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diff --git a/old/daphn10.txt b/old/daphn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a668e79 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/daphn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3402 @@ +Project Gutenberg Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral, by Marg. Sherwood + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Johnson, sljhnsn@ma.ultranet.com + + + + + +DAPHNE, AN AUTUMN PASTORAL + +by Margaret Sherwood + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"Her Excellency,--will she have the politeness," said Daphne +slowly, reading from a tiny Italian-English phrase-book, "the +politeness to"--She stopped helpless. Old Giacomo gazed at her +with questioning eyes. The girl turned the pages swiftly and +chose another phrase. + +"I go," she announced, "I go to make a walk." + +Light flashed into Giacomo's face. + +"Si, si, Signorina; yes, yes," he assented with voice and +shoulders and a flourish of the spoon he was polishing. +"Capisco; I understand." + +Daphne consulted her dictionary. + +"Down there," she said gravely, pointing toward the top of the +great hiII on whose side the villa stood. + +"Certainly," answered Giacomo with a bow, too much pleased by +understanding when there was no reason for it to be captious in +regard to the girl's speech. "The Signorina non ha paura, not +'fraid?" + +"I'm not afraid of anything," was the answer in English. The +Italian version of it was a shaking of the head. Then both +dictionary and phrase-book were consulted. + +"To return," she stated finally, "to return to eat at six hours." +Then she looked expectantly about. + +"Assunta?" she said inquiringly, with a slight shrug of her +shoulders, for other means of expression had failed. + +"Capisco, capisco," shouted Giacomo in his excitement, trailing +on the marble floor the chamois skin with which he had been +polishing the silver, and speaking in what seemed to his listener +one word of a thousand +syllables. + +"The-Signorina-goes-to-walk-upon-the-hills-above-the-villa-becaus +e-it-is-a-most-beautiful-day.-She-returns-to-dine-at-six-and-wish +es-Assunta-to-have-dinner-prepared.-Perhaps-the-Signorina-would- +tell-what-she-would-like-for-her-dinner?-A-roast-chicken,-yes?- +A-salad,-yes?" + +Daphne looked dubiously at him, though he had stated the case +with entire accuracy, and had suggested for her solitary meal +what she most liked. There was a slight pucker in her white +forehead, and she vouchsafed no answer to what she did not +understand. + +"Addio, addio," she said earnestly. + +"A rivederla!" answered Giacomo, with a courtly sweep of the +chamois skin. + +The girl climbed steadily up the moist, steep path leading to the +deep shadow of a group of ilex trees on the hill. At her side a +stream of water trickled past drooping maidenhair fern and over +immemorial moss. Here and there it fell in little cascades, +making a sleepy murmur in the warm air of afternoon. + +Halfway up the hill Daphne paused and looked back. Below the +yellow walls of the Villa Accolanti, standing in a wide garden +with encompassing poplars and cypresses, sketched great grassy +slopes and gray-green olive orchards. The water from the stream, +gathered in a stone basin at the foot of the hill, flowed in a +marble conduit through the open hall. As she looked she was +aware of two old brown faces anxiously gazing after her. Giacomo +and Assunta were chattering eagerly in the doorway, the black of +his butler's dress and the white of his protecting apron making +his wife's purple calico skirt and red shoulder shawl look more +gay. They caught the last flutter of the girl's blue linen gown +as it disappeared among the ilexes. + +"E molto bello, very beautiful, the Signorina," remarked Assunta. +"What gray eyes she has, and how she walks!" + +"But she knows no speech," responded her husband. + +"Ma che!" shouted Assunta scornfully, "she talks American. You +couldn't expect them to speak like us over there. They are not +Romans in America." + +"My brother Giovanni is there," remarked Giacomo. "She could +have learned of him." + +"She is like the Contessa," said Assunta. "You would know they +are sisters, only this one is younger and has something more +sweet." + +"This one is grave," objected Giacomo as he polished. "She does +not smile so much. The Contessa is gay. She laughs and sings +and her cheeks grow red when she drinks red wine, and her hair is +more yellow." + +"She makes it so!" snapped Assunta. + +"I have heard they all do in Rome," said Giacomo. "Some day I +would like to go to see." + +"To go away, to leave this girl here alone with us when she had +just arrived!" interrupted Assunta. "I have no patience with +the Contessa." + +"But wasn't his Highness's father sick? And didn't she have to +go? Else they wouldn't get his money, and all would go to the +younger brother. You don't understand these things, you women." +Giacomo's defense of his lady got into his fingers, and added +much to the brightness of the spoons. The two talked together +now, as fast as human tongues could go. + +Assunta. She could have taken the Signorina. + +Giacomo. She couldn't. It's fever. + +Assunta. She could have left her maid. + +Giacomo. Thank the holy father she didn't! + +Assunta. And without a word of language to make herself +understood. + +Giacomo. She can learn, can't she? + +Assunta. And with the cook gone, too! It's a great task for us. + +Giacomo. You'd better be about it!... Going walking alone in +the hills! And calling me "Excellency." There's no telling what +Americans will do. + +Assunta. She didn't know any better. When she has been here a +week she won't call you Excellency"! I must make macaroni for +dinner. + +Giacomo. Ma che! Macaroni? Roast chicken and salad. + +Assunta. Niente! Macaroni! + +Giacomo. Roast chicken! You are a pretty one to take the place +of the cook! + +Assunta. Roast chicken then! But what are you standing here for +in the hall polishing spoons? If the Contessa could see you! + +Assunta dragged her husband by the hem of his white apron through +the great marble-paved dining-room out into the smoke-browned +kitchen in the rear. + +"Now where's Tommaso, and how am I going to get my chicken?" she +demanded. "And why, in the name of all the saints, should an +American signorina's illustrious name be Daphne?" + + +CHAPTER II + +An hour later it was four o'clock. High, high up among the +sloping hills Daphne sat on a great gray stone. Below her, out +beyond olive orchards and lines of cypress, beyond the distant +stone pines, stretched the Campagna, rolling in, like the sea +that it used to be, wave upon wave of color, green here, but +purple in the distance, and changing every moment with the +shifting shadows of the floating clouds. Dome and tower there, +near the line of shining sea, meant Rome. + +Full sense of the enchantment of it all looked out of the girl's +face. Wonder sat on her forehead, and on her parted lips. It +was a face serious, either with persistent purpose or with some +momentary trouble, yet full of an exquisite hunger for life and +light and space. Eyes and hair and curving cheek,--all the +girl's sensitive being seemed struggling to accept the gift of +beauty before her, almost too great to grasp. + +"After this," she said half aloud, her far glance resting on Rome +in the hazy distance, "anything is possible." + +"I don't seem real," she added, touching her left hand with the +forefinger of her right. "It is Italy, ITALY, and that is Rome. +Can all this exist within two weeks of the rush and jangle of +Broadway?" + +There was no answer, and she half closed her eyes, intoxicated +with beauty. + +A live thing darted across her foot, and she looked down to catch +a glimpse of something like a slender green flame licking its way +through the grass. + +"Lizards crawling over me unrebuked," she said smiling. "Perhaps +the millenium has come." + +She picked two grass blades and a single fern. + +They aren't real, you know," she said, addressing herself. "This +is all too good to be true. It will fold up in a minute and move +away for the next act, and that will be full of tragedy, with an +ugly background." + +The heights still invited. She rose, and wandered on and up. Her +step had the quick movement of a dweller in cities, not the slow +pace of those who linger along country roads, keeping step with +nature. In the cut and fashion of her gown was evinced a +sophistication, and a high seriousness, possibly not her own. + +She watched the deep imprint that her footsteps made in the soft +grass. + +"I'm half afraid to step on the earth here," she murmured to +herself. "It seems to be quivering with old life." + +The sun hung lower in the west. Of its level golden beams were +born a thousand shades of color on the heights and in the hollows +of the hills. Over all the great Campagna blue, yellow, and +purple blended in an autumn haze. + +"Oh!" cried the girl, throwing out her arms to take in the new +sense of life that came flooding in upon her. "I cannot take it +in. It is too great." + + +As she climbed, a strength springing from sheer delight in the +wide beauty before her came into her face. + +"It was selfish, and I am going to take it back. To-night I will +write and say so. I could face anything now." + +This hill, and then the side of that; one more gate, then Daphne +turned for another look at Rome and the sea. Rome and the sea +were gone. Here was a great olive orchard, there a pasture +touching the sky, but where was anything belonging to her? +Somewhere on the hills a lamb was bleating, and near the crickets +chirped. Yes, it was safe, perfectly safe, yet the blue gown +moved where the heart thumped beneath it. + +A whistle came floating down the valley to her. It was merry and +quick, but it struck terror to the girl's breast. That meant a +man. She stood and watched, with terrified gray eyes, and +presently she saw him: he was crashing through a heavy +undergrowth of bush and fern not far away. Daphne gathered her +skirts in one hand and fled. She ran as only an athletic girl +can run, swiftly, gracefully. Her skirt fluttered behind her; her +soft dark hair fell and floated on the wind. + +The whistle did not cease, though the man was motionless now. It +changed from its melody of sheer joy to wonder, amazement, +suspense. It took on soothing tones; it begged, it wheedled. So +a mother would whistle, if mothers whistled, over the cradle of a +crying child, but the girl did not stop. She was running up a +hill, and at the top she stood, outlined in blue, against a bluer +sky. A moment later she was gone. + +Half an hour passed. Cautiously above the top of the hill +appeared a girl's head. She saw what she was looking for: the +dreaded man was sitting on the stump of a felled birch tree, +gazing down the valley, his cheeks resting on his hands. Daphne, +stealing behind a giant ilex, studied him. He wore something +that looked like a golf suit of brownish shade; a soft felt hat +drooped over his face. The girl peered out from her hiding place +cautiously, holding her skirts together to make herself slim and +small. It was a choice of evils. On this side of the hill was a +man; on that, the whole wide world, pathless. She was hopelessly +lost. + +"No bad man could whistle like that," thought Daphne, caressingly +touching with her cheek the tree that protected her. + +Once she ventured from her refuge, then swiftly retreated. +Courage returning, she stepped out on tiptoe and crept softly +toward the intruder. She was rehearsing the Italian phrases she +meant to use. + +"Where is Rome?" she asked pleadingly, in the Roman tongue. + +The stranger rose, with no sign of being startled, and removed +his hat. Then Daphne sighed a great sigh of relief, feeling that +she was safe. + +"Rome," he answered, in a voice both strong and sweet, "Rome has +perished, and Athens too." + +"Oh"--said the girl. "You speak English. If you are not a +stranger here, perhaps you can tell me where the Villa Accolanti +is." + +"I can," he replied, preparing to lead the way. + +Daphne looked at him now. He was different from any person she +had ever seen. Face and head belonged to some antique type of +virile beauty; eyes, hair, and skin seemed all of one golden +brown. He walked as if his very steps were joyous, and his whole +personality seemed to radiate an atmosphere of firm content. The +girl's face was puzzled as she studied him. This look of simple +happiness was not familiar in New York. + +They strode on side by side, over the slopes where the girl had +lost her way. Every moment added to her sense of trust. + +"I am afraid I startled you," she said, "coming up so +softly." + +"No," he answered smiling. "I knew that you were behind the +ilex." + +"You couldn't see!" + +"I have ways of knowing." + +He helped her courteously over the one stone wall they had to +climb, but, though she knew that he was watching her, he made no +attempt to talk. At last they reached the ilex grove above the +villa, and Daphne recognized home. + +"I am grateful to you," she said, wondering at this unwonted +sense of being embarrassed. "Perhaps, if you will come some day +to the villa for my sister to thank you"-- The sentence broke +off. "I am Daphne Willis," she said abruptly, and waited. + +"And I am Apollo," said the stranger gravely. + +"Apollo--what?" asked the girl. Did they use the old names over +here? + +"Phoebus Apollo," he answered, unsmiling. "Is America so modern +that you do not know the older gods?" + +"Why do you call me an American?" + +A smile flickered across Apollo's lips. + +"A certain insight goes with being a god." + +Daphne started back and looked at him, but the puzzled scrutiny +did not deepen the color of his brown cheek. Suddenly she was +aware that the sunlight had faded, leaving shadow under the +ilexes and about the fountain on the hill. + +"I must say good-night," she said, turning to descend. + +He stood watching every motion that she made until she +disappeared within the yellow walls of the villa. + + +CHAPTER III + +Through the great open windows of the room night with all her +stars was shining. Daphne sat by a carved table in the salon, +the clear light of a four-flamed Roman lamp falling on her hair +and hands. She was writing a letter, and, judging by her +expression, letter writing was a matter of life and death. + +"I am afraid that I was brutal," the wet ink ran. "Every day on +the sea told me that. I was cowardly too." + +She stopped to listen to the silence, broken only by the murmur +of insects calling to each other in the dark. Suddenly she +laughed aloud. + +"I ought never to have gone so far away," she remarked to the +night. "What would Aunt Alice say? Anyway he is a gentleman, +even if he is a god!" + +"For I thought only of myself," the pen continued, "and ignored +the obligations I had accepted. It is for you to choose whether +you wish the words of that afternoon unsaid." + +The letter signed and sealed, she rose with a great sigh of +relief, and walked out upon the balcony. Overhead was the deep +blue sky of a Roman night, broken by the splendor of the stars. +She leaned over the stone railing of the balcony, feeling beneath +her, beyond the shadow of the cypress trees, the distance and +darkness of the Campagna. There was a murmur of water from the +fountain in the garden, and from the cascades on the hill. + +"If he were Apollo," she announced to the listening stars, "it +would not be a bit more wonderful than the rest of it. This is +just a different world, that is all, and who knows whom I shall +meet next? Maybe, if I haunt the hills, Diana will come and +invite me to go a-hunting. Perhaps if Anna had stayed at home +this world would seem nearer." + +She came back into the salon, but before she knew it, her feet +were moving to a half-remembered measure, and she found herself +dancing about the great room in the dim light, the cream-colored +draperies of her dinner gown moving rhythmically after her. +Suddenly she stopped short, realizing that her feet were keeping +pace with the whistling of this afternoon, the very notes that +had terrified her while the stranger was unseen. She turned her +attention to a piece of tapestry on the wall, tracing the faded +pattern with slim fingers. For the twentieth time her eyes +wandered to the mosaic floor, to the splendid, tarnished mirrors +on the walls, to the carved chairs and table legs, wrought into +cunning patterns of leaf and stem. + +"Oh, it is all perfect! and I've got it all to myself!" she +exclaimed. + +Then she seated herself at the table again and began another +letter. + + + +Padre mio,--It is an enchanted country! You never saw such +beauty of sky and grass and trees. These cypresses and