At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna
della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before
her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the
more passionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom
the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking
of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a
woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed
past the Holy Mother of God into the presence of God Himself. He had
created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she would, she
must, appeal.
Often she had prayed before, but never as now, never with such passion,
with such a sensation of personally pleading. The effort of her heart was
like the effort of womanhood. It seemed to her--and she had no feeling
that this was blasphemous--as if God knew, understood, everything of the
world He had created except perhaps this--the inmost agony some women
suffer, as if she, perhaps, could make Him understand this by her prayer.
And she strove to recount this agony, to make it clear to God.
Was it a presumptuous effort? She did not feel that it was. And now she
felt selfless. She was no more thinking of herself, was no longer obliged
to concentrate her thoughts and her imagination upon herself and the one
she loved best. She had passed beyond that, as she had passed beyond the
Madonna della Rocca. She was the voice and the heart not of a woman, but
of woman praying in the night to the God who had made woman and the
night.
From behind a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not
forgotten his padrone's words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off
from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon
their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones,
and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as they
prayed.
Gaspare did not believe in priests. Very few Sicilians do. An uncle of
his was a priest's son, and he had other reasons, quite sufficient to his
mind, for being incredulous of the sanctity of those who celebrated the
mass to which he seldom went. But he believed in God, and he believed
superstitiously in the efficacy of the Madonna and in the powers of the
saints. Once his little brother had fallen dangerously ill on the festa
of San Giorgio, the santo patrono of Castel Vecchio. He had gone to the
festa, and had given all his money, five lire, to the saint to heal his
brother. Next day the child was well. In misfortune he would probably
utter a prayer, or burn a candle, himself. That Lucrezia might think that
she had reason to pray he understood, though he doubted whether the
Madonna and all the saints could do much for the reclamation of his
friend Sebastiano. But why should the padrona kneel there out-of-doors
sending up such earnest petitions? She was not a Catholic. He had never
seen her pray before. He looked on with wonder, presently with
discomfort, almost with anger. To-night he was what he would himself have
called "nervoso," and anything that irritated his already strung-up
nerves roused his temper. He was in anxiety about his padrone, and he
wanted to be back at the priest's house, he wanted to see his padrone
again at the earliest possible moment. The sight of his padrona
committing an unusual action alarmed him. Was she, then, afraid as he was
afraid? Did she know, suspect anything? His experience of women was that
whenever they were in trouble they went for comfort and advice to the
Madonna and the saints.