Chapter IV: Freya (2)

From the funereal solitudes of hotels and restaurants, the guides came forth like a suddenly awakened swarm of wasps, lamenting that the war had cut off the tourist trade. Perhaps he would be the only one who would come that day. "_Signor_, at your service, at any price whatever!..." But the sailor continued on alone. Always, in recalling Pompeii, he had wished to see it again alone, absolutely alone, so as to get a more direct impression of the ancient life.

His first view of it had been seventeen years ago when, as a mate of a Catalan sailing vessel anchored in the port of Naples, he had taken advantage of the cheapness of Sunday rates and had seen everything as one of a crowd that was pushing and treading on everybody's feet so as to listen to the nearest guide.

At the head of the expedition had been a priest, young and elegant, a Roman _Monsignor_, clad in silk, and with him two showy foreign women, who were always climbing up in the highest places, raising their skirts rather high for fear of the star lizards that were writhing in and out of the ruins. Ferragut, in humble admiration, always remained below, glimpsing the country from behind their legs. "Ay! Twenty-two years!..." Afterwards when he heard Pompeii spoken of, it always evoked in his memory several strata of images. "Very beautiful! Very interesting!" And in his mind's eye he saw again the palaces and temples, but as a secondary consideration, like a shrouded background, while in the forefront were four magnificent legs standing forth,--a human colonnade of slender shafts swathed in transparent black silk.

The solitude so long desired for his second visit was now aggressively in evidence. In this deserted, dead city there were to-day no other sounds than the whirring of insect wings over the plants beginning to clothe themselves with springtime verdure, and the invisible scampering of reptiles under the layers of ivy.

At the gate of Herculaneum, the guardian of the little museum left Ferragut to examine in peace the excavations of the various corpses, petrified Pompeiians of plaster still in the attitudes of terror in which death had surprised them. He did not abandon his post in order to trouble the captain with his explanations; he scarcely raised his eyes from the newspaper that he had before him. The news from Rome,--the intrigues of the German diplomats, the possibility that Italy might enter the war,--were absorbing his entire attention.

Afterwards on the solitary streets the sailor found everywhere the same preoccupation. His footsteps resounded in the sunlight as though treading the depths of the hollow tombs. The moment he stopped, silence again enveloped him,--"A silence of two thousand years," thought Ferragut to himself, and in the midst of this primeval silence sounded far-away voices in the violence of a sharp discussion. They were the guardians and the employees of the excavations who, lacking work, were gesticulating and insulting each other in these strongholds twenty centuries old so profoundly isolated from patriotic enthusiasm or fear of the horrors of war.

Ferragut, map in hand, passed among these groups without annoyance from insistent guides. For two hours he fancied himself an inhabitant of ancient Pompeii who had remained alone in the city on a holiday devoted to the rural divinities. His glance could reach to the very end of the straight streets without encountering persons or things recalling modern times.

Pompeii appeared to him smaller than ever in this solitude,--an intersection of narrow roads with high sidewalks paved with polygonal blocks of blue lava. In its interstices Spring was forming green grass plots dotted with flowers. Carriages,--of whose owners not even the dust was left,--had with their deep wheels opened up ridges in the pavement more than a thousand years ago. In every crossway was a public fountain with a grotesque mask which had spouted water through its mouth.

Certain red letters on the walls were announcements of elections to be held in the beginning of that era,--candidates for aedile or duumvir who were recommended to the Pompeiian voters. Some doors showed above, the _phallus_ for conjuring the evil eyes; others, a pair of serpents intertwined, emblem of family life. In the corners of the alleyways, a Latin verse engraved on the walls asked the passerby to observe the laws of sanitation, and there still could be seen on the stuccoed walls caricatures and scribbling, handiwork of the little street gamins of Caesar's day.

The houses were lightly constructed upon floors cracked by minor earthquakes before the arrival of the final catastrophe. The lower floors were of bricks or concrete and the others, of wood, had been devoured by the volcanic fire, only the stairways remaining.

In this gracious city of amiable and easy-going life, more Greek than Roman, all the lower floors of the plebeian houses had been occupied by petty traders. They were shops with doors the same size as the establishment, four-sided caves like the Arabian _zocos_ whose furthermost corners were visible to the buyer stopping in the street. Many still had their stone counters and their large earthen jars for the sale of wine and oil. The private dwellings had no facades, and their outer walls were smooth and unapproachable, but with an interior court providing the surrounding chambers with light as in the palaces of the Orient. The doors were merely half-doors of escape, parts of larger ones. All life was concentrated around the interior, the central patio, rich and magnificent, adorned with fish ponds, statues and flower-bordered beds.