poplars +seem to have been standing against the blue sky from all +eternity; time is annihilated, and the gods of Greece and Rome +are wandering about the hills. + +Anna has gone away. Her father-in-law is very ill, and naturally +Count Accolanti is gone too. Even the cook has departed, because +of a family crisis of his own. I am here with the butler and his +wife to take care of me, and I am perfectly safe. Don't be +alarmed, and don't tell Aunt Alice that the elaborate new gowns +will have no spectators save two Roman peasants and possibly a +few sheep. Anna wanted to send me an English maid from Rome, but +l begged with tears, and she let me off. Assunta is all I need. +She and Giacomo are the real thing, peasants, and absolutely +unspoiled. They have never been five miles away from the estate, +and I know they have all kinds of superstitions and beliefs that +go with the soil. I shall find them out when I can understand. +At present we converse with eyes and fingers, for our six weeks' +study of Italian has not brought me knowledge enough to order my +dinner. + +Padre carissimo, I've written to Eustace to take it all back. I +am afraid you won't like it, for you seemed pleased when it was +broken off, but I was unkind and I am sorry, and I want to make +amends. You really oughtn't to disapprove of a man, you know, +just because he wants altar candles and intones the service. And +I think his single-minded devotion is beautiful. You do not know +what a refuge it has been to me through all Aunt Alice's +receptions and teas. + +Do leave New York, and come and live with me near ancient Rome. +We can easily slip back two thousand years. + +I am your spoiled daughter, Daphne + + +There was a knock at the door. + +"Avanti," called the girl. + +Assunta entered, with a saffron-colored night-cap on. In her +hand she held Giacomo's great brass watch, and she pointed in +silence to the face, which said twelve o'clock. She put watch +and candle on the table, marched to the windows, and closed and +bolted them all. + +"The candles are lighted in the Signorina's bedroom," she +remarked. + +"Thank you," said Daphne, who did not understand a word. + +"The bed is prepared, and the night things are put out." + +"Yes?" answered Daphne, smiling. + +"The hot water will be at the door at eight in the morning." + +"So many thanks!" murmured Daphne, not knowing what favor was +bestowed, but knowing that if it came from Assunta it was good. + +"Good-night, Signorina." + +The girl's face lighted. She understood that. + +"Good-night," she answered, in the Roman tongue. + +Assunta muttered to herself as she lighted her way with her +candle down the long hall. + +"Molto intelligente, la Signorina! Only here three days, and +already understands all." + +"You don't need speech here," said Daphne, pulling aside the +curtains of her tapestried bed a little later. "The Italians can +infer all you mean from a single smile." + +Down the road a peasant was merrily beating his donkey to the +measure of the tune on his lips. Listening, and turning over +many questions in her mind, Daphne fell asleep. A flood of +sunshine awakened her in the morning, and she realized that +Assunta was drawing the window curtains. + +"Assunta," asked the girl, sitting up in bed and rubbing her +eyes, "are there many Americans here?" + +"Si," answered Assunta, "very many." + +"And many English?" + +"Too many," said Assunta. + +"Young ones?" asked the girl. + +Assunta shrugged her shoulders. + +"Young men?" inquired Daphne. + +The peasant woman looked sharply at her, then smiled. + +"I saw one man yesterday," said Daphne, her forehead puckered +painfully in what Assunta mistook for a look of fear. Her +carefully prepared phrases could get no nearer the problem she +wished solved. + +"Ma che! agnellina mia, my little lamb!" cried the peasant +woman, grasping Daphne's hand in order to kiss her fingers, "you +are safe, safe with us. No Americans nor English shall dare to +look at the Signorina in the presence of Giacomo and me." + + +CHAPTER IV + +lt was not a high wall, that is, not very high. Many a time in +the country Daphne had climbed more formidable ones, and there +was no reason why she should not try this. No one was in sight +except a shepherd, watching a great flock of sheep. There was a +forgotten rose garden over in that field; had Caesar planted it, +or Tiberius, centuries ago? Certainly no one had tended it for a +thousand years or two, and the late pink roses grew unchecked. +Daphne slowly worked her way to the top of the wall; this close +masonry made the proceeding more difficult than it usually was at +home. She stood for a moment on the summit, glorying in the +widened view, then sprang, with the lightness of a kitten, to the +other side. There was a skurry of frightened sheep, and then a +silence. + +She knew that she was sitting on the grass, and that her left +wrist pained. Some one was coming toward her. + +"Are you hurt?" asked Apollo anxiously. + +"Not at all," she answered, continuing to sit on the grass. + +"lf you were hurt, where would it be?" + +"In my wrist," said the girl, with a little groan. + +The questioner kneeled beside her, and Daphne gave a start of +surprise that was touched with fear. + +"It isn't you?" she stammered. "You aren't the shepherd?" + +A sheepskin coat disguised him. The rough hat was of soft +drooping felt, like that of any shepherd watching on the hills, +and in his hand he held a crook. An anxious mother-sheep was +sniffing eagerly at his pockets, remembering gifts of +salt. + +"Apollo was a shepherd," said Daphne slowly, with wonder in her +face. "He kept the flocks of King Admetus." + +"You seem to be well read in the classical dictionary," remarked +the stranger, with twinkling eyes. "You have them in America +then?" + +He was examining her wrist with practiced fingers, touching it +firmly here and there. + +"We have everything in America," said the girl, eyeing him +dubiously. + +"But no gods except money, I have heard." + +"Yes, gods, and impostors too," she answered significantly. + +"So I have heard," said Apollo, with composure. + +The maddening thing was that she could not look away from him-- +some radiance of life in his face compelled her eyes. He had +thrown his hat upon the grass, and the girl could see strength +and sweetness and repose in every line of forehead, lip, and +chin. There was pride there, too, and with it a slight leaning +forward of the head. + +"I presume that comes from listening to beseeching prayers," she +was thinking to herself. + +"Ow!" she remarked suddenly. + +"That is the place, is it?" + +He drew from one of the pockets of the grotesque coat a piece of +sheepskin, which he proceeded to cut into two strips with his +knife. + +"It seems to be a very slight sprain," remarked Apollo. "I must +bandage it. Have you any pins about you?" + +"Can the gods lack pins?" asked the girl, smiling. She searched, +and found two in her belt, and handed them to him. + +"The gods do not explain themselves," he answered, binding the +sheepskin tightly about her wrist. + +"So I observe," she remarked dryly. + +"Is that right?" he asked. "Now, when you reach home, you must +remove the bandage and hold your hand and wrist first in very hot +water, then in cold. Is there some one who can put the bandage +back as I have it? See, it simply goes about the wrist, and is +rather tight. You must pardon my taking possession of the case, +but no one else was near. Apollo has always been something of a +physician, you know." + +"You apparently used the same classical dictionary that I did," +retorted Daphne. "I remember the statement there." + +Then she became uncomfortable, and wished her words unsaid, for +awe had come upon her. After all, nothing could be more unreal +than she was to herself in these days of wonder. Her mind was +full of dreams as they sat and watched white clouds drifting over +the deep blue of the sky. Near them the sheep were cropping +grass, and all the rest was silence. + +"You look anxious," said the physician. "Is it the +wrist?" + +"No," answered the girl, facing him bravely, under the momentary +inspiration of a wave of common sense, "I am wondering why you +make this ridiculous assumption about yourself. Tell me who you +really are." + +If he had defended himself she would have argued, but he was +silent and she half believed. + +"But you look like a mortal," she protested, answering her own +thoughts. "And you wear conventional clothing. I don't mean +this sheepskin, but the other day." + +"It is a realistic age," he answered, smiling. "People no longer +believe what they do not see. We are forced to adopt modern +methods and modern costume to show that we exist." + +"You do not look like the statue of Apollo," ventured +Daphne. + +"Did people ever dare tell the truth about the gods? Never! +They made up a notion of what a divine nose should be and +bestowed it upon all the gods impartially. So with the forehead, +so with the hair. I assure you, Miss Willis, we are much more +individual than Greek art would lead you to expect." + +"Do you mind just telling me why you are keeping sheep now?" + +"I will, if you will promise not to consider a question of mine +impertinent." + +"What is the question?" + +"I only wished to know why an American young lady should bear a +Greek name? It is a beautiful name, and one that is a favorite +of mine as you may know." + +"I didn't know," said Daphne. "It was given me by my father. He +was born in America, but he had a Greek soul. He has always +longed to live in Greece, but he has to go on preaching, +preaching, for he is a rector, you know, in a little church in +New York, that isn't very rich, though it is very old. All his +life he has been hungry for the beauty and the greatness of the +world over here." + +"That accounts for your expression," observed Apollo. + +"What expression?" + +"That isn't the question I promised to answer. If you will take +a few steps out of your way, I can satisfy you in regard to the +first one you asked." + +He rose, and the white shepherd dog sprang ahead, barking +joyously. The sheep looked up and nibbled in anxious haste, +fearing that any other bit of pasture might be less juicy than +this. Daphne followed the shepherd god to a little clump of oak +trees, where she saw a small, rough gray tent, perhaps four feet +in height. Under it, on brown blankets, lay a bearded man, whose +eyes lighted at Apollo's approach. A blue bowl with a silver +spoon in it stood on the ground near his head, and a small heap +of charred sticks with an overhanging kettle showed that cooking +had been done there. + +"The shepherd has a touch of fever," explained the guide. +"Meanwhile, somebody must take care of the sheep. I am glad to +get back my two occupations as shepherd and physician at the same +time." + +The dog and his master accompanied her part way down the hill, +and the girl was silent, for her mind was busy, revolving many +thoughts. At the top of the last height above the villa she +stopped and looked at her companion. The sun was setting, and a +golden haze filled the air. It ringed with light the figure +before her, standing there, the face, with its beauty of color, +and its almost insolent joyousness, rising above the rough +sheepskin coat. + +"Who are you?" she gasped, terrified. "Who are you, really?" The +confused splendor dazzled her eyes, and she turned and ran +swiftly down the hill. + + +CHAPTER V + +"A man is ill," observed Daphne, in the Roman tongue. + +"What?" demanded Giacomo. + +"A man is ill," repeated Daphne firmly. She had written it out, +and she knew that it was right. + +"Her mind wanders," Giacomo hinted to his wife. + +"No, no, no! It's the Signorina herself," cried Assunta, whose +wits were quicker than her husband's. "She is saying that she is +ill. What is it, Signorina mia? Is it your head, or your back, +or your stomach? Are you cold? Have you fever?" + +"Si," answered Daphne calmly. The answer that usually quieted +Assunta failed now. Then she tried the smile. That also failed. + +"Tell me," pleaded Assunta, speaking twice as fast as usual, in +order to move the Signorina's wits to quicker understanding. "If +the Signorina is ill the Contessa will blame me. It is measles +perhaps; Sor Tessa's children have it in the village." She felt +of the girl's forehead and pulse, and stood more puzzled than +before. + +"The Signorina exaggerates, perhaps?" she remarked in +question. + +"Thank you!" said Daphne beseechingly. + +That was positively her last shot, and if it missed its aim she +knew not what to do. She saw that the two brown faces before her +were full of apprehension, and she came back to her original +proposition. + +"A man is ill." + +The faces were blank. Daphne hastily consulted her phrase-book. + +"I wish food," she remarked glibly. "I wish soup, and fish, and +red wine and white, and everything included, tutto compreso." + +The brown eyes lighted; these were more familiar terms. + +"Now?" cried Assunta and Giacomo in one breath, "at ten o'clock +in the morning?" + +"Si," answered Daphne firmly, "please, thank you." And she +disappeared. + +An hour later they summoned her, and looked at her in +bewilderment when she entered the dining-room with her hat on. +Giacomo stood ready for service, and the Signorina's soup was +waiting on the table. + +The girl laughed when she saw it. + +"Per me? No," she said, touching her dress with her finger; "for +him, up there," and she pointed upward. + +Giacomo shook his head and groaned, for his understanding was +exhausted. + +"I go to carry food to the man who is ill," recited Daphne, her +foot tapping the floor in impatience. She thrust her phrase-book +out toward Giacomo, but he shook his head again, being one whose +knowledge was superior to the mere accomplishment of reading. + +Daphne's short skirt and red felt hat disappeared in the kitchen. +Presently she returned with Assunta and a basket. The two +understood her immediate purpose now, however bewildering the +ultimate. They packed the basket with a right good will: red +wine in a transparent flask, yellow soup in a shallow pitcher, +bread, crisp lettuce, and thin slices of beef. Then Daphne gave +the basket to Giacomo and beckoned him to come after her. + +He climbed behind his lady up the narrow path by the waterfalls +through damp grass and trickling fern, then up the great green +slope toward the clump of oak trees. By the low gray tent they +halted, and Giacomo's expression changed. He had not understood +the Signorina, he said hastily, and he begged the Signorina's +pardon. She was good, she was gracious. + +"Speak to him," said Daphne impatiently; "go in, give him food." + +He lifted the loose covering that served as the side of a tent, +and found the sick man. Giacomo chattered, his brown fingers +moving swiftly by way of punctuation. The sick man chattered, +too, his fingers moving more slowly in their weakness. Giacomo +seemed excited by what he heard, and Daphne, watching from a +little distance, wondered if fever must not increase under the +influence of tongues that wagged so fast. She strolled away, +picking tiny, pink-tipped daisies and blue succory blossoms +growing in the moist green grass. From high on a distant +hillside, among his nibbling sheep, the shepherd +watched. + +Giacomo presently stopped talking and fed the invalid the soup +and part of the wine he had brought. He knew too much, as a wise +Italian, to give a sick man bread and beef. Then he made +promises of blankets, and of more soup to-morrow, tucked the +invalid up again, and prepared to go home. On the way down the +hill he was explosive in his excitement; surely the Signorina +must understand such vehement words. + +"The sheep are Count Gianelli's sheep," he shouted. "I knew the +sheep before, and there isn't a finer flock on the hills. This +man is from Ortalo, a day's journey. The Signorina understands?" + +She smiled, the reassuring smile that covers ignorance. Then she +came nearer, and bent her tall head to listen. + +"His name is Antoli," said Giacomo, speaking more distinctly. +"Four days ago he fell ill with fever and with chills. He lay on +the ground among the sheep, for he had only his blanket that the +shepherds use at night. The sheep nibbled close to him, and +touched his face with their tongues, and bit off hairs from his +head as they cropped the grass, but they did not care. Sheep +never do! Ah, how a dog cares! The Signorina wishes to hear the +rest?" + +Daphne nodded eagerly, for she had actually understood several +sentences. + +"The second day he felt a warm tongue licking his face, and there +were paws on his breast as he waked from sleep. It was a white +dog. He opened his eyes, and there before him was a Signorino, +young, beautiful as a god, in