least she would not weep.
Perpetua made her way homeward through the wood. As she passed into the open space where the ancient fane had risen, she saw in the bright moonlight the figure of a man extended at full length on the grass. A sudden fear for her father leaped into her mind—could he have fallen there? She ran swiftly forward, but as she neared the prostrate figure her fears fled, for she recognized by his garments the withered fool of the morning. He seemed to be moaning like a beast in pain, and her distaste of him could make no head against her pity. She knew, too, being Sicilian, how dangerous it was to lie in the moonlight—to do so was to court madness. She bent down beside him and touched him very softly on the shoulder. “What is the matter with you?” she asked.