"Si, Signora--great trouble."
Her eyes filled with tears and her mouth worked. As if moved by an uncontrollable impulse, she thrust one hand into her dress, drew out the death-charm, and contemplated it, at the same time muttering some words that Hermione did not understand. Her face became full of hatred.
Holding up the charm, and lifting her head, she exclaimed:
"Those who bring trouble shall have trouble!"
While she spoke she looked straight before her, and her voice became harsh again, seemed to proclaim to the world unalterable destiny.
"Yes," said Hermione, in a low voice.
Maddalena hid the death-charm once more with a movement that was surrept.i.tious.
"Yes," Hermione said again, gazing into Maddalena"s still beautiful eyes. "And you have trouble!"
Maddalena looked afraid, like an ignorant person whose tragic superst.i.tion is proved true by an a.s.sailing fact.
"Signora!"
"You have trouble in your house. Have you ever brought trouble to any one? Have you?"
Maddalena stared at her with dilated eyes, but made no answer.
"Tell me something." Hermione leaned forward. "You know my servant, Gaspare?"
Maddalena was silent.
"You know Gaspare. Did you know him in Sicily?"
"Sicily?" Her face and her voice had become stupid. "Sicily?" she repeated.
The parrot shifted on the board, lifted its left claw, and craned its head forward in the direction of the two women. The tram-bell sounded its reiterated appeal.
"Yes, in Sicily. You are a Sicilian?"
"Who says so?"
"Your son is a Sicilian. At the port they call him "Il Siciliano.""
"Do they?"
Her intellect seemed to be collapsing. She looked almost bovine.
Hermione"s excitement began to be complicated by a feeling of hot anger.
"But don"t you know it? You must know it!"
The parrot shuffled slowly along the board, coming nearer to them, and bowing its head obsequiously. Hermione could not help watching its movements with a strained attention. Its presence distracted her. She had a longing to take it up and wring its neck. Yet she loved birds.
"You must know it!" she repeated, no longer looking at Maddalena.
"Si!"
All ignorance and all stupidity were surely enshrined in that word thus said.
"Where did you know Gaspare?"
"Who says I know Gaspare?"
The way in which she p.r.o.nounced his name revealed to Hermione a former intimacy between them.
"Ruffo says so."
The parrot was quite at the edge of the board now, listening apparently with cold intensity to every word that was being said. And Hermione felt that behind the kitchen door the two women were straining their ears to catch the conversation. Was the whole world listening? Was the whole world coldly, cruelly intent upon her painful effort to come out of darkness into--perhaps a greater darkness?
"Ruffo says so. Ruffo told me so."
"Boys say anything."
"Do you mean it is not true?"
Maddalena"s face was now almost devoid of expression. She had set her knees wide apart and planted her hands on them.
"Do you mean that?" repeated Hermione.
"Boys--"
"I know it is true. You knew Gaspare in Sicily. You come from Marechiaro."
At the mention of the last word light broke into Maddalena"s face.
"You are from Marechiaro. Have you ever seen me before? Do you remember me?"
Maddalena shook her head.
"And I--I don"t remember you. But you are from Marechiaro. You must be."
Maddalena shook her head again.
"You are not?"
Hermione looked into the long Arab eyes, searching for a lie. She met a gaze that was steady but dull, almost like that of a sulky child, and for a moment she felt as if this woman was only a great child, heavy, ignorant, but solemnly determined, a child that had learned its lesson and was bent on repeating it word for word.
"Did Gaspare come here early this morning to see you?" she asked, with sudden vehemence.
Maddalena was obviously startled. Her face flushed.
"Why should he come?" she said, almost angrily.