A Spirit in Prison Part 58

He had been shut in. Now the gates were thrown open, and to what a brilliant world! He issued forth into it with almost joyous expectation.

They went slowly, and presently drew near to the Rotonda. Artois leaned a little forward and saw that the fishermen were at work. They stood in lines upon the pavement pulling at the immense nets which were still a long way out to sea. When the carriage reached them Artois told Pasqualino to draw up, and sat watching the work and the fierce energy of the workers. Half naked, with arms and legs and chests that gleamed in the sun like copper, they toiled, slanting backward, one towards another, laughing, shouting, swearing with a sort of almost angry joy.

In their eyes there was a carelessness that was wild, in their gestures a lack of self-consciousness that was savage. But they looked like creatures who must live forever. And to Artois, sedentary for so long, the sight of them brought a feeling almost of triumph, but also a sensation of envy. Their vigor made him pine for movement.

"Drive on slowly, Pasqualino," he said. "I will follow you on foot, and join you at the hill."

"Si Signore."

He got out, stood for a moment, then strolled on towards the Mergellina.

As he approached this part of the town, with its harbor and its population of fisherfolk, the thought of Ruffo came into his mind. He remembered that Ruffo lived here. Perhaps he might see the boy this afternoon.

On the mole that serves as a slight barrier between the open sea and the snug little harbor several boys were fishing. Others were bathing, leaping into the water with shouts from the rocks. Beyond, upon the slope of dingy sand among the drawn-up boats, children were playing, the girls generally separated from the boys. Fishermen, in woolen shirts and white linen trousers, sat smoking in the shadow of their craft, or leaned muscular arms upon them, standing at ease, staring into vacancy or calling to each other. On the still water there was a perpetual movement of boats; and from the distance came a dull but continuous uproar, the yells and the laughter of hundreds of bathers at the Stabilimento di Bagni beyond the opposite limit of the harbor.

Artois enjoyed the open-air gayety, the freedom of the scene; and once again, as often before, found himself thinking that the out-door life, the life loosed from formal restrictions, was the only one really and fully worth living. There was a carelessness, a camaraderie among these people that was of the essence of humanity. Despite their frequent quarrels, their intrigues, their betrayals, their vendettas, they hung together. There was a true and vital companionship among them.

He pa.s.sed on with deliberation, observing closely, yet half-lazily--for his brain was slack and needed rest--the different types about him, musing on the possibilities of their lives, smiling at the gambols of the intent girls, and the impudent frolics of the little boys who seemed the very sp.a.w.n of sand and sea and sun, till he had nearly pa.s.sed the harbor, and was opposite to the pathway that leads down to the jetty, to the left of which lie the steam-yachts.

At the entrance to this pathway there is always a knot of people gathered about the shanty where the seamen eat maccaroni and strange messes, and the stands where sh.e.l.l-fish are exposed for sale. On the far side of the tramway, beneath the tall houses which are let out in rooms and apartments for families, there is an open s.p.a.ce, and here in summer are set out quant.i.ties of strong tables, at which from noon till late into the evening the people of Mergellina, and visitors of the humbler cla.s.ses from Naples, sit in merry throngs, eating, smoking, drinking coffee, syrups, and red and white wine.

Artois stood still for a minute to watch them, to partake from a distance, and unknown to them, in their boisterous gayety. He had lit a big cigar, and puffed at it as his eyes roved from group to group, resting now on a family party, now on a quartet of lovers, now on two stout men obviously trying to drive a bargain with vigorous rhetoric and emphatic gestures, now on an elderly woman in a shawl spending an hour with her soldier son in placid silence, now on some sailors from a ship in the distant port by the a.r.s.enal bent over a game of cards, or a party of workmen talking wages or politics in their shirt-sleeves with flowers above their ears.

What a row they made, these people! Their animation was almost like the animation of a nightmare. Some were ugly, some looked wicked; others mischievous, sympathetic, coa.r.s.e, artful, seductive, boldly defiant or boisterously excited. But however much they differed, in one quality they were nearly all alike. They nearly all looked vivid. If they lacked anything, at least it was not life. Even their sorrows should be energetic.

As this thought came into his mind Artois' eyes chanced to rest on two people sitting a little apart at a table on which stood a coffee-cup, a thick gla.s.s half full of red wine, and a couple of tumblers of water.

One was a woman, the other--yes, the other was Ruffo.

When Artois realized this he kept his eyes upon them. He forgot his interest in the crowd.

At first he could only see Ruffo's side-face. But the woman was exactly opposite to him.