Marble was rare. The columns constructed of bricks were covered with a stucco that offered a fine surface for painting. Pompeii had been a polychrome city. All the columns, red or yellow, had capitals of divers colors. The center of the walls was generally occupied with a little picture, usually erotic, painted on black varnished walls varied with red and amber hues. On the friezes were processions of cupids and tritons, between rustic and maritime emblems.

Tired of his excursion through the dead city, Ferragut seated himself on a stone bench among the ruins of the temple, and looked over the map spread out on his knees, enjoying the titles with which the most interesting constructions had been designated because of a mosaic or a painting,--Villa of Diomedes, the House of Meleager, of the wounded Adonis, of the Labryinth, of the Faun, of the Black Wall. The names of the streets were not less interesting: The Road of the Hot Baths, the Road of the Tombs, the Road of Abundance, the Road of the Theaters.

The sound of footsteps made the sailor raise his head. Two ladies were passing, preceded by a guide. One was tall, with a firm tread. They were wearing face-veils and still another larger veil crossing behind and coming over the arms like a shawl. Ferragut surmised a great difference in the ages of the two. The stout one was moving along with an assumed gravity. Her step was quick, but with a certain authority she planted on the ground her large feet, loosely shod and with low heels. The younger one, taller and more slender, tripping onwards with little steps like a bird that only knows how to fly, was teetering along on high heels.

The two looked uneasily at this man appearing so unexpectedly among the ruins. They had the preoccupied and timorous air of those going to a forbidden place or meditating a bad action. Their first movement was an impulse to go back, but the guide continued on his way so imperturbably that they followed on.

Ferragut smiled. He knew where they were going. The little cross street of the _Lupanares_ was near. The guard would open a door, remaining on watch with dramatic anxiety as though he were endangering his job by this favor in exchange for a tip. And the two ladies were about to see some tarnished, clumsy paintings showing nothing new or original in the world,--nude, yellowish figures, just alike at first glance with no other novelty than an exaggerated emphasis on sex distinction.

Half an hour afterwards Ulysses abandoned his bench, for his eyes had tired of the severe monotony of the ruins. In the street of the Hot Baths (_Thermae_), he again visited the house of the tragic poet. Then he admired that of Pansa, the largest and most luxurious in the city. This Pansa had undoubtedly been the most pretentious citizen of Pompeii. His dwelling occupied an entire block. The _xystus_, or garden, adjoining the house had been laid out like a Grecian landscape with cypresses and laurels between squares of roses and violets.

Following along the exterior wall of the garden, Ferragut again met the two ladies. They were looking at the flowers across the bars of the door. The younger one was expressing in English her admiration for some roses that were flinging their royal color around the pedestal of an old faun.

Ulysses felt an irresistible desire to show off in a gallant and intrepid fashion. He wished to pay the two foreign ladies some theatrical homage. He felt that necessity of attracting attention in some gay and dashing way that characterizes Spaniards far from home.

With the agility of a mast-climber, he leaped the garden wall in one bound. The two ladies gave a cry of surprise, as though they had witnessed some impossible maneuver. This audacity appeared to upset the ideas of the older one, accustomed to life in disciplined towns that rigidly respect every established prohibition. Her first movement was of flight, so as not to be mixed up in the escapade of this stranger. But after a few steps she paused. The younger one was smiling, looking at the wall, and as the captain reappeared upon it she almost clapped with enthusiasm as though applauding a dangerous acrobatic feat.

Believing them to be English, the sailor spoke in that language when presenting to them the two roses that he carried in his hand. They were merely flowers, like all others, grown in a land like other lands, but the frame of the thousand-year-old wall, the propinquity of the alcoves and drinking shops of a house built by Pansa in the time of the first Caesars, gave them the interest of roses two thousand years old, miraculously preserved.

The largest and most luxuriant he gave to the young woman, and she accepted it smilingly as her natural right. Her companion as soon as she acknowledged the gift, appeared impatient to get away from the stranger. "Thanks!... Thanks!" And she pushed along the other one, who had not yet finished smiling,--the two going hurriedly away. A corner adorned with a fountain soon hid their steps.

When Ulysses, after a light lunch in the restaurant of Diomedes, came running to the station, the train was just about to start. He was planning to see Salerno, celebrated in the Middle Ages for its physicians and navigators, and then the ruined temples of Paestum. As he climbed into the nearest coach, he fancied that he spied the veils of the two ladies vanishing behind a little door that was just closing.

