half past six on the following morning found constance and her father rising from the breakfast table and tony turning in at the gate. constance’s nod of greeting was barely perceptible, and her father’s eye contained a twinkle as he watched her. tony studied her mountain-climbing costume with an air of concern.
“you go wif us, signorina?” his expression was blended of surprise and disapproval, but in spite of himself his tone was triumphant. “you say to me yesterday you no want to climb any more mountain.”
“i have changed my mind.”
“but zis mountain today too long, too high. you get tired, signorina. perhaps anozzer day we take li’l’ baby mountain, zen you can go.”
“i am going today.”
“it is not possible, signorina. i have not brought ze donk’.”
“oh, i’m going to walk.”
“as you please, signorina.”
he sighed patiently. then he looked up and caught her eye. they both laughed.
“signorina,” he whispered, “i ver’ happy today. zat costantina she more kind. yesterday ver’ unkind; i go home ver’ sad. but today i sink—”
“yes?”
“i sink after all maybe she like me li’l’ bit.”
giuseppe rowed the three climbers a mile or so down the lake and set them ashore at the base of their mountain. they started up gaily and had accomplished half their journey before they thought of being tired. tony surpassed himself; if he had been entertaining the day before he was doubly so now. his spirits were bubbling over and contagious. he and constance acted like two children out of school. they ran races and talked to the peasants in the wayside cottages. they drove a herd of goats for half a mile while the goatherd strolled behind and smoked tony’s cigarettes. constance took a water jar from a little girl they met coming from the fountain and endeavored to balance it on her own head, with the result that she nearly drowned both herself and the child.
they finally stopped for luncheon in a grove of chestnut trees with sheep nibbling on the hillside below them and a shepherd boy somewhere out of sight playing on a mouth organ. it should have been a flute, but they were in a forgiving mood. constance this time did her share of the work. she and tony together spread the cloth and made the coffee while her father fanned himself and looked on. if mr. wilder had any unusual thoughts in regard to the donkey-man, they were at least not reflected in his face.
when they had finished their meal tony spread his coat under a tree.
“signorina,” he said, “perhaps you li’l’ tired? look, i make nice place to sleep. you lie down and rest while ze signor papa and me, we have li’l’ smoke. zen after one, two hours i come call you.”
constance very willingly accepted the suggestion. they had walked five uphill miles since morning. it was two hours later that she opened her eyes to find tony bending over her. she sat up and regarded him sternly. he had the grace to blush.
“tony, did you kiss my hand?”
“scusi, signorina. i ver’ sorry to wake you, but it is tree o’clock and ze signor papa he say we must start just now or we nevair get to ze top.”
“answer my question.”
“signorina, i cannot tell to you a lie. it is true, i forget i am just poor donkey-man. i play li’l’ game. you sleeping beauty; i am ze prince. i come to wake you. just one kiss i drop on your hand—one ver’ little kiss, signorina.”
constance assumed an air of indignant reproof but in the midst of it she laughed.
“i wish you wouldn’t be so funny, tony; i can’t scold you as much as you deserve. but i am angry just the same, and if anything like that ever happens again i shall be very very angry.
“signorina, i would not make you very very angry for anysing. as long as i live nosing like zat shall happen again. no, nevair, i promise.”
they plunged into a pine wood and climbed for another two hours, the summit always vanishing before them like a mirage. at the end of that time they were apparently no nearer their goal than when they had started. they had followed first one path, then another, until they had lost all sense of direction, and finally when they came to a place where three paths diverged, they had to acknowledge themselves definitely lost. mr. wilder elected one path, tony another, and constance sat down on a rock.
“i’m not going any farther,” she observed.
“you can’t stay here all night,” said her father.
“well, i can’t walk over this mountain all night. we don’t get anywhere; we merely move in circles. i don’t think much of the guide you engaged. he doesn’t know his way.”
“he wasn’t engaged to know his way,” tony retorted. “he was engaged to wear earrings and sing santa lucia.”
constance continued to sit on her rock while tony went forward on a reconnoitering expedition. he returned in ten minutes with the information that there was a shepherd’s hut not very far off with a shepherd inside who would like to be friendly. if the signorina would deign to ask some questions in the italian language which she spoke so fluently, they could doubtless obtain directions as to the way home.
they found the shepherd, the shepherdess and four little shepherds eating their evening polenta in an earth-floored room, with half a dozen chickens and the family pig gathered about them in an expectant group. they rose politely and invited the travellers to enter. it was an event in their simple lives when foreigners presented themselves at the door.
constance commenced amenities by announcing that she had been walking on the mountain since sunrise and was starving. did they by chance have any fresh milk?
