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Updated: June 19, 2025
They stood for a moment quite still. Then he said, in a low voice: "You took the fattura della morte?" "Yes," she answered. "It was in in her room at Mergellina to-day." "Have you got it still?" "Yes." She held out her right hand. He took the death-charm from her. "She made it the woman who wronged you made it to bring death into the Casa del Mare." "Not to me?" "No, to Peppina.
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 surreptitious. "Yes," Hermione said again, gazing into Maddalena's still beautiful eyes. "And you have trouble!"
He laid the death-charm down once more among the silver toys. But he still looked at it as he sat back now in his chair, waiting for Gaspare's return. He gazed at the symbol of death. And he began to think how strangely appropriate was its presence that night in the Casa del Mare, how almost more than strange had been its bringing there by Ruffo if indeed Ruffo had brought it, as Gaspare declared.
He looked up for a moment and listened. But all the house was silent. And again he bent over the death-charm. He stood by a door. Outside was the hum of traffic, inside a narrow room. And now in the magic mirror a third figure showed itself, a figure of youth incarnate, brave, passionate, thrilling with the joy of life.
Something new and mystic had been born, or had for the first time made itself apparent, within him to-night. And he knew that to-night he would look at Ruffo as he had never looked at him before. He got up and, leaving the death-charm lying on the table, went to the door. There he hesitated. Should he go to the terrace, to Vere?
"And such a thing could it bring death?" "Vere! You can ask me!" He spoke with an attempt at smiling irony, but his eyes held something of the awe, the cloudy apprehension that had gathered in hers. "Where is your mind?" he added. She answered: "Are you going to Madre's room, Monsieur Emile?" He put the death-charm down quickly, as if it had burned his hand. "I am going now. Gaspare!"
Artois felt that it was this fact of the disappearance of the death-charm which for the moment paralyzed Gaspare's activities. What stirring of ancient superstition was in the Sicilian's heart he did not know, but he knew that now his own time of action was come. No longer could he delegate to others the necessary deed. And with this knowledge his nature seemed to change.
"Signora?" "It's a lemon, isn't it? With nails stuck through it?" Maddalena's broad face grew a dusky red. "That is nothing, Signora!" she said, hastily. She looked greatly disturbed, suddenly went over to the bed, unhooked the string from the nail, and put the death-charm into her pocket. As she came back she looked at Hermione with defiance in her eyes. The gulf between them had widened.
At this moment Gaspare came into the room with a face that was almost livid. "Who is it that has brought a fattura della morte here?" he exclaimed. His usually courageous eyes were full of superstitious fear. "Signore, do you " He stopped. He had seen the death-charm lying on the little table covered with silver trifles.
The green parrot she always connected with the death-charm, because the latter had once been green. Whenever the one presented itself to her mind it was immediately followed by the other. The shawl at which the old woman's yellow fingers had perpetually pulled led her mind to the thought of the tunnel, because she imagined that the latter must eventually end in blackness, and the shawl was black.
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