The Call of the Blood

He stood still by the wall. Two or three lights twinkled on the height

where Castel Vecchio perched clinging to its rock above the sea.

Sebastiano was there setting his lips to the ceramella, and shooting bold

glances of tyrannical love at Lucrezia out of his audacious eyes. The

peasants, dressed in their gala clothes, were forming in a circle for the

country dance. The master of the ceremonies was shouting out his commands

in bastard French: "Tournez!" "À votre place!" "Prenez la donne!" "Dansez

toutes!" Eyes were sparkling, cheeks were flushing, lips were parting as

gay activity created warmth in bodies and hearts. Then would come the

tarantella, with Gaspare spinning like a top and tripping like a Folly in

a veritable madness of movement. And as the night wore on the dance would

become wilder, the laughter louder, the fire of jokes more fierce.

Healths would be drunk with clinking glasses, brindisi shouted, tricks

played. Cards would be got out. There would be a group intent on "Scopa,"

another calling "Mi staio!" "Carta da vente!" throwing down the soldi and

picking them up greedily in "Sette e mezzo." Stories would be told, bets

given and taken. The smoke would curl up from the long, black cigars the

Sicilians love. Dark-browed men and women, wild-haired boys, and girls in

gay shawls, with great rings swinging from their ears, would give

themselves up as only southerners can to the joy of the passing moment,

forgetting poverty, hardship, and toil, grinding taxation, all the cares

and the sorrows that encompass the peasant's life, forgetting the flight

of the hours, forgetting everything in the passion of the festa, the

dedication of all their powers to the laughing worship of fun.

Yes, the passing hour would be forgotten. That was certain. It would be

dawn ere Lucrezia and Gaspare returned.

Delarey's cigar was burned to a stump. He took it from his lips and threw

it with all his force over the wall towards the sea. Then he put his

hands on the wall and leaned over it, fixing his eyes on the sea. The

sense of injury grew in him. He resented the joys of others in this

beautiful night, and he felt as if all the world were at a festa, as if

all the world were doing wonderful things in the wonderful night, while

he was left solitary to eat out his heart beneath the moon. He did not

reason against his feelings and tell himself they were absurd. The

dancing faun does not reason in his moments of ennui. He rebels. Delarey

rebelled.