“Signorina?”
“Do send me Roberto!”
“Momento, I will find him, signorina.”
He was seeing the hideous struggle for existence, with its cruelty, its meanness and its lusts; the breath of it hot and sickeningly fetid, the heart of it cold and unspeakably callous, its body a mass of festering sores from the sins of its blinded mind. His own body shrank and quivered a little, as a bird will quiver who is thrust into a cage, for the ruthless walls seemed to be closing around him; and the dull slate roof that would shut away the sky hung over him like a pall. Nerone had shut away the sky from his skylarks, in case they should beat themselves to pieces in despair; Robert’s bright eyes were the eyes of a skylark, a skylark looking through the bars of the Doric—but the child of the beggar had lost his eyes, and that surely was the fault of the world.
“I cannot go back to that world!” cried Gian-Luca; “I cannot go back to that world!”
Yet even as he said it, he knew that he would go back, for something far stronger than the world stood beside him, the steadfast, enduring courage of mankind that draws all men up to the divine.
Then, as though a mist had been swept from his vision, he seemed to see clearly for the first time in his life, and seeing the darkness, yet perceived a great glory, shining steadily through that darkness. He was conscious of a vast and indomitable purpose to which all things would ultimately bow; he himself, Gian-Luca, was a part of that purpose as was everything else on this struggling earth—and at that supreme moment he must cry out to God:
“I have found You; You are here in my heart!”
There were spent, hunted stags; there were blind pit-ponies; there were children without eyes; and to such things he belonged by reason of his infinite pity. He was theirs, the servant of all that was helpless, even as God was their servant and their master. But one helpless thing needed him above all others, the sad, patient woman who waited—it was better to make one poor creature happy, than to mourn for the ninety and nine. He must turn and go back, he must try to find work—it would have to be humble at first, a beginning; and whatever he did must be done with great patience, patience with himself and with Maddalena, but above all, patience with the world.
He had been young and strong and had caught at the world, determined to make it serve him; he had grown very angry and had spat at the world, seeing only its sins; he had grown very sorrowful, pitying the world, seeing only its sorrows; and then he had grown frightened because he was lost, because he could not find God. And all the time God was here in himself, that was where He was, in Gian-Luca, and in every poor struggling human heart that was capable of one kind impulse. Why, God must be somewhere in the heart of Jane Coram, consoling her solitary spirit. Nothing was too base or too humble for God, He was patient and undefeated. The path of the world was the path of His sorrow, and the sorrow of God was the hope of the world, for to suffer with God was to share in the joy of His ultimate triumph over sorrow.
Gian-Luca sank quietly on to his knees, and his body fell sideways and lay waiting; for now his mind was wandering again, and he fancied that someone was stooping towards him—someone very tender who would gather him up and carry him a long way away. A peace that was passing all understanding lay in his heart and on his eyelids, so that he closed his peace-laden eyelids, like a child who is heavy with sleep. And now his body was lighter than air, he was floating above the treetops; and now he was down on the kind earth again, lying there under the beech tree. Maddalena was coming, she was saying her prayers, her voice was all over the forest—Maddalena was saying her favorite prayer—it began—it began—how did it begin?
“Blessed be God,” breathed Gian-Luca.
A leaf drifted quietly down and touched him, but Gian-Luca lay very still. Then a rabbit that was scampering over the grass, sat up on its haunches, staring. In the beech tree the birds began talking to each other, for now it was the hour of the sunset—
And that was how Gian-Luca returned to his country after thirty-four years of exile.
Epilogue
I
Teresa Boselli stood and faced Maddalena with the parlor table between them; on the table was lying that short official letter—the cold, white messenger of death.
“I have come,” said Maddalena, “because it was my duty, and because Gian-Luca would have wished it.”
“You have come,” said Teresa, “because he was my grandson, the child of my only child.”
Maddalena’s face was as white as the paper, and her mothering eyes were tearless. “Tomorrow I go to Lyndhurst,” she answered; “Father Antonio has promised to go with me, and Rosa, who loved her foster-son, and Mario and old Nerone.” Her voice was quite steady but curiously toneless, as though a dead creature were speaking.
“I also will accompany you,” said Teresa.
“Why?” inquired Maddalena.
Teresa Boselli drew herself up, and her hard, black eyes were defiant. “Why?” she said harshly; “because my blood calls. Was he not the child of my child?”
Then Maddalena’s eyes grew as hard as Teresa’s, and her gentle face stiffened to anger. “Too late you remember,” she answered coldly, “you who would
