The Call of the Blood

The mischief, the coquettish joy of the boys increased. They snapped

their fingers more loudly, swayed their bodies, poised themselves first

on one foot, then on the other, then abruptly, and with a wildness that

was like the sudden crash of all the instruments in an orchestra breaking

in upon the melody of a solitary flute, burst into the full frenzy of the

dance. And in the dance each seemed to be sportively creative, ruled by

his own sweet will.

"That's why I love the tarantella more than any other dance," Hermione

murmured to her husband, "because it seems to be the invention of the

moment, as if they were wild with joy and had to show it somehow, and

showed it beautifully by dancing. Look at Gaspare now."

With his hands held high above his head, and linked together, Gaspare was

springing into the air, as if propelled by one of those boards which are

used by acrobats in circuses for leaping over horses. He had thrown off

his hat, and his low-growing hair, which was rather long on the forehead,

moved as he sprang upward, as if his excitement, penetrating through

every nerve in his body, had filled it with electricity. While Hermione

watched him she almost expected to see its golden tufts give off sparks

in response to the sparkling radiance that flashed from his laughing

eyes. For in all the wild activity of his changing movements Gaspare

never lost his coquettish expression, the look of seductive mischief that

seemed to invite the whole world to be merry and mad as he was. His

ever-smiling lips and ever-smiling eyes defied fatigue, and his young

body--grace made a living, pulsing, aspiring reality--suggested the

tireless intensity of a flame. The other boys danced well, but Gaspare

outdid them all, for they only looked gay while he looked mad with joy.

And to-day, at this moment, he felt exultant. He had a padrona to whom he

was devoted with that peculiar sensitive devotion of the Sicilian which,

once it is fully aroused, is tremendous in its strength and jealous in

its doggedness. He was in command of Lucrezia, and was respectfully

looked up to by all his boy friends of Marechiaro as one who could

dispense patronage, being a sort of purse-bearer and conductor of rich

forestieri in a strange land. Even Sebastiano, a personage rather apt to

be a little haughty in his physical strength, and, though no longer a

brigand, no great respecter of others, showed him to-day a certain

deference which elated his boyish spirit. And all his elation, all his

joy in the present and hopes for the future, he let out in the dance. To

dance the tarantella almost intoxicated him, even when he only danced it

in the village among the contadini, but to-day the admiring eyes of his

padrona were upon him. He knew how she loved the tarantella. He knew,

too, that she wanted the padrone, her husband, to love it as she did.

Gaspare was very shrewd to read a woman's thoughts so long as her love

ran in them. Though but eighteen, he was a man in certain knowledge. He

understood, almost unconsciously, a good deal of what Hermione was

feeling as she watched, and he put his whole soul into the effort to

shine, to dazzle, to rouse gayety and wonder in the padrone, who saw him

dance for the first time. He was untiring in his variety and his

invention. Sometimes, light-footed in his mountain boots, with an almost

incredible swiftness and vim, he rushed from end to end of the terrace.

His feet twinkled in steps so complicated and various that he made the

eyes that watched him wink as at a play of sparks in a furnace, and his

arms and hands were never still, yet never, even for a second, fell into

a curve that was ungraceful. Sometimes his head was bent whimsically

forward as if in invitation. Sometimes he threw his whole body backward,

exposing his brown throat, and staring up at the sun like a sun

worshipper dancing to his divinity. Sometimes he crouched on his

haunches, clapping his hands together rhythmically, and, with bent knees,

shooting out his legs like some jovially grotesque dwarf promenading

among a crowd of Follies. And always the spirit of the dance seemed to

increase within him, and the intoxication of it to take more hold upon

him, and his eyes grew brighter and his face more radiant, and his body

more active, more utterly untiring, till he was the living embodiment

surely of all the youth and all the gladness of the world.