Royal she looked as she cried out these words, her arms stretched toward him as if her hand were holding out a sceptre to one that owed her allegiance. But he laughed at it and said: “Your love-charm has rendered you poor service, for I never hated you more than I do at this moment. But I am a fool to hate a fool. May you be cured as well of your love as of your superstition, when you see me no more. I do not need your guidance. I see over on yonder slope a shepherd’s hut with the herd about it. There’s a fire gleaming. There they will undoubtedly put me in the right way. Farewell, poor serpent, farewell!”
She answered nothing as he went away, and sat down quietly in the ravine, in the shadow of a rock, in the gloomy green of the fir trees that grew down by the stream, her great eyes lowered to the ground. He had not gone long from her before he found himself without a path, between cliffs and bushes; then, much as he might like to deny it, the words of this strange girl kept exercising on his heart a disturbing influence that turned his thoughts all inward. Meanwhile he kept ever in view the heath-fire in the meadow opposite, working his way through to reach the valley. By the position of the sun he reckoned that it must now be about the tenth hour. But when he had climbed down the mountain steep he found a sunless path beneath, and soon after a narrow bridge that crossed a new mountain stream and led up along the opposite side, and promised to open out into the meadow. He followed this, and at first the path ran steep up, but afterward, by a great circuit, far away to the foot of the mountain. He saw now that this would not bring him straight to his goal; yet over the more direct way hung inaccessible, precipitous crags, and unless he preferred to return, he must trust himself to this path. Now he walked on briskly, at first like one released from the fetters over yonder, and peering out intently every once in a while for the hut that kept continually receding. By and by, as his blood began to pulse more evenly, there came into his mind again all the details of the scene through which he had just passed. The picture of the beautiful girl he now saw before him vividly, and not as before, through the mist of sudden anger. He could not resist a feeling of profound pity. “She is over there now,” he said to himself. “The poor, deluded child sits building castles with her magic art. It was for that she left the hut yesterday at night, and by the light of the moon to gather who knows what harmless herbs. I remember; did not even my own brave smugglers, too, point out to me some special white blossoms among the rocks, and say they were powerful in exciting love for love? Innocent flowers, how they have slandered you! And it was for that she shattered the jug, for that the wine tasted so bitter on my tongue. The older innocence grows, the stronger and more worthy of honor it becomes. How like the Cumæan Sibyl she stood before me, so truth-compelling, almost like that Roman as she flung her books into the fire. How beautiful and afflicted your delusions have made you!”
The farther he went, the stronger did he feel the pathetic splendor of her love and the power of her beauty which separation was now beginning to make clear to him.
“I ought not to have made her suffer because she wished in perfect good faith to save me, to set me free from my inevitable duties. I should have taken the hand she offered me and said: ‘I love you, Fenice, and if I am still alive, I will come back to you and take you home.’ How blind I was not to have thought of this way out! Shame upon the lawyer! I ought to have taken leave of her with kisses, like a bridegroom, then she would have had no suspicion that I was deceiving her, instead of which I have insisted with the stubborn girl and only made matters worse.”
Now he became absorbed in the dream of such a leave-taking and fancied he felt her breath and the touch of her fresh young lips upon his own. It was as if he almost heard his name called. “Fenice!” he cried back passionately, and stood still with violently beating heart. The stream rushed beneath him, the branches of the firs hung motionless, far and wide a shady wilderness.
Her name was again upon his lips, when just in time the shame of what the world thinks sealed his mouth—shame and a fear as well. He struck himself upon the brow. “Am I still so far gone that I even dream of her while I am awake?” he cried. “Is she to prove right that no man under the sun is able to withstand this magic? Then, indeed, I should be worthy of nothing better than what she thought to make of me, to be called a Squire of Dames all my life long! No, to hell with you, beautiful, deceiving she-devil!”
He had regained for the moment his self-control, but now he saw that he had also been led astray from his path. He could not go back unless he was willing to run into the arms of danger. So now he concluded to reach again, at any price, some height from which he could look about him for the lost shepherd’s hut. The bank of the stream along which he was walking, rushing far below, was much too steep. So he flung his cloak over his shoulder, chose a secure footing, and at one leap was on the other side of the ravine, whose walls came close together here. In better spirits, he now mounted the opposite slope and soon came out into the broad sunshine. The sun beat on his head cruelly and his tongue was parched with thirst, as with a great effort he worked his way up. Now all at once anxiety came upon him that in spite of all his pains he might never reach the goal. Thicker and thicker the blood mounted to his head; he blamed the devil’s wine that he had tossed down in the morning, and again he had to think of the white blossoms they had pointed out to him yesterday on the way. Here they were growing again—his flesh crept. “If it should be true,” he thought; “if there are powers that can master our hearts and minds and bend the will of a man to the caprice of a maid—rather let the worst come than this disgrace! Rather death than slavery. But no, no, no, a lie can conquer only him who believes in it. Be a man, Filippo; forward, the height is there before you; only a short time, and this cursed mountain with its ghosts will lie behind you forever!”
And yet he could not cool the fever in his blood. Every stone, every slippery place, every pine-bough hanging heavily before him was a reminder which he had to conquer by force, with an exertion of will out of all proportion. When at last he arrived at the height, holding on by the last bushes and with a swing gained the top, the blood was dripping from his eyes so, and the sudden glare of the sun so dazed him, that he could not look about. Angrily he chafed his forehead, and lifting his hat brushed his hand through the tangled hair. Then again he heard his name called, this time in very truth, and started terrified toward the spot from which they were calling him. And opposite, a few steps from the rock, as he had left her, sat Fenice, looking at him with calm, happy eyes.
“Have you come at last, Filippo!” she said heartily. “I expected you sooner.”