She was neatly dressed in some dark stuff, and wore a thin shawl, purple in color, over her shoulders. She looked middle-aged. Had she been an Englishwoman Artois would have guessed her to be near fifty. But as she was evidently a Southerner it was possible that she was very much younger. Her figure was broad and matronly. Her face, once probably quite pretty was lined, and had the battered and almost corrugated look that the faces of Italian women of the lower cla.s.ses often reveal when the years begin to increase upon them. The cheek-bones showed harshly in it, by the long and dark eyes, which were surrounded by little puckers of yellow flesh. But Artois' attention was held not by this woman's quite ordinary appearance, but by her manner. Like the people about her she was vivacious, but her vivacity was tragic--she had not come here to be gay. Evidently she was in the excitement of some great grief or pa.s.sion. She was speaking vehemently to Ruffo, gesticulating with her dark hands, on which there were two or three cheap rings, catching at her shawl, swaying her body, nodding her head, on which the still black hair was piled in heavy ma.s.ses. And her face was distorted by an emotion that seemed of sorrow and anger mingled. In her ears, pretty and almost delicate in contrast to the ruggedness of her face, were large gold rings, such as Sicilian women often wear. They swayed in response to her perpetual movements. Artois watched her lips as they opened and shut, were compressed or thrust forward, watched her white teeth gleaming. She lifted her two hands, doubled into fists, till they were on a level with her shoulders, shook them vehemently, then dashed them down on the table. The coffee-cup was overturned. She took no notice of it. She was heedless of everything but the subject which evidently obsessed her.

The boy, Ruffo, sat quite still listening to her. His att.i.tude was calm.

Now and then he sipped his wine, and presently he took from his pocket a cigarette, lighted it carefully, and began to smoke. There was something very boyish and happy-go-lucky in his att.i.tude and manner. Evidently, Artois thought, he was very much at home with this middle-aged woman.

Probably her vehemence was to him an every-day affair. She laid one hand on his arm and bent forward. He slightly shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. She kept her hand on his arm, went on talking pa.s.sionately, and suddenly began to weep. Tears rushed out of her eyes.

Then the boy took her hand gently, stroked it, and began to speak to her, always keeping her hand in his. The woman, with a despairing movement, laid her face down on the table, with her forehead touching the wood. Then she lifted it up. The paroxysm seemed to have pa.s.sed. She took out a handkerchief from inside the bodice of her dress and dried her eyes. Ruffo struck the table with his gla.s.s. An attendant came. He paid the bill, and the woman and he got up to go. As they did so Ruffo presented for a moment his full face to Artois, and Artois swiftly compared it with the face of the woman, and felt sure that they were mother and son.

Artois moved on towards the hill of Posilipo, but after taking a few steps turned to look back. The woman and Ruffo had come into the road by the tram-line. They stood there for a moment, talking. Then Ruffo crossed over to the path, and the woman went away slowly towards the Rotonda. Seeing Ruffo alone Artois turned to go back, thinking to have a word with the boy. But before he could reach him he saw a man step out from behind the wooden shanty of the fishermen and join him.

This man was Gaspare.

Ruffo and Gaspare strolled slowly away towards the jetty where the yachts lie, and presently disappeared.

Artois found Pasqualino waiting for him rather impatiently not far from the entrance to the Scoglio di Frisio.

"I thought you were dead, Signore," he remarked, as Artois came up.

"I was watching the people."

He got into the carriage.

"They are canaglia," said Pasqualino, with the profound contempt of the Neapolitan coachman for those who get their living by the sea. He lived at Fuorigrotta, and thought Mergellina a place of outer darkness.

"I like them," returned Artois.

"You don't know them, Signore. I say--they are canaglia. Where shall I drive you?"

Artois hesitated, pa.s.sing in mental review the various ristoranti on the hill.

"Take me to the Ristorante della Stella," he said, at length.

Pasqualino cracked his whip, and drove once more merrily onward.

When Artois came to the ristorante, which was perched high up on the side of the road farthest from the sea, he had almost all the tables to choose from, as it was still early in the evening, and in the summer the Neapolitans who frequent the more expensive restaurants usually dine late. He sat down at a table in the open air close to the railing, from which he could see a grand view of the Bay, as well as all that was pa.s.sing on the road beneath, and ordered a dinner to be ready in half an hour. He was in no hurry, and wanted to finish his cigar.

There was a constant traffic below. The tram-bell sounded its reiterated signal to the crowds of dusty pedestrians to clear the way. Donkeys toiled upward, drawing carts loaded with vegetables and fruit. Animated young men, wearing tiny straw hats c.o.c.ked impertinently to one side, drove frantically by in light gigs that looked like the skeletons of carriages, holding a rein in each hand, pulling violently at their horses' mouths, and shouting "Ah--ah!" as if possessed of the devil.