“starving! madonna mia, how dreadful!” madame held up her hands. but yes, to be sure they had fresh milk. they kept four cows. that was their business—turning milk into cheese and selling it on market day in the village. also they had some fresh mountain strawberries which beppo had gathered that morning—perhaps they too might be pleasing to the signorina?
constance nodded affirmatively, and added, with her eyes on the pig, that it might be pleasanter to eat outside where they could look at the view. she became quite gay again over what she termed their afternoon tea-party, and her father had to remind her most insistently that if they wished to get down before darkness overtook them they must start at once. an italian twilight is short. they paid for the food and presented a lira apiece to the children, leaving them silhouetted against the sky in a bobbing row shouting musical farewells.
their host led them through the woods and out on to the brow of the mountain in order to start them down by the right path. he regretted that he could not go all the way but the sheep had still to be brought in for the night. at the parting he was garrulous with directions.
the easiest way to get home now would be straight down the mountain to grotta del monte—he pointed out the brown-tiled roofs of a village far below them—there they could find donkeys or an ox-cart to take them back. it was nine kilometres to valedolmo. they had come quite out of their way; if they had taken the right path in the morning they would have reached the top where the view was magnificant—truly magnificant. it was a pity to miss it. perhaps some other day they would like to come again and he himself would be pleased to guide them. he shook hands and wished them a pleasant journey. they would best hurry a trifle, he added, for darkness came fast and when one got caught on the mountain at night—he shrugged his shoulders and looked at tony—one needed a guide who knew his business.
they had walked for ten minutes when they heard someone shouting behind and found a young man calling to them to wait. he caught up with them and breathlessly explained.
pasquale had told him that they were foreigners from america who were climbing the mountain for diversion and who had lost their way. he was going down to the village himself and would be pleased to guide them.
he fell into step beside constance and commenced asking questions, while tony, as the path was narrow, perforce fell behind. occasionally constance translated, but usually she laughed without translating, and tony, for the twentieth time, found himself hating the italian language.
the young man’s questions were refreshingly ingenuous. he was curious about america, since he was thinking, he said, of becoming an american himself some day. he knew a man once who had gone to america to live and had made a fortune there—but yes a large fortune—ten thousand lire in four years. perhaps the signorina knew him—giuseppe motta; he lived in buenos aires. and what did it look like—america? how was it different from italy?
constance described the skyscrapers in new york.
his wonder was intense. a building twenty stories high! dio mio! he should hate to mount himself up all those stairs. were the buildings like that in the country too? did the shepherds live in houses twenty stories high?
“oh no,” she laughed. “in the country the houses are just like these only they are made of wood instead of stone.”
“of wood?” he opened his eyes. “but signorina, do they never burn?”
he had another question to ask. he had been told—though of course he did not believe it—that the indians in america had red skins.
constance nodded yes. his eyes opened wider.
“truly red like your coat?” with a glance at her scarlet golf jacket.
“not quite,” she admitted.
“but how it must be diverting,” he sighed, “to travel the world over and see different things.” he fell silent and trudged on beside her, the wanderlust in his eyes.
it was almost dark when they reached the big arched gateway that led into the village. here their ways parted and they paused for farewell.
“signorina,” the young man said suddenly, “take me with you back to america. i will prune your olive trees, i will tend your vines. you can leave me in charge when you go on your travels.”
she shook her head with a laugh.
“but i have no vines; i have no olive trees. you would be homesick for italy.”
he shrugged his shoulders.
“then good bye. you, signorina, will go around the world and see many sights while i, for travel, shall ride on a donkey to valedolmo.”
he shook hands all around and with the grace of a prince accepted two of tony’s cigarettes. his parting speech showed him a fatalist.
“what will be, will be. there is a girl—” he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the village. “if i go to america then i cannot stay behind and marry maria. so perhaps it is planned for the best. you will find me, signorina, when next you come to italy, still digging the ground in grotta del monte.”
as he swung away tony glanced after him with a suggestion of malice, then he transferred his gaze to the empty gateway.
“i see no one else with whom you can talk italian. perhaps for ten minutes you will deign to speak english with me?”
