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Updated: May 5, 2025
Somehow his present preoccupation with Hermione's fate, increased by the visit of Gaspare, rendered his irritation against the Marchesino less keen than it had been. But he thought he would probably visit the island to-night after another visit which he intended to pay. He could not start at once. He must give Gaspare time to take the boat and row off. For his first visit was to Mergellina.
He strode up to the villa. Possibly they were there; yet he didn't like to call for various reasons. He fretted about the roads, this way and that, till hunger oppressed him. Having eaten at the first restaurant he came to, he directed his steps towards the Mergellina again. At two o'clock he reached the house and made inquiry. The ladies had not yet returned.
The boy jumped lightly out and came to them. When he stood still the Marchesino said, in his broadest Neapolitan: "Now then, tell me the truth! I'm a Neapolitan, not a forestiere. You've seen me for years at the Mergellina." "Si, Signore." "You're a Napolitano." "No, Signore. I am a Sicilian." There was a sound of pride in the boy's voice.
They were beside me in the crowd." "Was he alone with his mother?" "Si, Signore. Quite alone." "Gaspare, I have seen Ruffo's mother." Gaspare looked startled. "Truly, Signore?" "Yes. I saw her with him one day at the Mergellina. She was crying." "Perhaps she is unhappy. Her husband is in prison." "Because of Peppina." "Si." "And to-night you spoke to her for the first time?"
The boat to which Ruffo belonged, going out of the Pool to the fishing, passed at this moment slowly upon the sea beneath the terrace, and from the misty darkness his happy voice came up to them in the song of Mergellina which he loved: "Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."
Spence, rising, called to the latter. "Will you accompany Miss Doran the rest of the way?" "Certainly." Mallard took his seat in the other carriage; and, as it drove off, he looked back. Miriam was gazing after them. Cecily was a little tired, and not much disposed to converse. Her companion being still less so, they reached the Mergellina without having broached any subject.
Now she was sure that in the night he had divined her determination to go to Mergellina, to see the mother of Ruffo, to ask her for the truth which Gaspare had refused to tell. He had divined this, and he had gone to Mergellina before her. Why? She was fully roused now. She felt like one in a conflict. Was there, then, to be a battle between herself and Gaspare, a battle over this hidden truth?
As he drew near to Mergellina he felt a great and growing reluctance to do what he had come to do, to make inquiries into a certain matter; and he believed that this reluctance, awake within him although perhaps he had scarcely been aware of it, had kept him inactive during many days. Yet he was not sure of this. He was not sure when a faint suspicion had first been born in his mind.
He told her the smallest details of his daily life, his simple hopes and fears, his friendships and quarrels, his relations with the other fishermen of Mergellina, his intentions in the present, his ambitions for the future. Some day he hoped to be the Padrone of a boat of his own. That seemed to be the ultimate aim of his life.
She realized this still more when she looked quickly up and saw that Vere's face was scarlet. "I don't mean that I shouldn't like to have you with me, Vere," she added, hurriedly. "But " "It's all right, Madre. Well, I've finished. I think I shall go out a little in my boat." She went away, half humming, half singing the tune of the Mergellina song. Hermione put down her cup.
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