The Call of the Blood

But perhaps God was not all-powerful.

She remembered that once in London she had asked a clever and good

clergyman if, looking around upon the state of things in the world, he

was able to believe without difficulty that the world was governed by an

all-wise, all-powerful, and all-merciful God. And his reply to her had

been, "I sometimes wonder whether God is all-powerful--yet." She had not

pursued the subject, but she had not forgotten this answer; and she

thought of it now.

Was there a conflict in the regions beyond the world which was the only

one she knew? Had an enemy done this thing, an enemy not only of hers,

but of God's, an enemy who had power over God?

That thought was almost more terrible than the thought that God had been

cruel to her.

She sat for a long time wondering, thinking, but not praying. She did not

feel as if she could ever pray any more. The world was lighted up by the

sun. The sea began to gleam, the coast-line to grow more distinct, the

outlines of the mountains and of the Saracenic Castle on the height

opposite to her more hard and more barbaric against the deepening blue.

She saw smoke coming from the mouth of Etna, sideways, as if blown

towards the sea. A shepherd boy piped somewhere below her. And still the

tune was the tarantella. She listened to it--the tarantella. So short a

time ago Maurice had danced with the boys upon the terrace! How can such

life be so easily extinguished? How can such joy be not merely clouded

but utterly destroyed? A moment, and from the body everything is

expelled; light from the eyes, speech from the lips, movement from the

limbs, joy, passion from the heart. How can such a thing be?

The little shepherd boy played on and on. He was nearer now. He was

ascending the slope of the mountain, coming up towards heaven with his

little happy tune. She heard him presently among the oak-trees

immediately below her, passing almost at her feet.

To Hermione the thin sound of the reed-flute always had suggested Arcady.

Even now it suggested Arcady--the Arcady of the imagination: wide soft

airs, blue skies and seas, eternal sunshine and delicious shade, and

happiness where is a sweet noise of waters and of birds, a sweet and deep

breathing of kind and bounteous nature.

And that little boy with the flute would die. His foot might slip now as

he came upward, and no more could he play souls into Arcady!

The tune wound away to her left, like a gay and careless living thing

that was travelling ever upward, then once more came towards her. But now

it was above her. She turned her head and she saw the little player

against the blue. He was on a rock, and for a moment he stood still. On

his head was a long woollen cap, hanging over at one side. It made

Hermione think of the woollen cap she had seen come out of the darkness

of the ravine as she waited with Gaspare for the padrone. Against the

blue, standing on the gray and sunlit rock, with the flute at his lips,

and his tiny, deep-brown fingers moving swiftly, he looked at one with

the mountain and yet almost unearthly, almost as if the blue had given

birth to him for a moment, and in a moment would draw him back again into

the womb of its wonder. His goats were all around him, treading

delicately among the rocks. As Hermione watched he turned and went away

into the blue, and the tarantella went away into the blue with him.