XV
Maurice had begun to dread the arrival of the post. Artois was rapidly recovering his strength, and in each of her letters Hermione wrote with a more glowing certainty of her speedy return to Sicily, bringing the invalid with her. Would they come before June 11th, the day of the fair? That was the question which preoccupied Maurice, which began to haunt him, and set a light of anxiety in his eyes when he saw Antonino climbing up the mountain-side with the letter-bag slung over his shoulder. He felt as if he could not forego this last festa. When it was over, when the lights had gone out in the houses of San Felice, and the music was silent, and the last rocket had burst in the sky, showering down its sparks towards the gaping faces of the peasants, he would be ready to give up this free, unintellectual life, this life in which his youth ran wild. He would resign himself to the inevitable, return to the existence in which, till now, he had found happiness, and try to find it there once more, try to forget the strange voices that had called him, the strange impulses that had prompted him. He would go back to his old self, and seek pleasure in the old paths, where he walked with those whom society would call his "equals," and did not spend his days with men who wrung their scant livelihood from the breast of the earth and from the breast of the sea, with women whose eyes, perhaps, were full of flickering fires, but who had never turned the leaves of a printed book, or traced a word upon paper. He would sit again at the feet of people who were cleverer and more full of knowledge than himself, and look up to them with reverence.
But he must have his festa first. He counted upon that. He desired that so strongly, almost so fiercely, that he felt as if he could not bear to be thwarted, as if, should fate interfere between him and the fulfilment of this longing, he might do something almost desperate. He looked forward to the fair with something of the eagerness and the anticipation of a child expectant of strange marvels, of wonderful and mysterious happenings, and the name San Felice rang in his ears with a music that was magical, suggesting curious joys.
He often talked about the fair to Gaspare, asking him many questions which the boy was nothing loath to answer.
To Gaspare the fair of San Felice was the great event of the Sicilian year. He had only been to it twice; the first time when he was but ten years old, and was taken by an uncle who had gone to seek his fortune in South America, and had come back for a year to his native land to spend some of the money he had earned as a cook, and afterwards as a restaurant proprietor, in Buenos Ayres; the second time when he was sixteen, and had succeeded in saving up a little of the money given to him by travellers whom he had accompanied as a guide on their excursions. And these two days had been red-letter days in his life. His eyes shone with excitement when he spoke of the festivities at San Felice, of the bands of music—there were three "musics" in the village; of the village beauties who sauntered slowly up and down, dressed in brocades and adorned with jewels which had been hoarded in the family chests for generations, and were only taken out to be worn at the fair and at wedding-feasts; of the booths where all the desirable things of the world were exposed for sale—rings, watches, chains, looking-glasses, clocks that sang and chimed with bells like church towers, yellow shoes, and caps of all colors, handkerchiefs, and shawls with fringes that, when worn, drooped almost to the ground; ballads written by native poets, relating the life and the trial of Musolino, the famous brigand, his noble address to his captors, and his despair when he was condemned to eternal confinement; and the adventures of Giuseppe Moroni, called "Il Niccheri" (illetterato), composed in eight-lined verses, and full of the most startling and passionate occurrences. There were donkeys, too—donkeys from all parts of Sicily, mules from Girgenti, decorated with red-and-yellow harness, with pyramids of plumes and bells upon their heads, painted carts with pictures of the miracles of the saints and the conquests of the Saracens, turkeys and hens, and even cages containing yellow birds that came from islands far away and that sang with the sweetness of the angels. The ristoranti were crowded with people, playing cards and eating delicious food, and outside upon the pavements were dozens of little tables at which you could sit, drinking syrups of beautiful hues and watching at your ease the marvels of the show. Here came boys from Naples to sing and dance, peddlers with shining knives and elegant walking-sticks for sale, fortune-tellers with your fate already printed and neatly folded in an envelope, sometimes a pigeon-man with a high black hat, who made his doves hop from shoulder to shoulder along a row of school-children, or a man with a monkey that played antics to the sound of a grinding organ, and that was dressed up in a red worsted jacket and a pair of cloth trousers. And there were shooting-galleries and puppet-shows and dancing-rooms, and at night, when the darkness came, there were giuochi di fuoco which lit up the whole sky, till you could see Etna quite plainly.
"E' veramente un paradiso!" concluded Gaspare.
"A paradise!" echoed Maurice. "A paradise! I say, Gaspare, why can't we always live in paradise? Why can't life be one long festa?"
"Non lo so, signore. And the signora? Do you think she will be here for the fair?"
"I don't know. But if she is here, I am not sure that she will come to see it."
"Why not, signorino? Will she stay with the sick signore?"