a suit of brown. Since then Antoli +has wanted nothing, food, nor warm covering, nor medicine, nor +kind words. The Signorino wears his sheepskin coat and tends his +sheep!" + +Giacomo's voice was triumphant with delight as he pointed toward +the distant flock with the motionless attendant. The girl's face +shone, half in pleasure, half in fear. "Beautiful as a god" was +more like the Italian she had read in her father's study in New +York than were the phrases Giacomo and Assunta employed for every +day. She had comprehended all of her companion's excitement, and +many of his words, for much of the story was already hers. + +"Giacomo," she said, speaking slowly, "are the gods here yet?" + +The old peasant looked at her with cunning eyes, and made with +his fingers the sign of the horn that wards off evil. + +"Chi lo sa? Who knows, Signorina?" he said, half whispering. +"There are stories--I have heard--the Signorina sees these ilex +trees? Over yonder was a great one in my father's day, and the +old Count Accolanti would have it cut. He came to watch it as it +fell, and the tree tumbled the wrong way and struck him so that +he half lost his wits. There are who say that the tree god was +angry. And I have heard about the streams, too, Signorina; when +they are turned out of their course, they overflow and do damage, +and surely there used to be river gods. I do not know; I cannot +tell. The priest says they are all gone since the coming of our +Lord, but I wouldn't, not for all the gold in Rome, I wouldn't +see this stream of the waterfalls turned away from flowing down +the hill and through the house. What there is in it I do not +know, but in some way it is alive." + +"Thank you!" said Daphne. The look on her face pleased the old +man. + +"I think I prefer her to the Contessa after all," said Giacomo +that afternoon to Assunta as he was beating the salad dressing +for dinner. + +"She is simpatica! It is wonderful how she understands, though +she cannot yet talk much. But her eyes speak." + +They served her dinner with special care that night, for kindness +to an unfortunate fellow peasant had won what still needed +winning of their hearts. She sat alone in the great dining-hall, +with Giacomo moving swiftly about her on the marble floor. On +the white linen and silver, on her face and crimson gown, gleamed +the light of many candles, standing in old-fashioned branching +candlesticks. She pushed away her soup; it seemed an intrusion. +Not until she heard Giacomo's murmur of disappointment as she +refused salad did she rouse herself to do justice to the dressing +he had made. Her eyes were the eyes of one living in a dream. +Suddenly she wakened to the fact that she was hungry, and Giacomo +grinned as she asked him to bring back the roast, and let him +fill again with cool red wine the slender glass at her right +hand. When the time for dessert came, she lifted a bunch of +purple grapes and put them on her plate, breaking them off slowly +with fingers that got stained. + +"I shall wake up by and by!" she said, leaning back in her carved +Florentine chair. "Only I hope it may be soon. Otherwise," she +added, nibbling a bit of ginger, unconscious that her figures +were mixed, "I shall forget my way back to the world." + + +CHAPTER VI + +There were two weeks of golden days. The sun rose clear over the +green hills behind the villa, and dropped at night into the blue +sea the other side of Rome. Daphne counted off the minutes in +pulse beats that were actual pleasure. Between box hedges, past +the clusters of roses, chrysanthemums, and dahlias in the villa +garden, she walked, wondering that she had never known before +that the mere crawling of the blood through the veins could mean +joy. She was utterly alone, solitary, speechless; there were +moments when the thought of her sister's present trouble, and of +the letter she was expecting from New York, would take the color +from the sky; but no vexatious thought could long resist the +enchantment of this air, and she forgot to be unhappy. She saw +no more of the shepherd god, but always she was conscious of a +presence in the sunshine on the hills. + +On the eighth morning, as she paced the garden walks, a lizard +scampered from her path, and she chased it as a five year old +child might have done. A slim cypress tree stood in her way; she +grasped it in her arms, and held it, laying her cheek against it +as if it were a friend. Some new sense was dawning in her of +kinship with branch and flower. She was forgetting how to think; +she was Daphne, the Greek maiden, whose life was half the life of +a tree. + +When she took her arms from the tree she saw that he was there, +looking at her from over the hedge, with the golden brown lights +in eyes and hair, and the smile that had no touch of amusement in +it, only of happiness. + +"Sometimes," he murmured, "you remind me of Hebe, but on the +whole, I think you are more like my sister Diana." + +"Tell me about Diana," begged Daphne, coming near the hedge and +putting one hand on the close green leaves. + +"We were great friends as children," observed Apollo. "It was I +who taught her how to hunt, and we used to chase each other in +the woods. When I went faster then she did, she used to get +angry and say she would not play. Oh, those were glorious +mornings, when the light was clear at dawn!" + +"Why are you here?" asked Daphne abruptly, "and, if you will +excuse me, where did you come from?" + +"Surely you have heard about the gods being exiled from Greece! +We wander, for the world has cast us out. Some day they will +need us again, and will pluck the grass from our shrines, and +then we shall come back to teach them." + +"Teach them what?" asked the girl. She could make out nothing +from the mystery of that face, and besides, she did not dare to +look too closely. + +"I should teach them joy," he answered simply. + +They were so silent, looking at each other over the dark green +hedge, that the lizards crept back in the sunshine close to their +feet. Daphne's blue gown and smooth dark hair were outlined +against the deep green of her cypress tree. A grapevine that had +grown about the tree threw the shadow of delicate leaf and +curling tendril on her pale cheek and scarlet lips. The +expression of the heathen god as he looked at her denoted entire +satisfaction. + +"I know what you would teach them," she said slowly. "You would +show them how to ignore suffering and pain. You would turn your +back on need. Oh, that makes me think that I have forgotten to +take your friend Antoli any soup lately! For three days I took +it, and then, and then--I have been worried about things." + +His smile was certainly one of amusement now. + +"You must pardon me for seeming to change the subject," he said. +"Why should you worry? There is nothing in life worth worrying +about." + +Fine scorn crept into the girl's face. + +"No," he continued, answering her expression. "I don't ignore. I +am glad because I have chosen to be glad, and because I have won +my content. There is a strenuous peace for those who can fight +their way through to it." + +Suddenly, through the beauty of his color, the girl saw, graven +as with a fine tool upon his face, a story of grief mastered. In +the lines of chin and mouth and forehead it lurked there, half +hidden by his smile. + +"Tell me," said Daphne impulsively. Her hand moved nearer on the +hedge, but she did not know it. He shook his head, and the veil +dropped again. + +"Why tell?" he asked. "Isn't there present misery enough before +our eyes always, without remembering the old?" + +She only gazed at him, with a puzzled frown on her forehead. + +"So you think it is your duty to worry?" he asked, the joyous +note coming back into his voice. + +Daphne broke into a smile. + +"I suppose I do," she confessed. "And it's so hard here. I keep +forgetting." + +"Why do you want to remember?" + +"It is so selfish not to." + +He nodded, with an air of ancient wisdom. + +"I have lived on this earth more years than you have, some +thousands, you remember, and I can assure you that more people +forget their fellows because of their own troubles than because +of their own joys." + +The girl pulled at a tendril of the vine with her fingers, eyeing +her companion keenly. + +"I presume," she said, with a tremor in her voice, "that you are +an Englishman, or an American who has studied Greek thought +deeply, being tired of modern people and modern ways, and that +you are trying to get back to an older, simpler way of +living." + +"It has ever been the custom," said Apollo, gently taking the +tendril of the vine from her fingers, "for a nation to refuse to +believe the divinity of the others' gods." + +"Anyway," mused the girl, not quite conscious that she was +speaking aloud, "whatever you think, you are good to the +shepherd." + +He laughed outright. + +"I find that most people are better than their beliefs," he +answered. "Now, Miss Willis, I wonder if I dare ask you +questions about the way of living that has brought you to believe +in the divine efficacy of unhappiness." + +"My father is a clergyman," answered the girl, with a smile. + +"Exactly!" said the heathen god. + +"We have lived very quietly, in one of the streets of older New +York. I won't tell you the number, for of course it would not +mean anything to you." + +"Of course not," said Apollo. + +"He is rector of a queer little old-fashioned church that has +existed since the days of Washington. It is quaint and +irregular, and I am very fond of it." + +"It isn't the Little Church of All the Saints?" demanded her +companion. + +"It is. How did you know?" + +"Divination," he answered. + +"Oh!" said Daphne. "Why don't you divine the rest?" + +"I should rather hear you tell it, if you don't mind." + +"I have studied with my father a great deal," she went on. "And +then, there have been a great many social things, for I have an +aunt who entertains a great deal, and she always needs me to help +her. That has been fun, too." + +"Then it has been religion and dinners," he summarized +briefly. + +"It has." + +"With a Puritan ancestry, I suppose?" + +"For a god," murmured Daphne, "it seems to me you know a great +deal too much about some things, and not enough about others." + +"I have brought you something," he said, suddenly changing the +subject. + +He lifted the sheepskin coat and held out to her a tiny lamb, +whose heavy legs hung helpless, and whose skin shone pink through +the little curls of wool. The girl stretched out her arms and +gathered the little creature in them. + +"A warm place to lie, and warm milk are what it needs," he said. +"It was born out of its time, and its mother lies dead on the +hills. Spring is for birth, not autumn." + +Daphne watched him as he went back to his sheep, then turned +toward the house. Giacomo and Assunta saw her coming in her blue +dress between the beds of flowers with the lambkin in her arms. + +"Like our Lady!" said Assunta, hurrying to the rescue. + +The two brown ones asked no questions, possibly because of the +difficulty of conversing with the Signorina, possibly from some +profounder reason. + +"Maybe the others do not see him," thought the girl in +perplexity. "Maybe I dream him, but this lamb is real." + +She sat in the sun on the marble steps of the villa, the lamb on +her lap. A yellow bowl of milk stood on the floor, close to the +little white head that dangled from her blue knee. Daphne, +acting on Assunta's directions, curled one little finger under +the milk and offered the tip of it to the lamb to suck. He +responded eagerly, and so she wheedled him into forgetfulness of +his dead mother. + +An hour later, as she paced the garden paths, a faint bleat +sounded at the hem of her skirt, and four unsteady legs supported +a weak little body that tumbled in pursuit of her. + + +CHAPTER VII + +Up the long smooth road that lay by the walls of the villa came +toiling a team of huge grayish oxen, with monstrous spreading +horns tied with blue ribbons. The cart that they drew was filled +with baskets loaded with grapes, and a whiff of their fragrance +smote Daphne's nostrils as she walked on the balcony in the +morning air. + +"Assunta, Assunta!" she cried, leaning over the gray, moss-coated +railing, "what is it?" + +Assunta was squatting on the ground in the garden below, digging +with a blunt knife at the roots of a garden fern. There was a +gray red cotton shawl over her head, and a lilac apron upon her +knees. + +"It's the vintage, Signorina," she answered, "the wine makes +itself." + +"Everything does itself in this most lazy country," remarked +Daphne. "Dresses make themselves, boots repair themselves, food +eats itself. There's just one idiom, si fa,"-- + +"What?" asked Assunta. + +"Reflections," answered the girl, smiling down on her. "Assunta, +may I go and help pick grapes?" + +"Ma che!" screamed the peasant woman, losing her balance in her +sudden emotion and going down on her knees in the loosened soil. + +"The Signorina, the sister of the Contessa, go to pick grapes in +the vineyard?" + +"Si'" answered Daphne amiably. Her face was alive with laughter. + +"But the Contessa would die of shame!" asserted Assunta, rising +with bits of dirt clinging to her apron, and gesticulating with +the knife. "It would be a scandal, and all the pickers would +say, 'Behold the mad English-Woman!'" + +She looked up beseechingly at her mistress. She and Giacomo +never could tell beforehand which sentences the Signorina was +going to understand. + +"Come with me!" coaxed the girl. + +"But does the Signorina want to"-- + +"I want everything!" Daphne interrupted. "Grapes and flowers and +wine and air and sunshine. I want to see and feel and taste and +touch and smell everything there is. The days are too short to +take it all in. Hurry!" + +As most of this outburst was in English, Assunta could do nothing +but look up with an air of deepened reproach. Daphne disappeared +from the railing, and a minute later was at Assunta's +side. + +"Come, come, come!" she cried, pulling her by the lilac apron. +"Our time is brief, and we must gather rosebuds while we may. I +am young and you are old, and neither of us has any time to +lose." + +Before she knew it, Assunta was trotting meekly down the road at +the young lady's heels, carrying a great flat basket for the +Signorina's use in picking grapes. + +They were bound for the lower slopes; the grapes ripened earlier +there, the peasant woman explained, and the frosts came later. +The loaded wagons that they met were going to Arata, a wine press +in the valley beyond this nearest hill. Perhaps the Signorina +would like to go there to see the new wine foaming in the vat? +Strangers often went to see this. + +Daphne's blood went singing through her veins with some new sense +of freedom and release, for the gospel of this heathen god was +working in her pulses. Wistfully her eyes wandered over the +lovely slopes with their clothing of olive and of vine, and up +and down the curling long white roads. At some turning of the +way, or at some hilltop where the road seemed to touch the blue +sky, surely she would see him coming with that look of divine +content upon his face! + +Suddenly she realized that they were inside the vineyard walls, +for fragrance assailed her nostrils, fragrance of ripened grapes, +of grapes crushed under foot as the swift pickers went snipping +the full purple bunches with their shears. + +"I shall see Bacchus coming next," she said to herself, but +hoping that it would not be Bacchus. "He will go singing down +the hill with the Maenads behind him, with fluttering hair and +draperies." + +It was not nearly so picturesque as she had hoped, she confessed +to herself, as her thoughts came down to their customary level. +The vineyard of her dreams, with its long, trailing vines, was +not found in this country; there were only close-clipped plants +trained to stakes. But there was a sound of talking and of +laughter, and the pickers, moving among the even lines in their +gay rags, lent motley color to the picture. There was scarlet of +waistcoat or of petticoat, blue and saffron of jacket and apron, +and a blending of all bright tints in the kerchiefs above the +hair. The rich dark soil made a background for it all: the +moving figures, the clumps of pale green vine leaves, the great +baskets of piled-up grapes. + +Assunta was chattering eagerly with a young man who smiled, and +took off his hat to the Signorina, and said something polite, +with a show of white teeth. Daphne did not know what it was, but +she took the pair of scissors that were given her, and began to +cut bunch after bunch of grapes. If she had realized that the +peasant woman, her heart full of shame, had confessed to the +overseer her young lady's whim, and had won