Now for the first time Filippo noticed the perfect majesty of the wilderness, over which was hanging a clear, transparent sky. Their way, scarcely discernible by the somewhat obscured traces over the hard rocks, lay northward along a wide ridge, and now and then, where the line of the parallel ridge opposite curved downward, a strip of sea gleamed along the horizon on the left. Far and wide was still no vegetation save the dwarfed mountain shrubs and the lichens. But now they left the heights and descended into the ravine which had to be crossed in order to mount to the opposite ridge. Here they soon came upon the pines and oaks that sprung up in the ravine, and heard the rushing of the waters far below. Fenice was now walking ahead, stepping with sure foot over the firmest stones, without looking about or speaking a word. He could not help but let his eyes hang upon her and admire the supple power of her limbs. Her great white headkerchief wholly concealed her face from him, but whenever it became necessary for them to walk together side by side, he was compelled to look about him and away from her, so forcibly did the features of the noble scene attract him. Now, in the full sunlight, he noticed for the first time her peculiar childlike expression, without being able to say in what it particularly lay, as if, perhaps, there still remained something of seven years ago in her face, while everything else had been developing.
At last he began to speak of herself, and she gave him frank, reasonable answers. Only that her voice, which was ordinarily not hard and hollow, as is usually the case with women reared in the mountains, to-day was monotonous and sounded most melancholy over things of least account. These paths over which they were traveling had of late years been very generally frequented by political fugitives, most of whom had, of course, rested at Treppi on the way. Filippo inquired of the girl about them and certain others of his acquaintance whom he described; but few of them could she call to mind, although she was aware that the smugglers had allowed many a stranger to pass the night at her house. Of one of these she had only too vivid a recollection. At the description of him the blood mounted to her face and she stood still.
“He is a bad one!” she said sullenly. “That night I woke the servants and had him locked out of the house.”
During this talk the lawyer did not notice how high the sun was rising and that not a glimpse of the Tuscan plain had yet appeared. He was thinking, too, in a disconnected way, of the approaching end of the day. It was so refreshing to be tramping along this path, overgrown with bushes, fifty feet above the torrent, to feel the fine spray of the waterfall dash up against his face, to see the lizards slipping over the stones, and the graceful butterflies chasing the furtive sunlight, that he was not once conscious of how they were wandering up-stream and not yet turning westward at all. There was a magic in the voice of his guide that made him forget everything that had yesterday, in the company of the smugglers, been so incessantly in his mind. But now, as they ascended out of the ravine, and the boundless, utterly strange mountain wastes, with new heights and cliffs, desolate and parched, lay before them, he awoke all at once from his day-dream, stood still and looked into the sky. He now understood clearly that they had been wandering in the opposite direction, and quite two hours farther away from his goal than when they set out.
“Halt!” said Filippo. “I see in time that you have betrayed me after all. Is that the way to Pistoja, you traitress?”
“No,” said she, fearlessly, but her eyes fell to the ground.
“Now, then, by all the power of hell, the devil can easily take lessons and learn hypocrisy of you. A curse on my blindness!”
“Man is all-powerful, man is mightier than the devil and the angels, if he loves,” she said in a deep, melancholy tone.
“No,” he cried, in a flash of sudden fury, “you have not triumphed yet. Do not exult yet, overconfident girl, not yet! What a crazy girl calls love can not break the will of a man. Turn back with me to the place and show me the shortest way—or I will choke you with these hands—you fool, who can not see I must hate you, you who are willing to make me appear before all the world as a good-for-nothing.” He stepped up close in front of her, with clenched hands; he completely forgot himself.
“Ah! Do choke me!” She spoke with a loud but trembling voice. “Only do it, Filippo! But when you have done it, you will throw yourself over my body and weep blood from your eyes, that you can not bring me to life again. Your place will be here by me, you will struggle with the vultures that try to tear my flesh to pieces; the sun will scorch you by day, the dew of night will wet you, until you rot away as I do—but to leave me you are utterly incapable. Do you think a poor foolish thing that has been brought up among the mountains will throw away seven years as easily as she does a day? I know what those years have cost me, how dear they were, and that I am paying a good round price when I wish to buy you with them. Should I let you go to your death? The idea is one to be laughed at. Once turn away from me and you will soon be aware that I am drawing you back to me forever. For in the wine that you drank to-day there was mixed a love-charm which no man under the sun has ever yet withstood.”