A Spirit in Prison Part 45

Now was he not transferring something else from the mother to the child?

CHAPTER XV

Artois had intended to go that evening to the island. But he did not fulfil his intention. When the sun began to sink he threw a light coat over his arm and walked down to the harbor of Santa Lucia. A boatman whom he knew met him and said:

"Shall I take you to the island, Signore?"

Artois was there to take a boat. He meant to say yes. Yet when the man spoke he answered no. The fellow turned away and found another customer.

Two or three minutes later Artois saw his boat drawing out to sea in the direction of Posilipo. It was a still evening, and very clear after the storm of the preceding night. Artois longed to be in that travelling boat, longed to see the night come from the summit of the island with Hermione and Vere. But he resisted the sea, its wide peace, its subtle summons, called a carriage and drove to the Galleria. Arrived there, he took his seat at a little table outside the "Gran Caffe," ordered a small dinner, and, while he was eating it, watched the people strolling up and down, seeking among them for a figure that he knew.

As the hour drew near for the music to begin, and the girls dressed in white came out one by one to the platform that, surrounded by a white railing edged with red velvet, is built out beyond the caffe to face the crowd, the number of promenaders increased, and many stood still waiting for the first note, and debating the looks of the players. Others thronged around Artois, taking possession of the many little tables, and calling for ices, lemon-water, syrups, and liqueurs. Priests, soldiers, sailors, students, actors--who a.s.semble in the Galleria to seek engagements--newsboys, and youths whose faces suggested that they were "ruffiani," mingled with foreigners who had come from the hotels and from the s.h.i.+ps in the harbor, and whose demeanor was partly curious and partly suspicious, as of one who longs to probe the psychology of a thief while safely guarding his pockets. The buzz of voices, the tramp of feet, gained a peculiar and vivid sonorousness from the high and vaulted roof; and in the warm air, under the large and winking electric lights, the perpetually moving figures looked strangely capricious, hungry, determined, furtive, ardent, and intent. On their little stands the electric fans whirred as they slowly revolved, casting an artificial breeze upon pallid faces, and around the central dome the angels with gilded wings lifted their right arms as if pointing the unconscious mult.i.tude the difficult way to heaven.

A priest sat down with two companions at the table next to Artois.

He had a red cord round his s.h.a.ggy black hat. His face was like a parroquet's, with small, beady eyes full of an unintellectual sharpness.

His plump body suggested this world, and his whole demeanor, the movements of his dimpled, dirty hands, and of his protruding lips, the att.i.tude of his extended legs, the pose of his coa.r.s.e shoulders, seemed hostile to things mystical. He munched an ice, and swallowed hasty draughts of iced water, talking the while with a sort of gluttonous vivacity. Artois looked at him and heard, with his imagination, the sound of the bell at the Elevation, and saw the bowed heads of the crouching wors.h.i.+ppers. The irony of life, that is the deepest mystery of life, came upon him like the wave of some Polar sea. He looked up at the gilded angels, then dropped his eyes and saw what he had come to see.

Slowly threading her way through the increasing throng, came the old woman whom he had watched so often and by whom he had been watched.

To-night she had on her summer dress, a respectable, rather s.h.i.+ny gown of grayish mauve, a bonnet edged with white ribbon, a pair of white thread gloves. She carried her little bag and a small j.a.panese fan.

Walking in a strange, flat-footed way that was peculiar to her, and glancing narrowly about her, yet keeping her hand almost still, she advanced towards the band-stand. As she came opposite to Artois the orchestra of women struck up the "Valse Noir," and the old woman stood still, impeded by the now dense crowd of listeners. While the demurely sinister music ran its course, she remained absolutely immobile. Artois watched her with a keen interest.

It had come into his mind that she was the aunt of Peppina, the disfigured girl, who perhaps to-night was sleeping in the Casa del Mare with Vere.

Presently, attracted, no doubt, by his gaze, the old woman looked across at Artois and met his eyes. Instantly a sour and malignant expression came into her long, pale face, and she drew up a corner of her upper lip, as a dog sometimes does, showing a tooth that was like a menace.

She was secretly cursing Artois.

He knew why. Encouraged by his former observation of her, she had scented a client in him and had been deceived, and this deception had bred within her an acrid hatred of him. To-night he would chase away that hatred. For he meant to speak to her. The old woman looked away from him, holding her head down as if in cold disdain. Artois read easily what was pa.s.sing in her mind. She believed him wicked, but nervous in his wickedness, desirous of her services but afraid to invite them. And she held him in the uttermost contempt. Well, to-night he would undeceive her on one point at least. He kept his eyes upon her so firmly that she looked at him again. This time he made a sign of recognition, of understanding. She stared as if in suspicious amazement.

