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Updated: June 4, 2025
A donkey brayed under an archway as if to summon its master from his siesta. A cat stole along the gutter, and vanished into a hole beneath a shut door. But the village was almost like a dead village, slain by the sun in his carelessness of pride. On his way to the post Maurice passed through the Piazza that was the glory of Marechiaro and the place of assemblage for its people.
She said to herself that it was Gaspare's excitement that was affecting her. She was catching his mood. "My dear Gaspare," she said, "we must just wait. The padrone will be here in a minute. Perhaps he has come up by Marechiaro. Very likely he has looked in at the hotel to see how the sick signore is after his day up here. That is it, I feel sure."
It had made him think of an early morning long ago, when he and his Padrona had followed a coffin down the narrow street of Marechiaro, and over the mountain-path to the Campo Santo above the Ionian Sea. He shook his head, murmuring to himself. He was not swearing now. He shook his head again and again.
Then she stood with an anxious face, twisting her apron. "Signora!" "Yes? What is it?" "Would you mind may I " She stopped. "Why, Lucrezia, are you afraid of me? I've certainly been away too long!" "No, no, signora, but " Tears hung in her eyes. "Will you let me go away if I promise to be back by nine?" "But you can't go to Marechiaro in " "No, signora.
The authorities were already at the cottage; the Pretore of Marechiaro with his Cancelliere, Dr. Marini and the Maresciallo of the Carabinieri. "They have come already?" Hermione said. "So soon?" She took the note. It was from Artois. "There is a boy waiting, signora," said Giuseppe. "Gaspare is with the Signor Pretore." She opened Emile's note.
But the man, a fisherman of Marechiaro, was already gone, and the doctor saw only the narrow, deserted street, black with the shadows of the tall houses. He drew in quickly and began to dress himself with some expedition. An accident, and to a forestiere! There would be money in this case.
As he began to think, really to think, and to realize things, he knew that after such a death the authorities of Marechiaro, the Pretore and the Cancelliere, would proceed to hold a careful examination into the causes of death. He would be questioned. That was certain. The opportunity would be given him to denounce Salvatore. And was he to keep silence?
And he stuck his hands in his pockets and went away round the corner of the cottage, whistling the tune of the "Canzone di Marechiaro." Maurice began to feel as if he were in the dark, but as if he were being watched there. He wondered how clearly Gaspare read him, how much he knew. And Artois? When he came, with his watchful eyes, there would be another observer of the Sicilian change.
Why had Delarey been at the place where he had met his death? The authorities of Marechiaro were going to inquire into that, were probably down at the sea now. Suppose there had been some tragic episode? Suppose they should find out what it was? He saw Hermione in the midst of her grief the central figure of some dreadful scandal, and his heart sickened.
All her life had been passed en famille in the village of Marechiaro, which lay on a table-land at the foot of Monte Amato, half-way down to the sea. The Gabbis were numerous, and they all lived in one room, to which cats, hens, and turkeys resorted with much freedom and in considerable numbers.
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