The Call of the Blood

"No," he said.

Had the music been wild? He suspected that the harmony she worshipped had

passed on into the hideous crash of discords. And whose had been the

fault? Who creates human nature as it is? In what workshop, of what

brain, are forged the mad impulses of the wild heart of youth, are mixed

together subtly the divine aspirations which leap like the winged Mercury

to the heights, and the powerful appetites which lead the body into the

dark places of the earth? And why is the Giver of the divine the

permitter of those tremendous passions, which are not without their

glory, but which wreck so many human lives?

Perhaps a reason may be found in the sacredness of pity. Evil and agony

are the manure from which spring some of the whitest lilies that have

ever bloomed beneath that enigmatic blue which roofs the terror and the

triumph of the world. And while human beings know how to pity, human

beings will always believe in a merciful God.

A strange thought to come into such a mind as Artois's! Yet it came in

the twilight, and with it a sense of tears such as he had never felt

before.

With the twilight had come a little wind from Etna. It made something

near him flutter, something white, a morsel of paper among the stones by

which he was sitting. He looked down and saw writing, and bent to pick

the paper up.

"Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat till the 10th.

We shall take that...."

Hermione's writing!

Artois understood at once. Maurice had had Hermione's letter. He had

known they were coming from Africa, and he had gone to the fair despite

that knowledge. He had gone with the girl who wept and prayed beside the

sea.

His hand closed over the paper.

"What is it, Emile? What have you picked up?"

"Only a little bit of paper."

He spoke quietly, tore it into tiny fragments and let them go upon the

wind.

"When will you come with me, Hermione? When shall we go to Italy?"

"I am saying 'a rivederci' now"--she dropped her voice--"and buon

riposo."

The white fragments blew away into the gathering night, separated from

one another by the careful wind.

* * * * * Three days later Hermione and Artois left Sicily, and Gaspare, leaning

out of the window of the train, looked his last on the Isle of the

Sirens. A fisherman on the beach by the inlet, not Salvatore, recognized

the boy and waved a friendly hand. But Gaspare did not see him.