He glanced towards the dome, then at her once more. At this moment the waiter came up. Artois paid his bill slowly and ostentatiously. As he counted out the money upon the little tray he looked up once, and saw the eyes in the long, pale face of the venerable temptress glitter while they watched. The music ceased, the crowd before the platform broke up, and began quickly to melt away. Only the woman waited, holding her little bag and her cheap j.a.panese fan.

Artois drew out a cigar, lit it slowly, then got up, and began to move out among the tables.

The priest looked after him, spoke rapidly to his companions, and burst into a throaty laugh which was loudly echoed.

"Maria Fortunata is in luck to-night!" said some one.

Then the band began again, the waiter came with more ices, and the tall, long-bearded forestiere was forgotten.

Without glancing at the woman, Artois strolled slowly on. Many people looked at him, but none spoke to him, for he was known now, as each stranger who stays long in Naples is known, summed up, labelled, and either ignored or pestered. The touts and the ruffiani were aware that it was no use to pester the Frenchman, and even the decrepit and indescribably seedy old men who hover before the huge plate-gla.s.s windows of the photograph shops, or linger near the entrance to the cinematograph, never peeped at him out of the corners of their bloodshot eyes or whispered a word of the white slaves in his ear.

When he was beneath the dome, and could see the light gleaming upon the wings of the pointing angels, Artois seemed to be aware of an individual step among the many feet behind him, a step soft, furtive, and obstinate, that followed him like a fate's. He glanced up at the angels.

A melancholy and half-bitter smile came to his lips. Then he turned to the right and made his way still slowly towards the Via Roma, always crowded from the early afternoon until late into the night. As he went, as he pushed through the mob of standing men at the entrance of the Galleria, and crossed the street to the far side, from which innumerable narrow and evil-looking alleys stretch away into the darkness up the hill, the influence of the following old woman increased upon him, casting upon him like a mist her hateful eagerness. He desired to be rid of it, and, quickening his walk, he turned into the first alley he came to, walked a little way up it, until he was in comparative solitude and obscurity, then stopped and abruptly turned.

The s.h.i.+ny, grayish mauve gown and the white-trimmed bonnet were close to him. Between them he faintly perceived a widely smiling face, and from this face broke at once a sickly torrent of speech, half Neapolitan dialect, half b.a.s.t.a.r.d French.

"Silenzio!" Artois said, sternly.

The old harridan stopped in surprise, showing her tooth.

"What has become of Peppina?"

"Maria Santissima!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, moving back a step in the darkness.

She paused. Then she said:

"You know Peppina!"

She came forward again, quite up to him, and peered into his face, seeking there for an ugly truth which till now had been hidden from her.

"What had you to do with Peppina?"

"Nothing. Tell me about her, and--"

He put his hand to the inside pocket of his coat, and showed her the edge of a little case containing paper notes. The woman misunderstood him. He knew that by her face, which for the moment was as a battle-field on which l.u.s.t fought with a desperate anger of disappointment. Then cunning came to stop the battle.

"You have heard of Peppina, Signore? You have never seen her?"

Artois played with her for a moment.

"Never."

Her smile widened. She put up her thin hands to her hair, her bonnet, coquettishly.

"There is not a girl in Naples as beautiful as Peppina. Mother of--"

But the game was too loathsome with such a player.

"Beautiful! Macche!"

He laughed, made a gesture of pulling out a knife and smas.h.i.+ng his face with it.

"Beautiful! Per Dio!"

The coquetry, the cunning, dropped out of the long, pale face.

"The Signore knows?"

"Ma si! All Naples knows."

The old woman's face became terrible. Her two hands shot up, dropped, shot up again, imprecating, cursing the world, the sky, the whole scheme of the universe, it seemed. She chattered like an ape. Artois soothed her with a ten-lire note.

That night, when he went back to the hotel, he had heard the aunt's version of Peppina, and knew--that which really he had known before--that Hermione had taken her to live on the island.

Hermione! What was she? An original, clever and blind, great-hearted and unwise. An enthusiast, one created to be carried away.

Never would she grow really old, never surely would the primal fires within her die down into the gray ashes that litter so many of the hearths by which age sits, a bleak, uncomely shadow.