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Updated: June 27, 2025
Gaspare opened his lips to speak, but something held him silent; and as he listened to Ruffo's carefully detailed reply, delivered with the perfect naturalness of one sure of the genuine interest taken in his concerns by his auditors, his large eyes travelled from the face of the boy to the face of his Padrona with a deep and restless curiosity.
Again, as long ago, when she knelt before a mountain shrine in the night, she had put herself imaginatively in the place of a woman, this time in the place of Ruffo's mother. She realized how she would have felt if her husband, her "man," had ever been faithless to her. Ruffo looked at her almost in surprise. "I wish I could see your poor mother, Ruffo," she said.
"Thank you," Hermione said, taking it. She looked round the room again. It was clean and well kept, but humbly furnished. Ruffo's bed was rolled up in a corner. On the walls were some shields of postcards and photographs, such as the poor Italians love, deftly enough arranged and fastened together by some mysterious not apparent means. Many of the postcards were American.
Far off he still heard Ruffo's voice drifting away in the mist out to the great sea. And he saw the vague form of Hermione leaning down over the terrace wall, towards the sea, the song, and Ruffo.
And because of the gulf between them her memory had suddenly become far more sacred, far more necessary to her even, than it had been before. It had been a solace, a beautiful solace. But now it was much more than that now it was surely her salvation. As she felt that, a deep longing filled her heart to look again on Ruffo's face, to search again for the expression that sent back the years.
And, almost simultaneously, a woman appeared with eyes that stared in inquiry. By these eyes, their shape, and the long, level brows above them, Hermione knew that this woman must be Ruffo's mother. "Good-morning, Donna Maddalena," said Fabiano, heartily. "Good-morning," said the woman, directing her eyes with a strange and pertinacious scrutiny to Hermione, who stood behind him.
Don Gaspare has never said I was like somebody." The boy had evidently finished what he had to say. He stood quietly by Hermione, waiting for her to speak in her turn. For a moment she said nothing. Then she put her hand on Ruffo's arm. "Whom do you think your mother meant when she said 'somebody, Ruffo?" "Signora, I do not know." "But surely didn't you ask whom she meant?" "No, Signora.
Artois asked. "Certainly I know her," returned the Marchesino with gravity. They reached Ruffo's boat. As they did so, the Marchesino glanced at it with a certain knowing impudence that was peculiarly Neapolitan. "When I came to the top of the islet the Signorina was with that boy," the Marchesino continued. "Well?" said Artois. "Oh, you need not be angry, Emilio caro."
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 fear that cringed was suddenly replaced by the fear that rushes forward blindly, intent only on getting rid of uncertainty even at the cost of death. Soldiers know that fear. It has given men to bayonet points. Now it increased rapidly within Hermione. She was devoured by a terror that was acutely nervous, that gnawed her body as well as her soul. Gaspare had known Ruffo's mother in Sicily.
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