“i am too tired to talk,” she threw over her shoulder as she followed her father through the gate.
they plunged into a tangle of tortuous paved streets, the houses pressing each other as closely as if there were not all the outside world to spread in. grotta del monte is built on a slope and its streets are in reality long narrow flights of stairs all converging in the little piazza. the moon was not yet up, and aside from an occasional flickering light before a madonna’s shrine, the way was black.
“signorina, take my arm. i’m afraid maybe you fall.”
tony’s voice was humbly persuasive. constance laughed and laid her hand lightly on his arm. tony dropped his own hand over hers and held her firmly. neither spoke until they came to the piazza.
“signorina,” he whispered, “you make me ver’ happy tonight.”
she drew her hand away.
“i’m tired, tony. i’m not quite myself.”
“no, signorina, yesterday i sink maybe you not yourself, but to-day you ver’ good ver’ kind—jus’ your own self ze way you ought to be.”
the piazza, after the dark, narrow streets that led to it, seemed bubbling with life. the day’s work was finished and the evening’s play had begun. in the center, where a fountain splashed into a broad bowl, groups of women and girls with copper water-jars were laughing and gossiping as they waited their turns. one side of the square was flanked by the imposing façade of a church with the village saint on a pedestal in front; the other side, by a cheerfully inviting osteria with tables and chairs set into the street and a glimpse inside of a blazing hearth and copper kettles.
mr. wilder headed in a straight line for the nearest chair and dropped into it with an expression of permanence. constance followed and they held a colloquy with a bowing host. he was vague as to the finding of carriage or donkeys, but if they would accommodate themselves until after supper there would be a diligence along which would take them back to valedolmo.
“how soon will the diligence arrive?” asked constance.
the man spread out his hands.
“it is due in three quarters of an hour, but it may be early and it may be late. it arrives when god and the driver wills.”
“in that case,” she laughed, “we will accommodate ourselves until after supper—and we have appetites! please bring everything you have.”
they supped on minestra and fritto misto washed down with the red wine of grotta del monte, which, their host assured them, was famous through all the country. he could not believe that they had never heard of it in valedolmo. people sent for it from far off; even from verona.
they finished their supper and the famous wine, but there was still no diligence. the village also had finished its supper and was drifting in family groups into the piazza. the moon was just showing above the house-tops, and its light, combined with the blazing braziers before the cook-shops made the square a patch work of brilliant high-lights and black shadows from deep cut doorways. constance sat up alertly and watched the people crowding past. across from the inn an itinerant show had established itself on a rudely improvised stage, with two flaring torches which threw their light half across the piazza, and turned the spray of the fountain into an iridescent shower. the gaiety of the scene was contagious. constance rose insistently.
“come, dad; let’s go over and see what they’re doing.”
“no, thank you, my dear. i prefer my chair.”
“oh, dad, you’re so phlegmatic!”
“but i thought you were tired.”
“i’m not any more; i want to see the play.—you come then, tony.”
tony rose with an elaborate sigh.
“as you please, signorina,” he murmured obediently. an onlooker would have thought constance cruel in dragging him away from his well-earned rest.
they made their way across the piazza and mounted the church steps behind the crowd where they could look across obliquely to the little stage. a clown was dancing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy while a woman in a tawdry pink satin evening gown beat an accompaniment on a drum. it was a very poor play with very poor players, and yet it represented to these people of grotta del monte something of life, of the big outside world which they in their little village would never see. their upturned faces touched by the moonlight and the flare of the torches contained a look of wondering eagerness—the same look that had been in the eyes of the young peasant when he had begged to be taken to america.
the two stood back in the shadow of the doorway watching the people with the same interest that the people were expending on the stage. a child had been lifted to the base of the saint’s pedestal in order to see, and in the excitement of a duel between two clowns he suddenly lost his balance and toppled off. his mother snatched him up quickly and commenced covering the hurt arm with kisses to make it well.
constance laughed.
“isn’t it queer,” she asked, “to think how different these people are from us and yet how exactly the same. their way of living is absolutely foreign but their feelings are just like yours and mine.”
he touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on the step below them. it was the young peasant again who had guided them down the mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but maria. she leaned toward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. their interest in the play was purely a pretense and both of them knew it.
tony laughed softly and echoed her words.
“yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine.”
he slipped his arm around her.
constance drew back quickly.
