With a look of understanding the man nodded his consent. "This Palio must have been for you like a bang in the stomach," he said.
Silently Giorgio tore the length of linen into strips. He sopped several in the solution of boric acid. He wrung them out. He doused them again, wrung them out again.
"How many times you going to do that?" the barbaresco asked. "How is it you can face San Martino, but not her? Some time you got to do it."
Miserable, torn by conscience, Giorgio walked tremblingly toward her. Staring at the floor, still unable to look up, he took one step and then another. He felt himself grown suddenly old and bent under his burden of guilt. He wished the distance between them would stretch out and with each step courage would flow into him, but already he was so close he could feel her breath. He closed his eyes, prayed, then forced them to focus on her, and he almost cried, he felt so happy. Even with the red welts she was still beautiful! There was a new quality about her, a kind of spiritual quality, as if she had come through a fire, untouched. Her eyes were fixed on him and they were soft and amber-lit, and the nostrils fluttered and made a little sound, and the ears asked for talk as if this reunion were just like all the others—warm and wonderful and good.
Giorgio gulped. If only she had laid back her ears and come charging at him, or taken a bite through his shirt, fierce enough to show for a lifetime. And though he wanted to sink down upon his knees, and laugh and cry both, and beg forgiveness, yet at sight of the barbaresco watching he went to work like some veterinarian. He washed the cuts across her forehead, and the cross-cuts behind her ear. Then, with the gentlest of fingers, he rubbed the grease into them.
"Gaudenzia!" he said when he had finished ministering. "Now there should be no scars. Those reminders I could not bear. Do you know," he added under his breath, "do you understand that you won all by yourself—like the little clay model in Monticello?"
The mare pricked her ears. Whatever it was the boy had said made a nice melody. She raised her head and let out a whinny that bounced back and forth from the stone walls again and again until it faded in a trembly echo. "I bear you no ill will," it said, more plainly than any words.
A few stars were still winking bright and alive when Giorgio left Gaudenzia and walked purposefully to the post office. He had often sent night telegrams for Signor Ramalli. Now he would send one for himself.
The pen on the counter was forked and rusty and the ink lumpy, but the words uncorked themselves like strong wine.