Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral/Chapter 12
CHAPTER
XII
If Bertuccio had but shown any signs of having seen her companion of yesterday, Daphne's bewilderment would have been less; but to keep meeting a being who claimed to belong to another world, who came and went, invisible, it would seem, when he chose, to other eyes except her own, might well rouse strange thoughts in the mind of a girl cut off from her old life in the world of commonplace events. To be sure, the shepherd Antoli had seen him, but had spoken of him voluntarily as a mysterious creature, one of the blessed saints come down to aid the sick. The beggar woman had seen him, but had fallen prostrate at his feet as in awe of supernatural presence. When the wandering god had talked across the hedge the eyes of Giacomo and Assunta had apparently been holden; and now Bertuccio, whose ears were keen, and whose eyes, in their lazy Italian fashion, saw more then they ever seemed to, Bertuccio had been all the afternoon within a stone's throw of the place where the god had played to her, and Bertuccio gave no sign of having seen a man. She eyed him questioningly as they started out the next morning on their way to the ruins of some famous baths on the mountain facing them.
There was keenness in the autumn air that morning, but the green slopes far and near bore no trace of flaming color or of decay, as in fall at home; it was rather like a glimpse of some cool, eternal spring. A stream of water trickled down under thick grass at the side of the road, and violets grew there.
"San Pietro!" said Daphne, with a little tug at the bridle. The long ears were jerked hastily back to hear what was to come. "I know you disapprove of me, for you saw it all."
The ears kept that position in which any one who has ever loved a donkey recognizes scathing criticism. Daphne fingered one of them with her free hand.
"It is only on your back that I feel any strength of mind," she added. "When I am by myself something seems sweeping me away, as the tides sweep driftwood out to sea; but here, resolution crawls up through my body. We must be a new kind of centaur, San Pietro."
Suddenly her face went down between his ears.
"But if you and I united do drive him away, what shall we do,—afterwards?"
"Signorina!" called Bertuccio, running up behind them. "Look! The olives pick themselves."
At a turn in the road the view had opened. There, in a great orchard on the side of the hill, the peasants were gathering olives before the coming of the frost. There were scores of pickers wearing great gay-colored aprons in which they placed the olives as they gathered them from the trees. Ladders leaned against knotty tree trunks; baskets filled with the green fruit stood on the ground. Ladder and basket suggested the apple orchards of her native land, but the motley colors of kerchief and apron, yellow, magenta, turquoise, and green, and the gray of the eternal olive trees with the deep blue of the sky behind them, recalled her to the enchanted country where she was fast losing the landmarks of home.
"Signorina Daphne," said Bertuccio, speaking slowly as to a child, "did you ever hear them tell of the maiden on the hills up here who was carried away by a god?"
Daphne turned swiftly and tried to read his face. It was no less expressionless than usual.
"No," she answered. "Tell me. I am fond of stories."
They were climbing the winding road again, leaving the olive pickers behind. Bertuccio walked near, holding the donkey's tail to steady his steps.
"It was long ago, ages and ages. Her father had the care of an olive orchard that was old, older than our Lord," said Bertuccio, devoutly crossing himself. "There was one tree in it that was enormously big, as large as this,—see the measure of my arms! It was open and hollow, but growing as olives will when there is every reason why they should be dead. One night the family were eating their polenta—has the Signorina tasted our polenta? It makes itself from chestnuts, and it is very good. I must speak to my mother to offer some to the Signorina. Well, the door opened without any knocking, and a stranger stood there: he was young, and beyond humanity, beautiful."
Bertuccio paused; the girl felt slow red climbing to her cheek. She dared not look behind, yet she would have given half her possessions to see the expression of his face. Leaning forward, she played with the red tassels at San Pietro's ears.
"Go on! go on!" she commanded. "Avanti!"
San Pietro thought that the words were meant for him, and indeed they were more appropriate here for donkey than for man.
"He sat with them and shared their polenta," continued Bertuccio, walking more rapidly to keep up with San Pietro's quickened step. "And he made them all afraid. It was not that he had any terrible look, or that he did anything strange, only, each glance, each motion told that he was more than merely man. And he looked at the maiden with eyes of love, and she at him," said Bertuccio, lacking art to keep his hearer in suspense. "She too was beautiful, as beautiful, perhaps, as the Signorina," continued the story-teller.
Daphne looked at him sharply: did he mean any further comparison? There were hot waves now on neck and face, and her heart was beating furiously.
"He came often, and he always met the maiden by the hollow tree: it was large enough for them to stand inside. And her father and mother were troubled, for they knew he was a god, not one of our faith, Signorina, but one of the older gods who lived here before the coming of our Lord. One day as he stood there by the tree and was kissing the maiden on her mouth, her father came, very angry, and scolded her, and defied the god, telling him to go away and never show his face there again. And then, he never knew how it happened, for the stranger did not touch him, but he fell stunned to the ground, with a queer flash of light in his eyes. When he woke, the stars were shining over him, and he crawled home. But the maiden was gone, and they never saw her any more, Signorina. Whether it was for good or for ill, she had been carried away by the god. People think that they disappeared inside the tree, for it closed up that night, and it never opened again. Sometimes they thought they heard voices coming from it, and once or twice, cries and sobs of a woman. Maybe she is imprisoned there and cannot get out: it would be a terrible fate, would it not, Signorina? Me, I think it is better to fight shy of the heathen gods."
Bertuccio's white teeth showed in a broad smile, but no scrutiny on Daphne's part could tell her whether he had told his story for pleasure merely, or for warning. She rode on in silence, realizing, as she had not realized before, how far this peasant stock reached back into the elder days of the ancient world.
"Do you think that your story is true, Bertuccio?" she asked, as they came in sight of the grass-grown mounds of the buried watering-place toward which their steps were bent.
"Ma che!" answered Bertuccio, shrugging his shoulders, and snapping his fingers meaningly. "Much is true that one does not see, and one cannot believe all that one does see."
Daphne started. What had he seen?
"Besides," added Bertuccio, "there is proof of this. My father's father saw the olive tree, and it was quite closed."