permission for her to +join the ranks of the pickers, she might have been less happy. +As it was, she noticed nothing, but diligently cut her grapes, +piling them, misty with bloom, flecked with gold sunlights, in +her basket. Then she found a flat stone and sat on it, watching +the workers and slowly eating a great bunch of grapes. She had +woven green leaves into the cord of her red felt hat; the +peasants as they passed smiled back to her in swift recognition +of her friendliness and charm. + +Her thoughts flamed up within her with sudden anger at herself. +This vivid joy in the encompassing beauty had but one meaning: it +was her sense of the glad presence of this new creature, man or +god, who seemed continually with her, were he near or far. + +"I'm as foolish as a sixteen-year-old girl," she murmured, +fingering the grapes in the basket with their setting of green +leaves, "and yet, and yet he isn't a man, really; he is only a +state of mind!" + +She sat, with the cool air of autumn on her cheeks, watching the +pickers, who went with even motion up the great slope. Sometimes +there was silence on the hillside; now and then there was a +fragment of song. One gay, tripping air, started by three women +who stood idle with arms akimbo for a moment on the hillside, was +caught up and echoed back by invisible singers on the other side +of the hill. And once the red-cheeked Italian lads who were +carrying loaded baskets down toward the vineyard gates burst into +responsive singing that made her think that she had found, on the +Roman hills, some remnant of the old Bacchic music, of the +alternate strains that marked the festival of the god of wine. +It was something like this:-- + +Carlo. "Of all the gifts of all the gods I choose the ruddy +wine. The brimming glass shall be my lot"-- + +Giovanni (interrupting). "Carlotta shall be mine! "Take you the +grape, I only ask The shadow of the vine To screen Carlotta's +golden head"-- + +Carlo (interrupting). "Give me the ruddy wine." + +Together. G. "Carlotta shall be mine!" C. "Give me the ruddy +wine!" + + +Assunta was visibly happy when the Signorina signified her +willingness to go home. The pride of the house servant was +touched by being compelled to come too closely in contact with +the workers in the fields, and where is there pride like that of +a peasant? But her joy was short-lived. Outside the great iron +gates stood a team of beautiful fawn-colored oxen, with spotless +flanks, and great, blue, patient eyes looking out from under +broad foreheads. They were starting, with huge muscles quivering +under their white skin, to carry a load of grapes to the wine +press, the yield of this year being too great for the usual +transportation on donkey back. + +"Assunta, I go too," cried Daphne. + +Five minutes later the Signorina, with her unwilling handmaid at +her side, rode in triumph up the broad highway with the measured +motion of slow oxen feet. Place had been made for them among the +grape baskets, and they sat on folded blankets, Assunta's face +wearing the expression of one who was a captive indeed, the +Signorina's shining with simple happiness and somewhat stained by +grapes. + +The wine press was nothing after all but a machine, and though a +certain interest attached to the great vats, hollowed out in the +tufa rock, into which the new-made wine trickled, Daphne soon +signified her willingness to depart. Before she left they +brought her a great glass of rich red grape juice fresh from the +newly crushed grapes. She touched her lips to it, then looked +about her. Assunta was talking to the workman who had given it +to her, and he was looking the other way. She feasted her eyes +on the color of the thing she held in her hand. It was a rough +glass whose shallow bowl had the old Etruscan curves of beauty, +and the crimson wine caught the sunlight in a thousand ways. +Bending over, she poured it out slowly on the green grass. + +"A libation to Apollo," she said, not without reverence. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"I shall call you," said Daphne to the lamb on the fourth day of +his life with her, "I shall call you Hermes, because you go so +fast." + +Very fast indeed he went. By garden path, or on the slopes below +the villa, he followed her with swift gallop, interrupted by many +jumps and gambols, and much frisking of his tail. If he lost +himself in his wayward pursuit of his mistress, a plaintive bleat +summoned her to his side. On the marble stairs of the villa, +even in the sacred precincts of the salon, she heard the tinkle +of his hard little hoofs, and she had no courage to turn him +back. He bleated so piteously outside the door when his lady +dined that at last he won the desire of his heart and lapped milk +from a bowl on the floor at her side as she ate her salad or +broke her grapes. + +"What scandal!" muttered Giacomo every time he brought the bowl. +The Contessa would discharge him if she knew! But he always +remembered, even if Daphne forgot, and meekly dried the milk from +his sleek black trousers whenever Hermes playfully dashed his +hoof, instead of his nose, into the bowl. As Giacomo explained +to Assunta in the kitchen, it was for the Signorina, and the +Signorina was very lonely. + +She was less lonely with Hermes, for he spoke her language. + +"It is almost time to hear from Eustace," Daphne told him one +day, as she sat on a stone under an olive tree in the orchard +below the house. Hermes stood before her, his head down, his +tail dejectedly drooped. + +"Perhaps," she added, dreamily looking up at the blue sky through +its broken veil of gray-green olive leaves, "perhaps he does not +want me back, and the letter will tell me so." + +Hermes gave an incredible jump high in the air, lighted on his +four feet, pranced, gamboled, curveted. + +"It is very hard to know one's duty or to do it, Hermes," said +Daphne, patting his woolly brow. Hermes intimated, by means of +frisking legs and tail, that he would not try. + +"I believe you are bewitched," said the girl, suddenly taking him +up in her arms. "I believe you are some little changeling god +sent by your master Apollo to put his thoughts into my head." + +He squirmed, and she put him down. Then she gave him a harmless +slap on his fleecy side. + +"But you aren't a good interpreter, Hermes. Some way I think +that his joyousness lies the other side of pain. He never ran +away from hard things." + +This was more than the lambkin could understand or bear, and he +fled, hiding from her in the tall fern of a thicket in a corner +of the field. + +The days were drifting by too fast. Already the Contessa +Accolanti had been away three weeks, and her letters held out no +hope of an immediate return. Giacomo and Assunta were very sorry +for their young mistress, not knowing how little she was sorry +for herself, and they tried to entertain her. They had none of +the hard exclusiveness of English servants, but admitted her +generously to such of their family joys as she would share. +Giacomo introduced her to the stables and the horses; Assunta +initiated her into some of the mysteries of Italian cooking. +Tommaso, the scullion, and Pia, the maid, stood by in grinning +delight one day when the Contessa's sister learned to make +macaroni. + +"Now I know," said Daphne, after she had stood for half an hour +under the smoke-browned walls of the kitchen watching Assunta's +manipulation of eggs and flour, the long kneading, the rolling +out of a thin layer of dough, with the final cutting into thin +strips; "to make Sunday and festal-day macaroni you take all the +eggs there are, and mix them up with flour, and do all that to +it; and then you boil it on the stove, and make a sauce for it +out of everything there is in the house, bits of tomato, and +parsley, and onion, and all kinds of meat. E vero?." + +"Si," said Assunta, marveling at the patois that the Signorina +spoke, and wondering if it contained Indian words. + +The very sight of the rows of utensils on the kitchen walls +deepened the rebellious mood of this descendant of the Puritans. + +"Even the pots and pans have lovely shapes," said Daphne +wistfully, for the slender necks, the winning curves, the lines +of shallow bowl and basin bore testimony to the fact that the +meanest thought of this people was a thought of beauty. "I +wonder why the Lord gave to them the curve, to us the angle?" + +When the macaroni was finished, Assunta invited the Signorina to +go with her to a little house set by itself on the sloping hill +back of the kitchen. + +"E carin', eh?" demanded Assunta, as she opened the +door. + +Fragrance met them at the threshold, fragrance of fruit and of +honey. The warm sun poured in through the dirty, cobwebbed +window when Assunta lifted the shade. Ranged on shelves along +the wall stood bottles of yellow oil; partly buried in the ground +were numerous jars of wine, bottles and jars both keeping the +beautiful Etruscan curves. On shallow racks were spread bunches +of yellow and of purple grapes, and golden combs of honey gleamed +from dusky corners. + +"Ecco!" said Assunta, pointing to the wine jar from which she had +been filling the bottle in her hand. "The holy cross! Does the +Signorina see it?" + +"Si," said Daphne. + +"And here also?" asked Assunta, pointing to another. + +The girl nodded doubtfully. Two irregular scratches could, by +imaginative vision, be translated into a cross. + +"As on every one, Signorina," said Assunta triumphantly. "And +nobody puts it there. It comes by itself." + +"Really?" asked the girl. + +"Veramente," replied the peasant woman. "It has to, and not only +here, but everywhere. You see, years and years ago, there were +heathen spirits in the wine, and they made trouble when our Lord +came. I have heard that the jars burst and the wine was wasted +because the god of the wine was angry that the real God was born. +And it lasted till San Pietro came and exorcised the wicked +spirit, and he put a cross on a wine jar to keep him away. Since +then every wine jar bears somewhere the sign of the cross." + +"What became of the poor god?" asked Daphne. + +"He fled, I suppose to hell," answered Assunta piously. + +"Poor heathen gods!" murmured Daphne. + +The sunshine, flooding the little room, fell full on her face, +and made red lights in her brown hair. + +"There was a god of the sun, too, named Apollo," she said, +warming her hands in level rays. " Was he banished too?" + +Assunta shrugged her shoulders. + +"Who knows? They dare not show their faces here since the Holy +Father has blessed the land." + +Hermes bleated at the door, and the trio descended the hill +together, Assunta carrying a basket of grapes and a bottle of +yellow oil, Daphne with a slender flask of red wine in her hand. + +The next day the heavens opened, and rain poured down. The +cascades above the villa became spouting waterfalls; the narrow +path beside them a leaping brook. The rain had not the steady +and persistent motion of well-conducted rain; it came in sheets, +blown by sudden gusts against the windows, or driven in wild +spurts among the cypresses. The world from the villa windows +seemed one blur of watery green, with a thin gray veil of mist to +hide it. + +Daphne paced the mosaic floors in idleness, or spelled out the +meaning of Petrarchan sonnets in an old vellum copy she had found +in the library. Sometimes she sat brooding in one of the faded +gilt and crimson chairs in the salon, by the diminutive fireplace +where two or three tiny twigs burned out their lives in an +Italian thought of heat. + +What did a Greek god do when sunshine disappeared? she wondered. +Or had the god of the sun gone away altogether, and was this +deluge the result? The shepherd Antoli had been taken home, +Giacomo assured her, but he was exceedingly reticent when asked +who was herding the sheep, only shrugging his shoulders with a +"Chi Io sa?" + +On the second day of the rain Daphne saw that the flock had come +near the house. From the dining-room window she could see the +sheep, with water soaking into their thick wool. Some one was +guarding them. With little streams dashing from the drooping +felt hat to the sheepskin clad shoulders, the keeper stood, +motionless in the pelting rain. The sheep ate greedily the wet, +juicy grass, while the shepherd leaned on his staff and watched. +Undoubtedly it was Antoli's peasant successor, Daphne thought, as +she stood with her face to the dripping window pane. Then the +shepherd turned, and she recognized, under the wet hat brim, the +glowing color and undaunted smile of her masquerading god. +Whether he saw her or not she could not tell, but she stood by +the storm-washed window in her scarlet house gown and watched, +longing to give him shelter. + + +CHAPTER IX + +He came to her next through music, when the rain clouds had +broken away. That divine whistle, mellow, mocking, irresistible, +still was heard when morning lay on the hills. Often, when +afternoon had touched all the air to gold, when the shadows of +chestnut and cypress and gnarled olive lay long on the grass, +other sounds floated down to Daphne, music from some instrument +that she did not know. It was no harp, surely, yet certain +clear, ranging notes seemed to come from the sweeping of harp +strings; again, it had all the subtle, penetrating melody of the +violin. Whatever instrument gave it forth, it drew the girl's +heart after it to wander its own way. When it was gay it won her +feet to some dance measure, and all alone in the great empty +rooms she would move to it with head thrown back and her whole +body swaying in a new sense of rhythm. When it was sad, it set +her heart to beating in great throbs, for then it begged and +pleaded. There was need in it, a human cry that surely was not +the voice of a god. It spoke out of a great yearning that +answered to her own. Whether it was swift or slow she loved it, +and waited for it day by day, thinking of Apollo and his harping +to the muses nine. + +So her old life and her old mood slipped away like a garment no +longer needed: her days were set to melody, and her nights to +pleasant dreams. The jangle of street cars and the twinges of +conscience, the noises of her native city, and her heart +searchings in the Little Church of All the Saints faded to the +remoteness of a faint gray bar of cloud that makes the sunset +brighter in the west. She went singing among the olives or past +the fountain under the ilexes on the hill: duties and +perplexities vanished in the clear sunshine and pleasant shadow +of this golden world. + +And all this meant that she had forgotten about the mails. She +had ceased to long for letters containing good news, or to fear +that one full of bad tidings would come, and every one knows that +such a state of mind as this is serious. Now, when Assunta found +her one morning, pacing the long, frescoed hall, by the side of +the running water, and put a whole sheaf of letters into her +hand, Daphne looked at them cautiously, and started to open one, +then lost her courage and held them for a while to get used to +them. Finally she went upstairs and changed her dress, putting on +her short skirt and red felt hat, and walked out into the highway +with Hermes skipping after her. She walked rapidly up the even +way, under the high stone walls green with overhanging ivy and +wistaria vines, and the lamb kept pace with her with his gay +gallop, broken now and then by a sidelong leap of sheer joy up +into the air. Presently she found a turning that she had not +known before, marked by a little wayside shrine, and taking it, +followed a narrow grass-grown road that curled about the side of +a hill. + +She read her father's letter first, walking slowly and smiling. +If he were only here to share this wide beauty! Then she read +her sister's, which was full of woeful exclamations and bad news. +The sick man was slowly dying, and they could not leave him. +Meanwhile she was desolated by thinking of her little sister. Of +course she was safe, for Giacomo and Assunta were more +trustworthy than the Italian government, but it must be very +stupid, and she had meant to give Daphne such a gay time at the +villa. She would write at once to some English friends at Lake +Scala, ten miles away, to see if they could not do something to +relieve her sister's solitude. + +"To relieve my solitude!" gasped Daphne. "Oh I am so afraid +something will!" + +There were several other letters, all from friends at home. One, +in a great square envelope, addressed with an English scrawl, she +dreaded, and she kept it for the last. When she did tear it open +her face grew quite pale. There was much in it about duty and +consecration, and much concerning two lives sacrificed to the +same great ideal. It breathed thoughts of denial and of +annihilation of self, and,--yes, Eustace took her at her word and +was ready to welcome again the old relation. If she would permit +him, he would send back the ring. + +Hermes hid behind a stone and dashed out at his mistress to +surprise her, expecting to be chased as usual, but Daphne could +not run. With heavy feet and downcast eyes she walked along the +green roadway, then, when her knees suddenly became weak, sat +down on a stone and covered her face with her hands. She had not +known until this moment how she had been hoping that two and two +would not make four; she had not really believed that this could +be the result of her letter of atonement. Her soul had traveled +far since she wrote that letter, and it was hard to find the way +back. Hiding the brown and purple distances of the Campagna came +pictures of dim, candle-lighted spaces, of a thin face with a +setting of black and white priestly garments, and in her ears was +the sound of a voice endlessly intoning. It made up a vision of +the impossible. + +She sat there a long, long time, and when she wakened to a +consciousness of where she was, it was a whining voice that +roused her. + +"Signorina, for the love of heaven, give me a few soldi, for I am +starving." + +Daphne looked up and was startled, and yet old beggar women were +common enough sights here among the hills. This one had an evil +look, with her cunning, half-shut eyes. + +The girl shook her head. + +"I have no money with me," she remarked. + +"But Signorina, so young, so beautiful, surely she has money with +her." A dirty brown hand came all too close to Daphne's face, +and she sprang to her feet. + +"I have spoken," she said severely, giving a little stamp. "I +have none. Now go away." + +The whining continued, unintermittent. The old woman came +closer, and her hand touched the girl's skirt. Wrenching herself +away, Daphne found herself in the grasp of two skinny arms, and +an actual physical struggle began. The girl had no time for +fear, and suddenly help came. A firm hand caught the woman's +shoulder, and the victim was free. + +"Are you hurt?" asked Apollo anxiously. + +She shook her head, smiling. + +"Frightened?" + +"No. Don't you always rescue me?" + +"But this is merest accident, my being here. It really isn't +safe for you alone on these roads." + +"I knew you were near." + +"And yet, I have just this minute come round the hill. You could +not possibly have seen me." + +"I have ways of knowing," said Daphne, smiling demurely. + +A faint little bleat interrupted them. + +"Oh, oh!" cried the girl, "she is running away with Hermes!" + +Never did Apollo move more swiftly than he did then! Daphne +followed, with flying feet. He reached the beggar woman, held +her, took the lamb with one hand from her and handed it to +Daphne. There followed a scene which the girl remembered +afterward with a curious sense of misgiving and of question. The +thief gave one glance at the beautiful, angry face of the man, +then fell at his feet, groveling and beseeching. What she was +saying the girl did not know, but her face and figure bore a look +of more than mortal fear. + +"What does she think him?" murmured the girl. Then she turned +away with him, and, with the lamb at their heels, they walked +together back along the grassy road. + +"You look very serious," remarked her protector. "You are sure +it is not fright?" + +She shook her head, holding up her bundle of letters. + +"Bad news?" + +"No, good," she answered, smiling bravely. + +"I hope good news will be infrequent," he answered. "You look +like Iphigenia going to be sacrificed." + +"I will admit that there is a problem," said the girl. "There's +a question about my doing something." + +"And you know it must be right to do it because you hate it?" he +asked. + +She nodded. + +"Don't you think so, too? Now when you answer," she added +triumphantly, "I shall know what kind of god you are." + +They had reached the turning of the ways, and he stopped, as if +intending to leave her. "I cannot help you," he said sadly, "for +I do not know the case. Only, I think it is best not to decide +by any abstruse rule. Life is life's best teacher, and out of +one's last experience comes insight for the next. But don't be +too sure that duty and unhappiness are one." + +She left him, standing by the little wayside shrine with a +strange look on his face. A tortured Christ hung there, casting +the shadow of pain upon the passers-by. The expression in the +brown eyes of the heathen god haunted her all the way down the +hill, and throughout the day: they seemed to understand, and yet +be glad. + + +CHAPTER X + +It was nine o'clock as the Signorina descended the stairs. +Through the open doorway morning met her, crisp and cool, with +sunshine touching grass and green branch, still wet with dew. +The very footfalls of the girl on the shallow marble steps were +eager and expectant, and her face was gayer than those of the +nymphs in the frescoes on the wall. At the bottom of the stairs, +Giacomo met her, his face wreathed in smiles. + +"Bertuccio has returned," he announced. + +"Si, si, Signorina," came the voice of Assunta, who was pushing +her way through the dining-room door behind Giacomo. She had on +her magenta Sunday shawl, and the color of her wrinkled cheeks +almost matched it. + +"What is Bertuccio?" asked the girl. "A kitten?" + +"A kitten!" gasped Assunta. + +"Corpo di Bacco!" swore Giacomo. + +Then the two brown ones devoted mind and body to explanation. +Giacomo gesticulated and waved the napkin he had in his hand; +Assunta shook her black silk apron: and they both spoke at once. + +"Il mio Bertuccio! It is my little son, Signorina, and my only, +and the Signorina has never seen his like. When he was three +years old he wore clothing for five years, and now he is six +inches taller than his father." + +This and much more said Assunta, and she said it as one word. +Giacomo, keeping pace and giving syllable for syllable, +remarked:-- + +"It is our Bertuccio who has been working in a tunnel in the +Italian Alps, and has come home for rest. He is engineer, +Signorina, and has genius. And before he became this he was +guide here in the mountains, and he knows every path, every +stone, every tree." + +"What?" asked Daphne feebly. + +Then, in a multitude of words that darkened knowledge, they said +it all over again. Bertuccio, the light of their eyes, the sole +hope of their old age, had come home. He could be the +Signorina's guide among the hills, being very strong, very +trusty, molto forte, molto fedele. + +"Oh, I know!" cried the Signorina, with a sudden light in her +face. "Bertuccio is your son!" + +"Si, si, si, Signorina!" exclaimed Giacomo and Assunta together, +ushering her into the dining-room. + +"It is the blessed saints who have managed it," added Assunta +devoutly. "A wreath of flowers from Rome, all gauze and +spangles, will I lay at the shrine of our Lady, and there shall +be a long red ribbon to say my thanks in letters of gold." + +The hope of the house was presented to the Signorina after +breakfast. He was a broad-shouldered, round-headed offshoot of +Italian soil, with honest brown eyes like those of both father +and mother. It was a face to be trusted, Daphne knew, and when, +recovering from the embarrassment caused by his parents' pride in +him, he blurted out the fact that he had already been to the +village that morning to find a little donkey for the Signorina's +wider journeyings, the girl welcomed the plan with delight. +Grinning with pride Bertuccio disappeared among the stables, and +presently returned, leading an asinetto. It was a little, +dun-colored thing, wearing a red-tasseled bridle and a small +sheepskin saddle with red girth, but all the gay trappings could +not soften the old primeval sadness of the donkey's face, under +his long, questioning ears. So Daphne won palfrey and +cavalier. + +In the succeeding days the two jogged for hours together over the +mountain roads. Now they followed some grassy path climbing +gently upward to the site of a buried town, where only mound and +gray fragment of stone marked garden and forum. Here was a bit +of wall, with a touch of gay painting mouldering on an inner +surface,--Venus, in robe of red, rising from a daintily suggested +sea in lines of green. They gathered fragments of old mosaic +floor in their hands, blue lapis lazuli, yellow bits of giallo +antico, red porphyry, trodden by gay feet and sad, unnumbered +years ago. They found broken pieces of iridescent glass that had +fallen, perhaps, from shattered wine cups of the emperors, and +all these treasures Bertuccio stored away in his wide pockets. +Again, they climbed gracious heights and looked down over slopes +and valleys, where deep grass grew over rich, crumbling earth, +deposit of dead volcanoes, or saw, circled by soft green hills, +some mountain lake, reflecting the perfect blue of Italian sky. + +Bertuccio usually walked behind; Daphne rode on ahead, with the +sun burning her cheeks, and the air, fragrant with the odor of +late ripening grapes on the upper hillsides, bringing +intoxication. She seemed to herself so much a thing of falling +rain, rich earth, and wakening sunshines that she would not have +been surprised to find the purple bloom of those same grapes +gathering on her cheeks, or her soft wisps of hair curling into +tendrils, or spreading into green vine leaves. They usually came +home in the splendor of sunset, tired, happy, the red of Daphne's +felt hat, the gorgeousness of Bertuccio's blue trousers and +yellow waistcoat lighting the gloom of the cool, green-shaded +ways. Hermes always ran frisking to meet them, outstripping by +his swiftness the slow plodding of the little ass. Perhaps the +lambkin felt the shadow of a certain neglect through these long +absences, but at least he was generous and loved his rival. +Quitting the kitchen and dining-room, he chose for his portion +the pasture where the donkey grazed, in silence and in sadness, +and frisked dangerously near his comrade's heels. For all his +melancholy, the asinetto was not insensible to caresses, and at +night, when the lamb cuddled close to him as the two lay in the +grass in the darkness, would curl his nose round now and then +protectingly to see how this small thing fared. + +So Daphne kept forgetting, forgetting, and nothing recalled her +to her perplexity, except her donkey. San Pietro Martire she +named him, for on his face was written the patience and the +suffering of the saints. Some un-ltalian sense of duty stiffened +his hard little legs, gave rigid strength to his back. Willing +to trudge on with his load, willing to rest, carrying his head a +little bent, blinking mournfully at the world from under the drab +hair on his forehead, San Pietro stood as a type of the +disciplined and chastened soul. His very way of cropping the +grass had something ascetic in it, reminding his mistress of +Eustace at a festive dinner. + +"San Pietro, San Pietro," said Daphne one day, when Bertuccio was +plodding far in the rear, whistling as he followed, "San Pietro, +must I do it?" + +There was a drooping forward of the ears, a slight bending of the +head, as the little beast put forth more strength to meet the +difficulty of rising ground. + +"San Pietro, do you know what you are advising? Do you at all +realize what it is to be a clergyman's wife?" + +The steady straining of the donkey's muscles seemed to say that, +to whatever station in life it pleased Providence to call him, he +would think only of duty. + +Then Daphne alighted and sat on a stone, with the donkey's face +to hers, taking counsel of those long ears which were always +eloquent, whether pricked forward in expectation or laid back in +wrath. + +"San Pietro, if I should give it up, and stay here and live,--for +I never knew before what living is,--if I should just try to keep +this sunshine and these great spaces of color, what would you +think of me?" + +Eyes, ears, and the tragic corners of the mouth revealed the +thought of this descendant of the burden bearers for all the +earth's thousands of years. + +"Little beast, little beast," said Daphne, burying her face in +the brownish fuzz of his neck, and drying her eyes there, "you +are the one thing in this land of beauty that links me with home. +You are the Pilgrim Fathers and the Catechism in one! You are +the Puritan Conscience made visible! I will do it; I promise." + +San Pietro Martire looked round with mild inquiry on his face as +to the meaning and the purpose of caresses in a hard world like +this. + + +CHAPTER XI + +Bertuccio sprawled on his stomach on the grassy floor of the +presence chamber in a palace of the Caesars', kicking with one +idle foot a bit of stone that had once formed the classic nose of +a god. San Pietro Martire was quietly grazing in the long spaces +of the Philosophers' Hall, nibbling deftly green blades of grass +that grew at the bases of the broken pillars. Near by lay the +old amphitheatre, with its roof of blue sky, and its rows of +grassy seats, circling a level stage and pit, and rising, one +above another, in irregular outlines of green. Here, in the spot +on which the central royal seat had once been erected, sat Daphne +on her Scotch plaid steamer blanket: her head was leaning back +against the turf, her lips were slightly parted, her eyes half +closed. She thought that she was meditating on the life that had +gone on in this Imperial villa two thousand years ago: its +banquets, its philosophers' disputes, its tragedies and comedies +played here with tears and laughter. In reality she was half +asleep. + +They were only a half mile from home, measuring by a straight +line through the intervening hill; in time they were two hours +away. San Pietro had climbed gallantly, with little silvery bells +tinkling at his ears, to the summit of the mountain, and had +descended, with conviction and with accuracy, planting firm +little hard hoofs in the slippery path where the dark soil bore a +coating of green grass and moss. For all their hard morning's +work they were still on the confines of the Villa Gianelli, whose +kingdom was partly a kingdom of air and of mountain. + +Drowsing there in the old theatre in the sun, Daphne presently +saw, stepping daintily through one of the entrances at the side, +an audience of white sheep. They overspread the stage, cropping +as they went. They climbed the green encircling seats, leaping +up or down, where a softer tuft of grass invited. They broke the +dreamy silence with the muffled sound of their hoofs, and an +occasional bleat. + +The girl knew them now. She had seen before the brown-faced +twins, both wearing tiny horns; they always kept together. She +knew the great white ewe with a blue ribbon on her neck, and the +huge ram with twisted horns that made her half afraid. Would he +mind Scotch plaid, she wondered, as he raised his head and eyed +her? She sat alert, ready for swift flight up the slope behind +her in case of attack, but he turned to his pasture in the pit +with the air of one ready to waive trifles, and the girl leaned +back again. + +When Apollo, the keeper of sheep, entered, Daphne received his +greeting with no surprise: even if he had come without these +forerunners she would have known that he was near. It was she +who broke the silence as he approached. + +"A theatre seems a singularly appropriate place for you and your +flock," she remarked. "You make a capital actor." + +There was no laughter in his eyes to-day and he did not answer. A +wistful look veiled the triumphant gladness of his face. + +"They didn't play pastorals in olden time, did they?" asked +Daphne. + +"No," he answered, "they lived them. When they had forgotten how +to do that they began to act." + +He took a flute from his pocket and began to play. A cry rang +out through the gladness of the notes, and it brought tears to +the girl's eyes. He stopped, seeing them there, and put the +flute back into his pocket. + +"Did you take my advice the other day?" he asked. + +"The advice was very general," said Daphne. "I presume an +oracle's always is. No, I did not follow it." + +"Antigone, Antigone," he murmured. + +"Why Antigone?" demanded the girl. + +"Because your duty is dearer to you than life, and love." + +"Please go down there," said the girl impetuously, "and play +Antigone for me. Make me see it and feel it. I have been +sitting here for an hour wishing that I could realize here a +tragedy of long ago." + +He bowed submissively. + +"Commands from Caesar's seat must always be obeyed," he observed. +"Do you know Greek, Antigone?" + +She nodded. + +"I know part of this play by heart," she faltered. "My father +taught me Greek words when I was small enough to ride his +foot." + +He stepped down among the sheep to the grassy