The Call of the Blood

He took it at evening.

He had finished dinner now, and he pushed back his chair and drew a cigar

from his pocket. Then he struck a match. As he was putting it to the

cigar he looked again towards the sea and saw the light.

"Damn!"

"Signore!"

Gaspare came running.

"I didn't call, Gaspare, I only said 'Mamma mia!' because I burned my

fingers."

He struck another match and lit the cigar.

"Signore--" Gaspare began, and stopped.

"Yes? What is it?"

"Signore, I--Lucrezia, you know, has relatives at Castel Vecchio."

Castel Vecchio was the nearest village, perched on the hill-top opposite,

twenty minutes' walk from the cottage.

"Ebbene?"

"Ebbene, signorino, to-night there is a festa in their house. It is the

festa of Pancrazio, her cousin. Sebastiano will be there to play, and

they will dance, and--"

"Lucrezia wants to go?"

"Si, signore, but she is afraid to ask."

"Afraid! Of course she can go, she must go. Tell her. But at night can

she come back alone?"

"Signore, I am invited, but I said--I did not like the first evening that

the padrona is away--if you would come they would take it as a great

honor."

"Go, Gaspare, take Lucrezia, and bring her back safely."

"And you, signore?"

"I would come, too, but I think a stranger would spoil the festa."

"Oh no, signore, on the contrary--"

"I know--you think I shall be sad alone."

"Si, signore."

"You are good to think of your padrone, but I shall be quite content. You

go with Lucrezia and come back as late as you like. Tell Lucrezia! Off

with you!"

Gaspare hesitated no longer. In a few minutes he had put on his best

clothes and a soft hat, and stuck a large, red rose above each ear. He

came to say good-bye with Lucrezia on his arm. Her head was wrapped in a

brilliant yellow-and-white shawl with saffron-colored fringes. They went

off together laughing and skipping down the stony path like two children.

When their footsteps died away Delarey, who had walked to the archway to

see them off, returned slowly to the terrace and began to pace up and

down, puffing at his cigar. The silence was profound. The rising moon

cast its pale beams upon the white walls of the cottage, the white seats

of the terrace. There was no wind. The leaves of the oaks and the

olive-trees beneath the wall were motionless. Nothing stirred. Above the

cottage the moonlight struck on the rocks, showed the nakedness of the

mountain-side. A curious sense of solitude, such as he had never known

before, took possession of Delarey. It did not make him feel sad at

first, but only emancipated, free as he had never yet felt free, like one

free in a world that was curiously young, curiously unfettered by any

chains of civilization, almost savagely, primitively free. So might an

animal feel ranging to and fro in a land where man had not set foot. But

he was an animal without its mate in the wonderful breathless night. And

the moonlight grew about him as he walked, treading softly he scarce knew

why, to and fro, to and fro.