The Call of the Blood

by Robert Hichens

"And now, signorino," Gaspare concluded, "they are all laughing at him in Marechiaro. He dare not show himself any more in the Piazza. When a man cannot go any more into the Piazza—Madonna!"

He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in a gesture of contemptuous pity.

"E' finito!" he exclaimed.

"Certo!" said Maurice.

He was resolved that he would never be in such a case. Hermione, he felt now, did not understand the Sicilians as he understood them. If she did she would not bring back Artois from Africa, she would not arrive openly with him. But surely she ought to understand that such an action would make people wonder, would be likely to make them think that Artois was something more than her friend. And then Maurice thought of the day of their arrival, of his own descent to the station, to wait upon the platform for the train. Artois was not going to stay in the house of the priest. That was impossible, as there was no guest-room. He would put up at the hotel in Marechiaro. But that would make little difference. He was to arrive with Hermione. Every one would know that she had spent all this time with him in Africa. Maurice grew hot as he thought of the smiles on the Sicilian faces, of the looks of astonishment at the strange doings of the forestieri. Hermione's enthusiastic kindness was bringing her husband almost to shame. It was a pity that people were sometimes thoughtless in their eager desire to be generous and sympathetic.

One day, when Maurice had been brooding over this matter of the Sicilian's view of Hermione's proceedings, the spirit moved him to go down on foot to Marechiaro to see if there were any letters for him at the post. It was now June 7th. In four days would come the fair. As the time for it drew near, his anxiety lest anything should interfere to prevent his going to it with Maddalena increased, and each day at post time he was filled with a fever of impatience to know whether there would be a letter from Africa or not. Antonino generally appeared about four o'clock, but the letters were in the village long before then, and this afternoon Maurice felt that he could not wait for the boy's coming. He had a conviction that there was a letter, a decisive letter from Hermione, fixing at last the date of her arrival with Artois. He must have it in his hands at the first possible moment. If he went himself to the post he would know the truth at least an hour and a half sooner than if he waited in the house of the priest. He resolved, therefore, to go, got his hat and stick, and set out, after telling Gaspare, who was watching for birds with his gun, that he was going for a stroll on the mountain-side and might be away for a couple of hours.

It was a brilliant afternoon. The landscape looked hard in the fiery sunshine, the shapes of the mountains fierce and relentless, the dry watercourses almost bitter in their barrenness. Already the devastation of the summer was beginning to be apparent. All tenderness had gone from the higher slopes of the mountains which, jocund in spring and in autumn with growing crops, were now bare and brown, and seamed like the hide of a tropical reptile gleaming with metallic hues. The lower slopes were still panoplied with the green of vines and of trees, but the ground beneath the trees was arid. The sun was coming into his dominion with pride and cruelty, like a conqueror who loots the land he takes to be his own.

But Maurice did not mind the change, which drove the tourists northward, and left Sicily to its own people. He even rejoiced in it. As each day the heat increased he was conscious of an increasing exultation, such as surely the snakes and the lizards feel as they come out of their hiding-places into the golden light. He was filled with a glorious sense of expansion, as if his capabilities grew larger, as if they were developed by heat like certain plants. None of the miseries that afflict many people in the violent summers which govern southern lands were his. His skin did not peel, his eyes did not become inflamed, nor did his head ache under the action of the burning rays. They came to him like brothers and he rejoiced in their company. To-day, as he descended to Marechiaro, he revelled in the sun. Its ruthlessness made him feel ruthless. He was conscious of that. At this moment he was in absolutely perfect physical health. His body was lithe and supple, yet his legs and arms were hard with springing muscle. His warm blood sang through his veins like music through the pipes of an organ. His eyes shone with the superb animation of youth that is radiantly sound. For, despite his anxiety, his sometimes almost fretful irritation when he thought about the coming of Artois and the passing of his own freedom, there were moments when he felt as if he could leap with the sheer joy of life, as if he could lift up his arms and burst forth into a wild song of praise to his divinity, the sun. And this grand condition of health made him feel ruthless, as the man who conquers and enters a city in triumph feels ruthless. As he trod down towards Marechiaro to-day, thinking of the letter that perhaps awaited him, it seemed to him that it would be monstrous if anything, if any one, were to interfere with his day of joy, the day he was looking forward to with such eager anticipation. He felt inclined to trample over opposition. Yet what could he do if, by some evil chance, Hermione and Artois arrived the day before the fair, or on the very day of the fair? He hurried his steps. He wanted to be in the village, to know whether there was a letter for him from Africa.

When he came into the village it was about half-past two o'clock, and the long, narrow main street was deserted. The owners of some of the antiquity shops had already put up their shutters for the summer. Other shops, still open, showed gaping doorways, through which no travellers passed. Inside, the proprietors were dozing among their red brocades, their pottery, their Sicilian jewelry and obscure pictures thick with dust, guarded by squadrons of large, black flies, which droned on walls and ceilings, crept over the tiled floors, and clung to the draperies and laces which lay upon the cabinets. In the shady little rooms of the barbers small boys in linen jackets kept a drowsy vigil for the proprietors, who were sleeping in some dark corner of bedchamber or wine-shop. But no customer came to send them flying. The sun made the beards push on the brown Sicilian faces, but no one wanted to be shaved before the evening fell. Two or three lads lounged by on their way to the sea with towels and bathing-drawers over their arms. A few women were spinning flax on the door-lintels, or filling buckets of water from the fountain. A few children were trying to play mysterious games in the narrow alleys that led downward to the sea and upward to the mountains on the left and right of the street. A donkey brayed under an archway as if to summon its master from his siesta. A cat stole along the gutter, and vanished into a hole beneath a shut door. But the village was almost like a dead village, slain by the sun in his carelessness of pride.

On his way to the post Maurice passed through the Piazza that was the glory of Marechiaro and the place of assemblage for its people. Here the music sounded on festa days before the stone steps that led up to the church of San Giuseppe. Here was the principal caffè, the Caffè Nuovo, where granite and ices were to be had, delicious yellow cakes, and chocolate made up into shapes of crowing cocks, of pigs, of little men with hats, and of saints with flowing robes. Here, too, was the club, with chairs and sofas now covered with white, and long tables adorned with illustrated journals and the papers of Catania, of Messina, and Palermo. But at this hour the caffè was closed and the club was empty. For the sun beat down with fury upon the open space with its tiled pavement, and the seats let into the wall that sheltered the Piazza from the precipice that frowned above the sea were untenanted by loungers. As Maurice went by he thought of Gaspare's words, "When a man cannot go any more into the Piazza—Madonna, it is finished!" This was the place where the public opinion of Marechiaro was formed, where fame was made and characters were taken away. He paused for an instant by the church, then went on under the clock tower and came to the post.