stage, laying aside +his hat and letting the sun sparkle on his bright hair. The odd +sheepskin coat lent a touch of grotesqueness to his beauty as he +began. + +"'Nay, be thou what thou wilt; but I will bury him: well for me +to die in doing that. I shall rest, a loved one with him whom I +have loved, sinless in my crime; for I owe a longer allegiance to +the dead than to the living: in that world I shall abide +forever.'" + +Slow, full, and sweet the words came, beating like music on the +girl's heart. All the sorrow of earth seemed gathered up in the +undertones, all its hunger and thirst for life and love: in it +rang the voice of a will stronger than death and strong as love. + +The sheep lifted their heads and looked on anxiously, as if for a +moment even the heart of a beast were touched by human sorrow. +From over the highest ridge of this green amphitheatre San Pietro +looked down with the air of one who had nothing more to learn of +woe. Apollo stood in the centre of the stage, taking one voice, +then another: now the angry tone of the tyrant, Creon, now the +wail of the chorus, hurt but undecided, then breaking into the +unspeakable sweetness and firmness of Antigone's tones. The +sheep went back to their nibbling; San Pietro trotted away with +his jingling bells, but Daphne sat with her face leaning on her +hands, and slow tears trickling over her fingers. + +The despairing lover's cry broke in on Antigone's sorrow; Haemon, +"bitter for the baffled hope of his marriage," pleaded with his +father Creon for the life of his beloved. Into his arguments for +mercy and justice crept that cry of the music on the hills that +had sounded through lonely hours in Daphne's ears. It was the +old call of passion, pleading, imperious, irresistible, and the +girl on Caesar's seat answered to it as harp strings answer to +the master's hand. The wail of Antigone seemed to come from the +depths of her own being:-- + +"Bear me witness, in what sort, unwept of friends, and by what +laws I pass to the rock-closed prison of my strange tomb, ah me +unhappy!... No bridal bed, no bridal song hath been mine, no joy +of marriage." + +The sun hung low above the encircling hills when the lover's last +cry sounded in the green theatre, drowning grief in triumph as he +chose death with his beloved before all other good. Then there +was silence, while the round, golden sun seemed resting in a +red-gold haze on the hilltop, and Daphne, sitting with closed +eyes, felt the touch of two hands upon her own. + +"Did you understand?" asked a voice that broke in its tenderness. + +She nodded, with eyes still closed, for she dared not trust them +open. He bent and kissed her hands, where the tears had fallen +on them, then, turning, called his sheep. Three minutes later +there was no trace of him or of them: they had vanished as if by +magic, leaving silence and shadow. The girl climbed the hill +toward home on San Pietro's back, shaken, awed, afraid. + + +CHAPTER XII + +If Bertuccio had but shown any signs of having seen her companion +of yesterday, Daphne's bewilderment would have been less; but to +keep meeting a being who claimed to belong to another world, who +came and went, invisible, it would seem, when he chose, to other +eyes except her own, might well rouse strange thoughts in the +mind of a girl cut off from her old life in the world of +commonplace events. To be sure, the shepherd Antoli had seen +him, but had spoken of him voluntarily as a mysterious creature, +one of the blessed saints come down to aid the sick. The beggar +woman had seen him, but had fallen prostrate at his feet as in +awe of supernatural presence. When the wandering god had talked +across the hedge the eyes of Giacomo and Assunta had apparently +been holden; and now Bertuccio, whose ears were keen, and whose +eyes, in their lazy Italian fashion, saw more then they ever +seemed to, Bertuccio had been all the afternoon within a stone's +throw of the place where the god had played to her, and Bertuccio +gave no sign of having seen a man. She eyed him questioningly as +they started out the next morning on their way to the ruins of +some famous baths on the mountain facing them. + +There was keenness in the autumn air that morning, but the green +slopes far and near bore no trace of flaming color or of decay, +as in fall at home; it was rather like a glimpse of some cool, +eternal spring. A stream of water trickled down under thick +grass at the side of the road, and violets grew there. + +"San Pietro!" said Daphne, with a little tug at the bridle. The +long ears were jerked hastily back to hear what was to come. "I +know you disapprove of me, for you saw it all." + +The ears kept that position in which any one who has ever loved a +donkey recognizes scathing criticism. Daphne fingered one of +them with her free hand. + +"It is only on your back that I feel any strength of mind," she +added. "When I am by myself something seems sweeping me away, as +the tides sweep driftwood out to sea; but here, resolution crawls +up through my body. We must be a new kind of centaur, San +Pietro." + +Suddenly her face went down between his ears. + +"But if you and I united do drive him away, what shall we +do,--afterwards?" + +"Signorina!" called Bertuccio, running up behind them. "Look! +The olives pick themselves." + +At a turn in the road the view had opened. There, in a great +orchard on the side of the hill, the peasants were gathering +olives before the coming of the frost. There were scores of +pickers wearing great gay-colored aprons in which they placed the +olives as they gathered them from the trees. Ladders leaned +against knotty tree trunks; baskets filled with the green fruit +stood on the ground. Ladder and basket suggested the apple +orchards of her native land, but the motley colors of kerchief +and apron, yellow, magenta, turquoise, and green, and the gray of +the eternal olive trees with the deep blue of the sky behind +them, recalled her to the enchanted country where she was fast +losing the landmarks of home. + +"Signorina Daphne," said Bertuccio, speaking slowly as to a +child, "did you ever hear them tell of the maiden on the hills up +here who was carried away by a god?" + +Daphne turned swiftly and tried to read his face. It was no less +expressionless than usual. + +"No," she answered. "Tell me. I am fond of stories." + +They were climbing the winding road again, leaving the olive +pickers behind. Bertuccio walked near, holding the donkey's tail +to steady his steps. + +"It was long ago, ages and ages. Her father had the care of an +olive orchard that was old, older than our Lord," said Bertuccio, +devoutly crossing himself. "There was one tree in it that was +enormously big, as large as this,--see the measure of my arms! It +was open and hollow, but growing as olives will when there is +every reason why they should be dead. One night the family were +eating their polenta--has the Signorina tasted our polenta ? It +makes itself from chestnuts, and it is very good. I must speak +to my mother to offer some to the Signorina. Well, the door +opened without any knocking, and a stranger stood there: he was +young, and beyond humanity, beautiful." + +Bertuccio paused; the girl felt slow red climbing to her cheek. +She dared not look behind, yet she would have given half her +possessions to see the expression of his face. Leaning forward, +she played with the red tassels at San Pietro's ears. + +"Go on! go on!" she commanded. "Avanti!" + +San Pietro thought that the words were meant for him, and indeed +they were more appropriate here for donkey than for man. + +"He sat with them and shared their polenta," continued Bertuccio, +walking more rapidly to keep up with San Pietro's quickened step. +"And he made them all afraid. It was not that he had any +terrible look, or that he did anything strange, only, each +glance, each motion told that he was more than merely man. And +he looked at the maiden with eyes of love, and she at him," said +Bertuccio, lacking art to keep his hearer in suspense. "She too +was beautiful, as beautiful, perhaps, as the Signorina," +continued the story-teller. + +Daphne looked at him sharply: did he mean any further +comparison? There were hot waves now on neck and face, and her +heart was beating furiously. + +"He came often, and he always met the maiden by the hollow tree: +it was large enough for them to stand inside. And her father and +mother were troubled, for they knew he was a god, not one of our +faith, Signorina, but one of the older gods who lived here before +the coming of our Lord. One day as he stood there by the tree +and was kissing the maiden on her mouth, her father came, very +angry, and scolded her, and defied the god, telling him to go +away and never show his face there again. And then, he never +knew how it happened, for the stranger did not touch him, but he +fell stunned to the ground, with a queer flash of light in his +eyes. When he woke, the stars were shining over him, and he +crawled home. But the maiden was gone, and they never saw her +any more, Signorina. Whether it was for good or for ill, she had +been carried away by the god. People think that they disappeared +inside the tree, for it closed up that night, and it never opened +again. Sometimes they thought they heard voices coming from it, +and once or twice, cries and sobs of a woman. Maybe she is +imprisoned there and cannot get out: it would be a terrible +fate, would it not, Signorina? Me, I think it is better to fight +shy of the heathen gods." + +Bertuccio's white teeth showed in a broad smile, but no scrutiny +on Daphne's part could tell her whether he had told his story for +pleasure merely, or for warning. She rode on in silence, +realizing, as she had not realized before, how far this peasant +stock reached back into the elder days of the ancient world. + +"Do you think that your story is true, Bertuccio?" she asked, as +they came in sight of the grass-grown mounds of the buried +watering-place toward which their steps were bent. + +"Ma che!" answered Bertuccio, shrugging his shoulders, and +snapping his fingers meaningly. "So much is true that one does +not see, and one cannot believe all that one does see." + +Daphne started. What HAD he seen? + +"Besides," added Bertuccio, "there is proof of this. My father's +father saw the olive tree, and it was quite closed." + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Over the shallow tufa basin of the great fountain on the hill +Daphne stood gazing into the water. She had sought the deep +shadow of the ilex trees, for the afternoon was warm, an almost +angry summer heat having followed yesterday's coolness. Her +yellow gown gleamed like light against the dull brown of the +stone and the dark moss-touched trunks of the trees. Whether she +was looking at the tufts of fern and of grass that grew in the +wet basin, or whether she was studying her own beauty reflected +there, no one could tell, not even Apollo, who had been watching +her for some time. + +Into his eyes as he looked leaped a light like the flame of the +sunshine beyond the shadows on the hill; swiftly he stepped +forward and kissed the girl's shoulder where the thin yellow +stuff of her dress showed the outward curve to the arm. She +turned and faced him, without a word. There was no need of +speech: anger battled with unconfessed joy in her changing face. + +"How dare you?" she said presently, when she had won her lips to +curves of scorn. "The manners of the gods seem strange to +mortals." + +"I love you," he answered simply. + +Then there was no sound save that of the water, dropping over the +edge of the great basin to the soft grass beneath. + +"Can't you forgive me?" he asked humbly. "I am profoundly sorry; +only, my temptation was superhuman." + +"I had thought that you were that, too," said the girl in a +whisper. + +"There is no excuse, I know; there is only a reason. I love you, +little girl. I love your questioning eyes, and your firm mouth, +and your smooth brown hair"-- + +"Stop!" begged Daphne, putting out her hands. "You must not say +such things to me, for I am not free to hear them. I must go +away," and she turned toward home. But he grasped one of the +outstretched hands and drew her to the stone bench near the +fountain, and then seated himself near her side. + +"Now tell me what you mean," he said quietly. + +"I mean," she answered, with her eyes cast down, "that two years +ago I promised to love some one else. I must not even hear what +you are trying to say to me." + +"I think, Miss Willis," he said gently, " that you should have +told me this before." + +"How could I?" begged the girl. "When could I have done it? Why +should I?" + +"I do not know," he answered wearily; "only, perhaps it might +have spared me some shade of human anguish." + +"Human?" asked Daphne, almost smiling. + +"No, no, no," he interrupted, not hearing her. "It would not +have done any good, for I have loved you from the first minute +when l saw your blue drapery flutter in your flight from me. +Some deeper sense than mortals have told me that every footstep +was falling on my sleeping heart and waking it to life. You were +not running away; in some divine sense you were coming toward me. +Daphne, Daphne, I cannot let you go!" + +The look in the girl's startled eyes was his only answer. By the +side of this sun-browned face, in its beauty and its power, rose +before her a vision of Eustace Denton, pale, full-lipped, with an +ardor for nothingness in his remote blue eyes. How could she +have known, in those old days before her revelation came, that +faces like this were on the earth: how could she have dreamed +that glory of life like this was possible? + +In the great strain of the moment they both grew calm and Daphne +told him her story, as much of it as she thought it wise for him +to know. Her later sense of misgiving, the breaking of the +engagement, the penitence that had led to a renewal of the bonds, +she concealed from him; but he learned of the days of study and +of quiet work in the shaded corners of her father's library, and +of those gayer days and evenings when the figure of the young +ascetic had seemed to the girl to have a peculiar saving grace, +standing in stern contrast to the social background of her life. + +He thanked her, when she had finished, and he watched her, with +her background of misty blue distance, sitting where the shadow +of the ilexes brought out the color of her scarlet lips and deep +gray eyes. + +"Daphne," he said presently, "you have told me much about this +man, but you have not told me that you love him. You do not +speak of him as a woman speaks of the man who makes her world for +her. You defend him, you explain him, you plead his cause, and it +must be that you are pleading it with yourself, for I have +brought no charge, that you must defend him to me. Do you love +him?" + +She did not answer. + +"Look at me!" he insisted. Her troubled eyes turned toward his, +but dared not stay, and the lashes fell again. + +"Do not commit the crime of marrying a man you do not love," he +pleaded. + +"But," said the girl slowly, "even if I gave him up I might not +care for you." + +"Dear," he said softly, "you do love me. Is it not so?" + +She shook her head, but her face belied her. + +"I have waited, waited for you," he pleaded, in that low tone to +which her being vibrated as to masterful music, "so many +lifetimes! I have found you out at last!" + +"How long?" she asked willfully. + +"Aeons," he answered. "Since the foundation of the world. I +have waited, and now that I have found you, I will not let you +go. I will not let you go!" + +She looked at him with wide-opened eyes: a solemn fear possessed +her. Was it Bertuccio's story of yesterday that filled her with +foreboding? Hardly. Rather it seemed a pleasant thought that he +and she should feel the bark of one of these great trees closing +round them, and should have so beautiful a screen of brown bark +and green moss to hide their love from all the world. No, no +fear could touch the thought of any destiny with him: she was +afraid only of herself. + +"You are putting a mere nothing between us," the voice went on. +"You are pretending that there is an obstacle when there is none, +really." + +"Only another man's happiness," murmured the girl. + +"I doubt if he knows what happiness is," said Apollo. "Forgive +me, but will he not be as happy with his altar candles and his +chants without you? Does he not care more for the abstract cause +for which he is working than for you? Hasn't he missed the +simple meaning of human life, and can anything teach it to him?" + +"How did you know?" asked Daphne, startled. + +"The gods should divine some things that are not told! Besides, +I know the man," he answered, smiling, but Daphne did not hear. +She had leaned back and closed her eyes. The warm, sweet air, +with its odor of earth, wooed her; the little breeze that made so +faint a rustle in the ilex leaves touched her cheek like quick, +fluttering kisses. The rhythmical drops from the fountain seemed +falling to the music of an old order of things, some simple, +elemental way of loving that made harmony through all life. +Could love, that had meant only duty, have anything to do with +this great joy in mere being, which turned the world to gold? + +"I must, I must win you," came the voice again, and it was like a +cry. "Loving with more than human love, I will not be +denied!" + +She opened her eyes and watched him: the whole, firmly-knit +frame in the brown golf-suit was quivering. + +"It has never turned out well," she said lightly, "when the sons +of the gods married with the daughters of men." + +Perhaps he would have rebuked her for the jest, but he saw her +face. + +"I offer you all that man or god can offer," he said, standing +before her. "I offer you the devotion of a whole life. Will you +take it?" + +"I will not break my promise," said the girl, rising. Her eyes +were level with his. She found such power in them that she cried +out against it in sudden anger. + +"Why do you tempt me so? Why do you come and trouble my mind and +take away my peace? Who are you? What are you?" + +"lf you want a human name for me"--he answered. + +She raised her hand swiftly to stop him. "No, don't!" she said. +"I do not want to know. Don't tell me anything, for the mystery +is part of the beauty of you." + +A shaft of golden sunlight pierced the ilex shade and smote her +forehead as she stood there. + +"Apollo, the sun god," she said, smiling, as she turned and left +him alone. