When they reached the road by Isola Bella, Salvatore's boat was just
coming round the point, vigorously propelled by the fisherman's strong
arms over the radiant sea. It was a magnificent day, very hot but not
sultry, free from sirocco. The sky was deep blue, a passionate, exciting
blue that seemed vocal, as if it were saying thrilling things to the
world that lay beneath it. The waveless sea was purple, a sea, indeed, of
legend, a wine-dark, lustrous, silken sea. Into it, just here along this
magic coast, was surely gathered all the wonder of color of all the
southern seas. They must be blanched to make this marvel of glory, this
immense jewel of God. And the lemon groves were thick along the sea. And
the orange-trees stood in their decorative squadrons drinking in the
rays of the sun with an ecstatic submission. And Etna, snowless Etna,
rose to heaven out of this morning world, with its base in the purple
glory and its feather of smoke in the calling blue, child of the sea-god
and of the god that looks down from the height, majestically calm in the
riot of splendor that set the feet of June dancing in a great tarantella.
As Maurice saw the wonder of sea and sky, the boat coming in over the
sea, with Maddalena in the stern holding a bouquet of flowers, his heart
leaped up and he forgot for a moment the shadow in himself, the shadow of
his own unworthiness. He sprang off the donkey.
"I'll go down to meet them!" he cried. "Catch hold of Tito, Gaspare!"
The railway line ran along the sea, between road and beach. He had to
cross it. In doing so one of his feet struck the metal rail, which gave
out a dry sound. He looked down, suddenly recalled to a reality other
than the splendor of the morning, the rapture of this careless festa day.
And again he was conscious of the shadow. Along this line, in a few
hours, would come the train bearing Hermione and Artois. Hermione would
be at the window, eagerly looking out, full of happy anticipation,
leaning to catch the first sight of his face, to receive and return his
smile of welcome. What would her face be like when--? But Salvatore was
hailing him from the sea. Maddalena was waving her hand. The thing was
done. The die was cast. He had chosen his lot. Fiercely he put away from
him the thought of Hermione, lifted his voice in an answering hail, his
hand in a salutation which he tried to make carelessly joyous. The boat
glided in between the flat rocks. And then--then he was able to forget.
For Maddalena's long eyes were looking into his, with the joyousness of a
child's, and yet with something of the expectation of a woman's, too. And
her brown face was alive with a new and delicious self-consciousness,
asking him to praise her for the surprise she had prepared, in his honor
surely, specially for him, and not for her comrades and the public of the
fair.