Now a deep desire to have his revenge upon Salvatore came to him, but not
at all because it would hurt Salvatore. The cruelty had gone out of him.
Maddalena's eyes of a child had driven it away. He wanted his revenge
only because it would be an intense happiness to him to have it. He
wanted it because it would satisfy an imperious desire of tender passion,
not because it would infuriate a man who hated him. He forgot the father
in the daughter.
"Suppose I were quite poor, Maddalena!" he said.
"But you are very rich, signorino."
"But suppose I were poor, like Gaspare, for instance. Suppose I were as I
am, just the same, only a contadino, or a fisherman, as your father is.
And suppose--suppose"--he hesitated--"suppose that I were not married!"
She said nothing. She was listening with deep but still surprised
attention.
"Then I could--I could go to your father and ask him----"
He stopped.
"What could you ask him, signorino?"
"Can't you guess?"
"No, signore."
"I might ask him to let me marry you. I should--if it were like that--I
should ask him to let me marry you."
"Davvero?"
An expression of intense pleasure, and of something more--of pride--had
come into her face. She could not divest herself imaginatively of her
conception of him as a rich forestiere, and she saw herself placed high
above "the other girls," turned into a lady.
"Magari!" she murmured, drawing in her breath, then breathing out.
"You would be happy if I did that?"
"Magari!" she said again.
He did not know what the word meant, but he thought it sounded like the
most complete expression of satisfaction he had ever heard.
"I wish," he said, pressing her hand--"I wish I were a Sicilian of
Marechiaro."
At this moment, while he was speaking, he heard in the distance the
shrill whistle of an engine. It ceased. Then it rose again, piercing,
prolonged, fierce surely with inquiry. He put his hands to his ears.
"How beastly that is!" he exclaimed.
He hated it, not only for itself, but for the knowledge it sharply
recalled to his mind, the knowledge of exactly what he was doing, and of
the facts of his life, the facts that the very near future held.
"Why do they do that?" he added, with intense irritation.
"Because of the bridge, signorino. They want to know if they can come
upon the bridge. Look! There is the man waving a flag. Now they can come.
It is the train from Palermo."