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Overhead was a sky of soft, dusky blue, broken by the clear light +of the stars: all about were the familiar walks of the villa +garden, mysterious now in the darkness, and seeming to lead into +infinite space. The lines of aloe, fig, and palm stood like +shadows guarding a world of mystery. Daphne, wandering alone in +the garden at midnight, half exultant, half afraid, stepped +noiselessly along the pebbled walks with a feeling that that +world was about to open for her. Ahead, through an arch where +the thick foliage of the ilexes had been cut to leave the way +clear for the passer-by, a single golden planet shone low in the +west, and the garden path led to it. + +Daphne had been unable to sleep, for sleeplessness had become a +habit during the past week. Whether she was too happy or too +unhappy she could not tell: she only knew that she was restless +and smothering for air and space. Hastily dressing, she had +stolen on tiptoe down the broad stairway by the running water and +out into the night, carrying a tiny Greek lamp with a single +flame, clear, as only the flame of olive oil can be. She had put +the lamp down in the doorway, and it was burning there now, a +beacon to guide her footsteps when she wanted to return. +Meanwhile, the air was cool on throat and forehead and on her +open palms: she had no wish to go in. + +Here was a fountain whose jets of water, blown high from the +mouths of merry dolphins, fell in spray in a great stone basin +where mermaids waited for the shower to touch bare shoulders and +bended heads. The murmur of the water, mingled with the murmur +of unseen live things, and the melody of night touched the girl's +discordant thoughts to music. Of what avail, after all, was her +fierce struggle for duty? Here were soft shadows, and great +spaces, and friendly stars. + +Of course her lover-god, Apollo, was gone. She had known the +other day when she left him on the hill that she would not see +him again, for the look of his face had told her that. Of +course, it was better so. Now, everything would go on as had +been intended. Anna would come home; after this visit was over, +there would be New York again, and Eustace. Yes, she was brave +to share his duty with him, and the years would not be long. And +always these autumn days would be shining through the dark hours +of her life, these perfect days of sunshine without shadow. Of +their experiences she need not even tell, for she was not sure +that it had actually been real. She would keep it as a sacred +memory that was half a dream. + +She was walking now by the rows of tall chrysanthemums, and she +reached out her fingers to touch them, for she could almost feel +their deep yellow through her finger-tips. It was like taking +counsel of them, and they, like all nature, were wise. Cypress +and acacia and palm stood about like strong comforters; help came +from the tangled vines upon the garden wall, from the matted +periwinkle on the ground at her feet, and the sweet late roses +blossoming in the dark. + +Yes, he was gone, and the beauty and the power of him had +vanished. It was better so, she kept saying to herself, her +thoughts, no matter where they wandered, coming persistently +back, as if the idea, so obviously true, needed proving after +all. The only thing was, she would have liked to see him just +once more to show him how invincible she was. He had taken her +by surprise that day upon the hill, and had seen what she had not +meant to tell. Now, if she could confront him once, absolutely +unshaken, could tell him her decision, give him words of +dismissal in a voice that had no tremor in it, as her voice had +had the other day, that would be a satisfactory and triumphant +parting for one who had come badly off. Her shoulder burned yet +where he had kissed it, and yet she was not angry. He must have +known that day how little she was vexed. If she could only see +him once again, she said wistfully to herself, to show him how +angry she was, all would be well. + +Daphne had wandered to the great stone gate that led out upon the +highway, and was leaning her forehead against a moss-grown post, +when she heard a sudden noise. Then the voice of San Pietro +Martire broke the stillness of the night, and Daphne, listening, +thought she heard a faint sound of bleating. Hermes was calling +her, and Hermes was in danger. Up the long avenue she ran toward +the house, and, seizing the tiny lamp at the doorway, sped up the +slope toward the inclosure where the two animals grazed, the +flame making a trail of light like that of a firefly moving +swiftly in the darkness. The bray rang out again, but there was +no second sound of bleating. Inside the pasture gate she found +the donkey anxiously sniffing at something that lay in the grass. +Down on her knees went Daphne, for there lay Hermes stretched out +on his side, with traces of blood at his white throat. + +The girl put down her lamp and lifted him in her arms. Some +cowardly dog had done this thing, and had run away on seeing her, +or hearing her unfasten the gate. She put one finger on the +woolly bosom, but the heart was not beating. The lamb's awkward +legs were stretched out quite stiffly, and his eyes were +beginning to glaze. Two tears dropped on the fat white side; +then Daphne bent and kissed him. Looking up, she saw San Pietro +gazing on with the usual grief of his face intensified. It was +as if he understood that the place at his back where the lamb had +cuddled every night must go cold henceforward. + +"We must bury him, San Pietro," said Daphne presently. "Come +help me find a place." + +She put the lambkin gently down upon the ground, and, rising, +started, with one arm over San Pietro's neck, to find a burial +place for the dead. The donkey followed willingly, for he +permitted himself to love his lady with a controlled but genuine +affection; and together they searched by the light of the firefly +lamp. At last Daphne halted by a diminutive cypress, perhaps two +feet high, and announced that she was content. + +The tool-house was not far away. Investigating, she found, as +she had hoped, that the door was not locked. Arming herself with +a hoe she came back, and, under the light of southern stars, dug +a little grave in the soft, dark earth, easily loosened in its +crumbling richness. Then she took the lamp and searched in the +deep thick grass for flowers, coming back with a mass of +pink-tipped daisies gathered in her skirt. The sight of the +brown earth set her to thinking: there ought to be some kind of +shroud. Near the tool-house grew a laurel tree, she remembered, +and from that she stripped a handful of green, glossy leaves, to +spread upon the bottom of the grave. This done, she bore the +body of Hermes to his resting-place, and strewed the corpse with +pink daisies. + +"Should he have Christian or heathen burial?" she asked, smiling. +"This seems to be a place where the two faiths meet. I think +neither. He must just be given back to Mother Nature." + +She heaped the sod over him with her own hands, and fitted neatly +together some bits of turf. Then she took up her lamp to go. San +Pietro, tired of ceremony, was grazing in the little circle of +light. + +"To-morrow," said Daphne, as she went down the hill, "he will be +eating grass from Hermes' grave." + + +CHAPTER XV + +The shadow of branching palms fell on the Signorina's hair and +hands as she sat at work near the fountain in the garden weaving +a great wreath of wild cyclamen and of fern gathered from the +hillside. Assunta was watching her anxiously, her hands resting +on her hips. + +"It's a poor thing to offer the Madonna," she said at length, +"just common things that grow." + +Daphne only smiled at her and went on winding white cord about +the stems under green fronds where it could not be seen. + +"I was ready to buy a wreath of beautiful gauze flowers from +Rome," ventured Assunta, "all colors, red and yellow and purple. +I have plenty of silver for it upstairs in a silk bag. Our Lady +will think I am not thankful, though the blessed saints know I +have never been so thankful in my life as I am for Bertuccio's +coming home when he did." + +"The Madonna will know," said Daphne. "She will like this better +than anything else." + +"Are you sure?" asked Assunta dubiously. + +"Yes," asserted the girl, laughing. "She told me so!" + +The audacity of the remark had an unexpected effect on the +peasant woman. Assunta crossed herself. + +"Perhaps she did! Perhaps she did! And do you think she does +not mind my waiting?" + +"No," answered Daphne gravely. "She knows that you have been +very busy taking care of me." + +Assunta trotted away, apparently content, to consult Giacomo +about dinner. The girl went on weaving with busy fingers, the +shadow of her lashes on her cheek. As she worked her thoughts +wove for her the one picture that they made always for her now: +Apollo standing on the hillside under the ilexes with the single +ray of sunshine touching his face. All the rest of her life kept +fading, leaving the minutes of that afternoon alone distinct. +And it was ten days ago! + +Presently Giacomo came hurrying down the path toward her, +dangling his white apron by its string as he ran. + +"Signorina!" he called breathlessly. "Would the Signorina, when +she has finished that, graciously make another wreath?" + +"Certainly. For you?" + +"Not for me," he answered mysteriously, drawing nearer. "Not for +me, but for Antoli, the shepherd who herds the flock of Count +Gianelli. He has seen from the window the Signorina making a +wreath for our Lady, and he too wants to present her with a +thank-offering for the miracle she wrought for him. But will the +Signorina permit him to come and tell her?" + +Even while Giacomo was speaking Daphne saw the man slowly +approaching, urged on apparently by encouraging gestures from +Assunta, who was standing at the corner of the house. A thrill +went through the girl's nerves as she saw the rough brown head of +the peasant rising above the sheepskin coat that the shepherd-god +had worn. Unless miracle had made another like it, it was the +very same, even to the peculiar jagged edge where it met in +front. + +Antoli's expression was foolish and ashamed, but at Giacomo's +bidding be began a recital of his recent experiences. The girl +strained her ears to listen, but hardly a word of this dialect of +the Roman hills was intelligible to her. + +The gesture wherewith the shepherd crossed himself, and his +devout pointing to the sky were all she really understood. + +Then Giacomo translated. + +"Because he was ill--but the Signorina knows the story--the +blessed Saint Sebastian came down to him and guarded the sheep, +and he went home and became well, miraculously well. See how he +is recovered from his fever! It was our Lady who wrought it all. +Now he comes back and all his flock is there: not one is +missing, but all are fat and flourishing. Does not the Signorina +believe that it was some one from another world who helped him?" + +"Si," answered Daphne, looking at the sheepskin coat. + +"No one has seen the holy saint except himself, but the blessed +one has appeared again to him. Antoli came back, afraid that the +sheep were scattered, afraid of being dismissed. He found his +little tent in order; food was there, and better food than +shepherds have, eggs and wine and bread. While he waited the +blessed one himself came, with light shining about his hair. He +brought back the coat that he had worn: see, is it not proof +that he was there?" + +"The coat was a new one," interrupted the shepherd. + +Giacomo repeated, and went on. + +"He smiled and talked most kindly, and when he went away--the +Signorina understands?" + +Daphne nodded. + +"He gave his hand to Antoli," said Giacomo breathlessly. + +"I will make the wreath," said the Signorina, smiling. "It shall +be of these," and she held up a handful of pink daisies, mingled +with bits of fern and ivy leaves. "Assunta shall take it to the +church when she takes hers. I rejoice that you are well," she +added, turning to Antoli with a polite sentence from the +phrase-book. + +As she worked on after they were gone, Assunta came to her again. + +"The Signorina heard?" she asked. + +"Si. Is the story true?" asked Daphne. + +Assunta's eyes were full of hidden meaning. + +"The Signorina ought to know." + +"Why?" + +"Has not the Signorina seen the blessed one herself?" she asked. + +"I?" said Daphne, starting. + +"The night the lambkin was killed, did not the Signorina go out +in great distress, and did not the blessed one come to her aid?" + +"Ma che!" exclaimed Daphne faintly, falling back, in her +astonishment, upon Assunta's vocabulary. + +"I have told no one, not even Giacomo," said Assunta, "but I saw +it all. The noise had wakened me, and I followed, but I stopped +when I saw that the divine one was there. Only I watched from +the clump of cypress trees." + +"Where was he?" asked Daphne with unsteady voice. + +"Beyond the laurel trees," said Assunta. "Did not the Signorina +see?