Smart women made the evening "Pa.s.seggiata" in landaus and low victorias, wearing flamboyant hats, and gazing into the eyes of the watching men ranged along the low wall on the sea-side with a cool steadiness that was almost Oriental. Some of them were talking. But by far the greater number leaned back almost immobile against their cushions; and their pale faces showed nothing but the languid consciousness of being observed and, perhaps, desired. Stout Neapolitan fathers, with bulging eyes, immense brown cheeks, and peppery mustaches, were promenading with their children and little dogs, looking lavishly contented with themselves. Young girls went primly past, holding their narrow, well-dressed heads with a certain virginal stiffness that was yet not devoid of grace, and casting down eyes that were supposed not yet to be enlightened. Their governesses and duennas accompanied them. Barefooted brown children darted in and out, dodging pedestrians and horses.

Priests and black-robed students chattered vivaciously. School-boys with peaked caps hastened homeward. The orphans from Queen Margherita's Home, higher up the hill, marched st.u.r.dily through the dust to the sound of a boyish but desperately martial music. It was a wonderfully vivid world, but the eyes of Artois wandered away from it, over the terraces, the houses, and the tree-tops. Their gaze dropped down to the sea. Far off, Capri rose out of the light mist produced by the heat. And beyond was Sicily.

Why had that woman, Ruffo's mother, wept just now? What was her tragedy?

he wondered. Accurately he recalled her face, broad now, and seamed with the wrinkles brought by trouble and the years.

He recalled, too, Ruffo's att.i.tude as the boy listened to her vehement, her almost violent harangue. How boyish, how careless it had been--yet not unkind or even disrespectful, only wonderfully natural and wonderfully young.

"He was the deathless boy."

Suddenly those words started into Artois' mind. Had he read them somewhere? For a moment he wondered. Or had he heard them? They seemed to suggest speech, a voice whose intonations he knew. His mind was still fatigued by work, and would not be commanded by his will. Keeping his eyes fixed on the ethereal outline of Capri, he strove to remember, to find the book which had contained these words and given them to his eyes, or the voice that had spoken them and given them to his ears.

"He was the deathless boy."

A piano-organ struck up below him, a little way up the hill to the right, and above its hard accompaniment there rose a powerful tenor voice singing. The song must have been struck forcibly upon some part of his brain that was sleeping, must have summoned it to activity. For instantly, ere the voice had sung the first verse, he saw imaginatively a mountain top in Sicily, evening light--such as was then shining over and transfiguring Capri--and a woman, Hermione. And he heard her voice, very soft, with a strange depth and stillness in it, saying those words: "He was the deathless boy."

Of course! How could he have forgotten? They had been said of Maurice Delarey. And now idly, strangely, he had recalled them as he thought of Ruffo's young and careless att.i.tude by the table of the ristorante that afternoon.

The waiter, coming presently to bring the French Signore the plate of oysters from Fusaro, which he had ordered as the prelude to his dinner, was surprised by the deep gravity of his face, and said:

"Don't you like 'A Mergellina,' Signore? We are all mad about it. And it won the first prize at last year's festa of Piedigrotta."

"Comment donc?" exclaimed Artois, as if startled. "What?--no--yes. I like it. It's a capital song. Lemon? That's right--and red pepper. Va bene!"

And he bent over his plate rather hurriedly and began to eat.

The piano-organ and the singing voice died away down the hill, going towards Mergellina.

But the effect, curious and surely unreasonable, of the song remained.

Often, while he ate, Artois turned his eyes towards the mountain of Capri, and each time that he did so he saw, beyond it and its circling sea, Sicily, Monte Amato, the dying lights on Etna, the evening star above its plume of smoke, the figure of a woman set in the shadow of her sorrow, yet almost terribly serene; and then another woman, sitting at a table, vehemently talking, then bowing down her head pa.s.sionately as if in angry grief.

When he had finished his dinner the sun had set, and night had dropped down softly over the Bay. Capri had disappeared. The long serpent of lights had uncoiled itself along the sea. Down below, very far down, there was the tw.a.n.g and the thin, acute whine of guitars and mandolines, the throbbing cry of Southern voices. The stars were out in a deep sky of bloomy purple. There was no chill in the air, but a voluptuous, brooding warmth, that shed over the city and the waters a luxurious benediction, giving absolution, surely, to all the sins, to all the riotous follies of the South.