He took it at evening.
He had finished dinner now, and he pushed back his chair and drew a cigar
from his pocket. Then he struck a match. As he was putting it to the
cigar he looked again towards the sea and saw the light.
"Damn!"
"Signore!"
Gaspare came running.
"I didn't call, Gaspare, I only said 'Mamma mia!' because I burned my
fingers."
He struck another match and lit the cigar.
"Signore--" Gaspare began, and stopped.
"Yes? What is it?"
"Signore, I--Lucrezia, you know, has relatives at Castel Vecchio."
Castel Vecchio was the nearest village, perched on the hill-top opposite,
twenty minutes' walk from the cottage.
"Ebbene?"
"Ebbene, signorino, to-night there is a festa in their house. It is the
festa of Pancrazio, her cousin. Sebastiano will be there to play, and
they will dance, and--"
"Lucrezia wants to go?"
"Si, signore, but she is afraid to ask."
"Afraid! Of course she can go, she must go. Tell her. But at night can
she come back alone?"
"Signore, I am invited, but I said--I did not like the first evening that
the padrona is away--if you would come they would take it as a great
honor."
"Go, Gaspare, take Lucrezia, and bring her back safely."
"And you, signore?"
"I would come, too, but I think a stranger would spoil the festa."
"Oh no, signore, on the contrary--"
"I know--you think I shall be sad alone."
"Si, signore."
"You are good to think of your padrone, but I shall be quite content. You
go with Lucrezia and come back as late as you like. Tell Lucrezia! Off
with you!"
Gaspare hesitated no longer. In a few minutes he had put on his best
clothes and a soft hat, and stuck a large, red rose above each ear. He
came to say good-bye with Lucrezia on his arm. Her head was wrapped in a
brilliant yellow-and-white shawl with saffron-colored fringes. They went
off together laughing and skipping down the stony path like two children.
When their footsteps died away Delarey, who had walked to the archway to
see them off, returned slowly to the terrace and began to pace up and
down, puffing at his cigar. The silence was profound. The rising moon
cast its pale beams upon the white walls of the cottage, the white seats
of the terrace. There was no wind. The leaves of the oaks and the
olive-trees beneath the wall were motionless. Nothing stirred. Above the
cottage the moonlight struck on the rocks, showed the nakedness of the
mountain-side. A curious sense of solitude, such as he had never known
before, took possession of Delarey. It did not make him feel sad at
first, but only emancipated, free as he had never yet felt free, like one
free in a world that was curiously young, curiously unfettered by any
chains of civilization, almost savagely, primitively free. So might an
animal feel ranging to and fro in a land where man had not set foot. But
he was an animal without its mate in the wonderful breathless night. And
the moonlight grew about him as he walked, treading softly he scarce knew
why, to and fro, to and fro.