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"How did you know that he was one of the divine?" she asked. + +"Can I not tell the difference between mortal man and one of +them?" cried the peasant woman scornfully. "It was the shining +of his face, and the light about his hair, Signorina. Every look +and every motion showed that he was not of this world. Besides, +how could I see him in the dark if he were not the blessed Saint +Sebastian? And who sent the dog away if it was not he?" she +added triumphantly. + +"But why should he appear to me?" asked Daphne. "I have no claim +upon the help of the saints." + +"Perhaps because the Signorina is a heretic," answered Assunta +tenderly. "Our Lady must have special care for her if she sends +out the holy ones to bring her to the fold." + +The woman's face was alight with reverence and pride, and Daphne +turned back to her flowers, shamed by these peasant folk for +their belief in the immanence of the divine. + +Half an hour later Assunta reappeared, clad in Sunday garments, +wearing her best coral earrings and her little black silk +shoulder shawl covered with gay embroidered flowers. She held +out a letter to the girl. + +"I go to take the wreaths to Our Lady," she announced, "and to +confess and pray. The Signorina has made them pretty, if they +are but common things." + +Daphne was reading her letter; even the peasant woman could see +that it bore glad tidings, for the light that broke in the girl's +face was like the coming of dawn over the hills. + +"Wait, Assunta," she said quietly, when she had finished, and she +disappeared among the trees. In a minute she came back with +three crimson roses, single, and yellow at the heart. + +"Will you take them with your wreaths for me to the Madonna?" she +said, putting them into Assunta's hand. "I am more thankful than +either one of you." + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden, +and Daphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her, +on the frescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were +grouped pink shepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves +in airy garments of blue and green in a meadow that ended +abruptly to make room for long windows. The girl leaned back and +sipped her tea luxuriously. She was clad in a gown that any +shepherdess among them might have envied, a pale yellow crepy +thing shot through with gleams of gold. Before her the Countess +Accolanti's silver service was set out on an inlaid Florentine +table, partially protected by an open work oriental scarf. Upon +it lay the letter that had come an hour before, and the Signorina +now and then feasted her eyes upon it. Just outside the door was +a bust of Masaccio, set on a tall pedestal, grass growing on the +rough hair and heavy eyelids. Pavilion and tea-table seemed an +odd bit of convention, set down in the neglected wildness of this +old garden, and Daphne watched it all with entire satisfaction +over her Sevres teacup. + +Presently she was startled by seeing Assunta come hurrying back +with a teacup and saucer in one hand, a hot water jug in the +other. The rapid Italian of excited moments Daphne never +pretended to understand, consequently she gathered from Assunta's +incoherent words neither names nor impressions, only the bare +fact that a caller for the Countess Accolanti had rung the bell. + +"He inquired, too, for the Signorina," remarked the peasant woman +finally, when her breath had nearly given out. + +"Do you know him?" asked Daphne. "Have you seen him before?" + +"But yes, thousands of times," said Assunta in a stage whisper. +"See, he comes. I thought it best to say that he would find the +Signorina in the garden. And the Signorina must pardon me for +the card: I dropped it into the tea-kettle and it is wet, quite +wet." + +Assunta had time to note with astonishment before she left that +hostess and caller met as old friends, for the Signorina held out +her hand in greeting before a word of introduction had been said. + +"I am told that your shepherd life is ended," remarked Daphne, as +she filled the cup just brought. Neither her surprise nor her +joy in his coming showed in her face. + +"For the present, yes." + +"You have won great devotion," said Daphne, smiling. "Only, they +all mistake you for a Christian saint." + +"What does it matter?" said Apollo. "The feeling is the +same." + +"Assunta knew you at once as one of those in her calendar," the +girl went on, "but she seems to recognize your supernatural +qualities only by lamplight. I am a little bit proud that I can +detect them by day as well." + +Her gayety met no response from him, and there was a long pause. +To the girl it seemed that the enveloping sunshine of the garden +was only a visible symbol of her new divine content. If she had +looked closely, which she dared not do, she would have seen that +the lurking sadness in the man's face had leaped to the surface, +touching the brown eyes with a look of eternal grief. + +"I ventured to stop," he said presently, "because I was not sure +that happy chance would throw us together again. I have come to +say good-by." + +"You are going away?" + +"I am going away," he answered slowly. + +"So shall I, some day," said Daphne, "and then moss will grow +green on my seat by the fountain, and San Pietro will be sold to +some peddler who will beat him. Of course it had to end! +Sometimes, when you tread the blue heights of Olympus, will you +think of me walking on the hard pavements of New York?" + +"I shall think of you, yes," he said, failing to catch her +merriment. + +"And lf you ever want a message from me," she continued, "you +must look for it on your sacred laurel here on the hill by +Hermes' grave. It ls just possible, you know, that I shall be +inside, and if I am, I shall speak to you through my leaves, when +you wander that way." + +Something in the man's face warned her, and her voice became +grave. + +"Why do you go?" she asked. + +"It is the only thing to do," he answered. "Life has thrown me +back into the old position, and I must face the same foes again. +I always rush too eagerly to snatch my good; I always hit my head +against some impassable wall. I thought I had won my battles and +was safe, and then you came." + +The life had gone out of his voice, the light from his face. +Looking at him Daphne saw above his temples a touch of gray in +the golden brown of his hair. + +"And then?" she asked softly. + +"Then my hard-won control vanished, and I felt that I could stake +my hopes of heaven and my fears of hell to win you." + +"A Greek god, with thoughts of hell?" murmured Daphne. + +"Hell," he answered, "ls a feeling, not a place, as has often +been observed. I happen to be in it now, but it does not matter. +Yes, I am going away, Daphne, Daphne. You say that there are +claims upon you that you cannot thrust aside. I shall go, but in +some life, some time, I shall find you again." + +Daphne looked at him with soft triumph in her eyes. Secure in +the possession of that letter on the table, she would not tell +him yet! This note of struggle gave deeper melody to the joyous +music of the shepherd on the hills. + +"I asked you once about your life and all that had happened to +you: do you remember?" he inquired. "I have never told you of +my own. Will you let me tell you now?" + +"If you do not tell too much and explain yourself away," she +answered. + +"It is a story of tragedy, and of folly, recognized too late. I +have never told it to any human being, but I should like you to +understand. It has been an easy life, so far as outer +circumstances go. Until I was eighteen I was lord and dictator +in a household of women, spoiled by mother and sisters alike. +Then came the grief of my life. Oh, I cannot tell it, even to +you!" + +The veins stood out on his forehead, and his face was indeed like +the face of a tortured Saint Sebastian. The girl's eyes were +sweet with sympathy, and with something else that he did not look +to see. + +"There was a plan made for a journey. I opposed it for some +selfish whim, for I had a scheme of my own. They yielded to me +as they always did, and took my way. That day there was a +terrible accident, and all who were dear to me were killed, while +I, the murderer, was cursed with life. So, when I was eighteen, +my world was made up of four graves in the cemetery at Rome, and +of that memory. Whatever the world may say, I was as guilty of +those deaths as if I had caused them by my own hand." + +He had covered his face with his palms, and his head was bent. +The girl reached out as if to touch the rumpled brown hair with +consoling fingers, then drew her hand back. In a moment, when +her courage came, he should know what share of comfort she was +ready to give him. Meanwhile, she hungered to make the farthest +reach of his suffering her own. + +"Since then?" she asked softly. + +"Since then I have been trying to build my life up out of its +ruins. I have tried to win content and even gladness, for I hold +that man should be master of himself, even of remorse for his old +sins. You see, I've been busy trying to find out people who had +the same kind of misery, or some other kind, to face." + +"Shepherd of the wretched," said the girl dreamily. + +"Something like that," he answered. + +The girl's face was all a-quiver for pity of the tale; in +listening to the story of his life she had completely forgotten +her own. Then, before she knew what was happening, he rose +abruptly and held out his hand. + +"Every minute that I stay makes matters harder," he said. "I've +got to go to see if I cannot win gladness even out of this, for +still my gospel is the gospel of joy. Good-by." + +Suddenly Daphne realized that he was gone! She could hear his +footsteps on the pebble-stones of the walk as he swung on with +his long stride. She started to run after him, then stopped. +After all, how could she find words for what she had to say? +Walking to the great gate by the highway she looked wistfully +between its iron rods, for one last glimpse of him. A sudden +realization came to her that she knew nothing about him, not even +an address, "except Delphi," she said whimsically to herself. +Only a minute ago he had been there; and now she had wantonly let +him go out of her life forever. + +"I wonder if the Madonna threw my roses away," she thought, +coming back with slow feet to the arbor, and realizing for the +first time since she had reached the Villa Accolanti that she was +alone, and very far away from home. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +San Pietro and Bertuccio were waiting at the doorway, both +blinking sleepily in the morning air. At San Pietro's right side +hung a tiny pannier, covered by a fringed white napkin, above +which lay a small flask decorated with corn husk and gay yarn, +where red wine sparkled like rubies in the sunshine. The varying +degrees of the donkey's resignation were registered exactly in +the changing angles at which his right ear was cocked. + +"Pronta!" called Assunta, who was putting the finishing touches +on saddle and luncheon basket. "If the Signorina means to climb +the Monte Altiera she must start before the sun is high." + +On the hillside above Daphne heard, but her feet strayed only +more slowly. She was wandering with a face like that of a sky +across which thin clouds scud, in the grass about Hermes' grave. +In her hand was the letter of yesterday, and in her eyes the +memory of the days before. + +"It is all too late," said Daphne, who had learned to talk aloud +in this world where no one understood. "The Greeks were right in +thinking that our lives are ruled by mocking fate. I wonder what +angry goddess cast forgetfulness upon my mind, so that I forgot +to tell Apollo what this letter says." + +Daphne looked to the open sky, but it gave no answer, and she +paused by the laurel tree with head bent down. Then, with a +sudden, wistful little laugh, she held out the letter and +fastened it to the laurel, tearing a hole in one corner to let a +small bare twig go through. With a blunt pencil she scribbled on +it in large letters: "Let Apollo read, if he ever wanders this +way." + +"He will never find it," said the girl, "and the rain will come +and soak it, and it will bleach in the sun. But nobody else +knows enough to read it, and I shall leave it there on his sacred +tree, as my last offering. I suppose there is some saving grace +even in the sacrifices that go astray." + +Then she descended the hill, climbed upon San Pietro's back, and +rode through the gateway. + +An hour later, Assunta, going to find a spade in the tool-house, +for she was transplanting roses, came upon the Signorina's caller +of yesterday standing near the tool-house with something in his +hand. The peasant woman's face showed neither awe nor fear; only +lively curiosity gleamed in the blinking brown eyes. + +"Buon' giorno," said Apollo, exactly as mortals do. + +"Buon' giorno, Altezza," returned Assunta. + +"Is the Signorina at home?" asked the intruder. + +"But no!" cried Assunta. "She has started to climb the very sky +to-day, Monte Altiera, and for what I can't make out. It only +wears out Bertuccio's shoes and the asinetto's legs." + +"Grazia," said Apollo, moving away. + +"Does his Highness think that the Signorina resembles her sister, +the Contessa?" asked the peasant woman for the sake of a +detaining word. + +"Not at all," answered the visitor, and he passed into the open +road. + +Then he turned over in his hand the letter which he had taken +from the laurel. Though he had read it thee times he hardly +understood as yet, and his face was the face of one who sees that +the incredible has come to pass. The letter was made up of +fifteen closely written pages, and it told the story of a young +clergyman, who, convinced at last that celibacy and the shelter +of the Roman priesthood were his true vocation, had, after long +prayer and much mediation, decided to flee the snares of the +world and to renounce its joys for the sake of bliss the other +side of life. + +"When you receive this letter, my dear Daphne," wrote Eustace +Denton, "I shall have been taken into the brotherhood of Saint +Ambrose, for I wish to place myself in a position where there +will be no retracing my steps." + +The face of the reader on the Roman hills, as it was lifted from +the page again to the sunshine, was full of the needless pity of +an alien faith. + +Along the white road that led up the mountain, and over the +grass-grown path that climbed the higher slopes, trod a solitary +traveler. Now his step was swift, as if some invisible spirit of +the wind were wafting him on; and again the pace was slow and his +head bent, as if some deep thought stayed his speed. There were +green slopes above, green slopes below, and the world opened out +as he climbed on and up. Out and out sketched the great +Campagne, growing wider at each step, with the gray, unbroken +lines of aqueduct leading toward Rome and the shining sea beyond. + + +* * * * * * * * + +On a great flat stone far up on the heights sat two motionless +figures: below them, partly veiling the lower world, floated a +thin mist of cloud. + +"This must be Olympus," said Daphne. + +"Any mountain is Olympus that touches the sky," answered Apollo. + +"Where are the others?" demanded the girl. "Am I not to know +your divine friends?" + +"Don't you see them?" he asked as in surprise,--"Aphrodite just +yonder in violet robe, and Juno, and Hermes with winged feet"-- + +"I am afraid I am a wee bit blind, being but mortal," answered +Daphne. "I can see nothing but you." + +Beside them on the rock, spread out on oak leaves, lay clusters +of purple grapes, six black ripe olives, and a little pile of +biscotti Inglesi. The girl bent and poured from the curving +flask red wine that bubbled in the glass, then gave it to her +companion, saying: "Quick, before Hebe gets here," and the sound +of their merriment rung down the hillside. + +"Hark!" whispered Daphne. "I hear an echo of the unquenchable +laughter of the gods! They cannot be far away." + +From another stone near at hand Bertuccio watched them with eyes +that feigned not to see. Bertuccio did not understand English, +but he understood everything else. Goodly shares of the nectar +and ambrosia of this feast had fallen to his lot, and Bertuccio +in his own way was almost as happy as the lovers. In the soft +grass near San Pietro Martire nibbled peacefully, now and then +lifting his eyes to see what was going on. Once he brayed. He +alone, of all nature, seemed impervious to the joy that had +descended upon earth. + +It was only an hour since Daphne had been overtaken. Few words +had sufficed for understanding, and Bertuccio had looked +away. + +"My only fear was that I should find you turned into a laurel +tree," said Apollo. "I shall always be afraid of +that." + +"Apollo," said Daphne irrelevantly, holding out to him a bunch of +purple grapes in the palm of her hand, "there is a practical side +to all this. People will have to know, I am afraid. I must +write to my sister." + +"I have reason to think that the Countess Accolanti will not be +displeased," he answered. There was a queer little look about +his mouth, but Daphne asked for no explanation. + +"There is your father," he suggested. + +"Oh!" said Daphne. "He will love you at once. His tastes and +mine are very much alike." + +The lover-god smiled, quite satisfied. + +"You chose the steepest road of all to-day, little girl," he +said. "But it is not half so long nor so hard as the one I +expected to climb to find you." + +"You are tired!" said Daphne anxiously. "Rest." + +Bertuccio was sleeping on his flat rock; San Pietro lay down for +a brief, ascetic slumber. The lovers sat side by side, with the +mystery of beauty about them: the purple and gold of nearness +and distance; bright color of green grass near, sombre tint of +cypress and stone pine afar. + +"I shall never really know whether you are a god or not," said +Daphne dreamily. + +"A very proper attitude for a woman to have toward her husband," +he answered with a smile. "I must try hard to live up to the +character. You will want to live on Olympus, and you really +ought, if you are going to wear gowns woven of my sunbeams like +the one you had on yesterday. How shall I convince you that Rome +must do part of the time? You will want me to make you immortal: +that always happens when a maiden marries a god." + +"I think you have done that already," said Daphne. + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral, +by Margaret Sherwood + diff --git a/old/daphn10.zip b/old/daphn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..78f42c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/daphn10.zip |