“i think,” she remarked, “that the diligence has come.”
“oh, hang the diligence!” tony growled. “why couldn’t it have been five minutes late?”
they returned to the inn to find mr. wilder already on the front seat, and obligingly holding the reins, while the driver occupied himself with a glass of the famous wine. the diligence was a roomy affair of four seats and three horses. behind the driver were three italians gesticulating violently over local politics; a new sindaco was imminent. behind these were three black-hooded nuns covertly interested in the woman in the pink evening gown. and behind the three, occupying the exact center of the rear seat, was a fourth nun with the portly bearing of a mother superior. she was very comfortable as she was, and did not propose to move. constance climbed up on one side of her and tony on the other.
“we are well chaperoned,” he grumbled, as they jolted out of the piazza. “i always did think that the church interfered too much with the rights of individuals.”
constance, in a spirit of friendly expansiveness, proceeded to pick up an acquaintance with the nuns, and the four black heads were presently bobbing in unison, while tony, in gloomy isolation at his end of the seat, folded his arms and stared at the road. the driver had passed through many villages that day and had drunk many glasses of famous wine; he cracked his whip and sang as he drove. they rattled in and out of stone-paved villages, along open stretches of moonlit road, past villas and olive groves. children screamed after them, dogs barked, constance and her four nuns were very vivacious, and tony’s gloom deepened with every mile.
they had covered three quarters of the distance when the diligence was brought to a halt before a high stone wall and a solid barred gate. the nuns came back to the present with an excited cackling. who would believe they had reached the convent so soon! they made their adieus and ponderously descended, their departure accelerated by tony who had become of a sudden alertly helpful. as they started again he slid along into the mother superior’s empty seat.
“what were we saying when the diligence interrupted?” he inquired.
“i don’t remember, tony, but i don’t want to talk any more; i’m tired.”
“you tired, signorina? lay your head on my shoulder and go to sleep.”
“tony, please behave yourself. i’m simply too tired to make you do it.”
he reached over and took her hand. she did not try to withdraw it for two—three minutes; then she shot him a sidewise glance.
“tony,” she said, “don’t you think you are forgetting your place?”
“no, signorina, i am just learning it.”
“let go my hand.”
he gazed pensively at the moon and hummed santa lucia under his breath.
“tony! i shall be angry with you.”
“i shall be ver’ sorry for zat, signorina. i do not wish to make you angry, but i sink—perhaps you get over it.”
“you are behaving abominably today, tony. i shall never stay alone with you again.”
“signorina, look at zat moon up dere. is it not ver’ bright? when i look at zat moon i have always beautiful toughts about how much i love costantina.”
an interval followed during which neither spoke. the driver’s song was growing louder and the horses were galloping. the diligence suddenly rounded a curved cliff on two wheels. constance lurched against him; he caught her and held her. her lips were very near his; he kissed her softly.
she moved to the far end of the seat and faced him with flushed cheeks.
“i thought you were a gentleman!”
“i used to be, signorina; now i am only poor donkey-man.”
“i shall never speak to you again. you can climb as many mountains as you wish with my father, but you can’t have anything more to do with me.”
“scusi, signorina. i—i did not mean to. it was just an accident, signorina.”
constance turned her back and stared at the road.
“it was not my fault. truly it was not my fault. i did not wish to kiss you—no nevair. but i could not help it. you put your head too close.”
she raised her eyes and studied the mountain-top.
“signorina, why you treat me so cruel?”
her back was inflexible.
“i am desolate. if you forgive me zis once i will nevair again do a sing so wicked. nevair, nevair, nevair.”
constance continued her inspection of the mountain-top. tony leaned forward until he could see her face.
“signorina,” he whispered, “jus’ give me one li’l’ smile to show me you are not angry forever.”
the stage had stopped and mr. wilder was climbing down but constance’s gaze was still fixed on the sky, and tony’s eyes were on her.
“what’s the matter, constance, have you gone to sleep? aren’t you going to get out?”
she came back with a start.
“are we here already?”
there was a suspicion of regret in her tone which did not escape tony.
at the villa rosa gates he wished them a humbly deferential good-night but with a smile hovering about the corners of his mouth. constance made no response. as he strode off, however, she turned her head and looked after him. he turned too and caught her. he waved his hand with a laugh, and took up his way, whistling santa lucia in double time.
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