In the station of Salerno he again caught sight of them in a distant hack disappearing in a neighboring street, and during the afternoon he frequently ran across them as travelers will in a small city. They met one another in the harbor, so fatally threatened with bars of moving sand; they saw each other in the gardens bordering the sea, near the monument of Carlo Pisacana, the romantic duke of San Juan, a precursor of Garibaldi, who died in extreme youth for the liberty of Italy.

The young woman smiled whenever she met him. Her companion passed on with a casual glance, trying to ignore his presence.

At night they saw more of each other, as they were stopping at the same hotel, a lodging house like all those in the small ports with excellent meals and dirty rooms. They had adjoining tables, and after a coldly acknowledged greeting, Ferragut had a good look at the two ladies who were speaking very little and in a low tone, fearing to be overheard by their neighbor.

Upon looking at the older one without her veils, he found his original impression confirmed. In other times, perhaps, she might have destroyed the peace of male admirers, but she could now continue her hostile and distant attitude with impunity. The captain was not at all affected by it.

She must have been over forty. Her excessive flesh still had a certain freshness, the result of hygienic care and gymnastic exercise. On the other hand, her white complexion showed underneath it a yellowish subcutaneous, granular condition that looked as though made up of particles of bran. Upon her ancient switch, reddish in tone, were piled artificial curls hiding bald spots and gray hairs. Her green pupils, when freed from their near-sighted glasses, had the tranquil opacity of ox-eyes; but the minute these gold-mounted crystals were placed between her and the outer world, the two glaucous drops took on a sharpness which fairly perforated persons and objects. At other times they appeared a glacial and haughty void, like the circle that a sword traces.

The young woman was less intractable. She appeared to be smiling out of the corners of her eyes, while her back was half turned to Ferragut, acknowledging his mute and scrutinizing admiration. She had her hair loosely arranged like a woman who is not afraid of naturalness in her coiffure, and lets her waving locks peep out under her hat in all their original willfulness.

She was a dainty ash-blonde with a high color in striking contrast to her general delicacy of tone. Her great, almond-shaped, black eyes appeared like those of an Oriental dancer, and were yet further prolonged by skillful retouching of shadows that augmented the seductive contrast with her dull gold hair.

The whiteness of her skin became very evident when her arm showed outside her sleeve and at the opening of her low-necked dress. But this whiteness was now temporarily effaced by a ruddy mask. Her vigorous beauty had been fearlessly exposed to the sun and the breath of the sea, and a scarlet triangle emphasized the sweet curve of her bosom, accentuating the low cut of her gown. Upon her sunburned throat a necklace of pearls hung in moonlight drops. Further up, in a face tanned by the inclemency of the weather, the mouth parted its two scarlet, bow-shaped lips with an audacious and serene smile, showing the reflection of her strong and handsome teeth.

Ferragut reviewed his past without finding a single woman that could be exactly compared with her. The distant perfume of her person and her genteel elegance reminded him of certain dubious ladies who were always traveling alone when he was captain of the transatlantic liners. But these acquaintances had been so rapid and were so far away!... Never in his history as a world-rover had he had the good luck to chance upon a woman just like this one.

Again exchanging glances with her, he felt that throb in the heart and flash in the brain which accompany a lightning-like and unexpected discovery... He had known that woman: he could not recall where he had seen her, but he was sure that he must have known her.

Her face told his memory nothing, but those eyes had exchanged glances with his on other occasions. In vain he reflected, concentrating his thoughts.... And the queer thing about it all was that, by some mysterious perception, he became absolutely certain that she was doing the same thing at the very same moment. She also had recognized him, and was evidently making great effort to give him a name and place in her memory. He had only to notice the frequency with which she turned her eyes toward him and her new smile, more confident and spontaneous, such as she would give to an old friend.

Had her dragon not been present, they would have talked together enthusiastically, instinctively, like two restless, curious beings wishing to clear up the mystery; but the gold-rimmed glasses were always gleaming authoritatively and inimically, coming between the two. Several times the fat lady spoke in a language that reached Ferragut confusedly and which was not English, and their dinner was hardly finished before they disappeared just as they had done in the streets of Pompeii,--the older one evidently influencing the other with her iron will.

The following morning they all met again in a first-class coach in the station of Salerno. Undoubtedly they had the same destination. As Ferragut began to greet them, the hostile dame deigned to return his salutation, looking then at her companion with a questioning expression. The sailor guessed that during the night they had been discussing him while he, under the same roof, had been struggling uselessly, before falling asleep, to concentrate his recollections.

He never knew with certainty just how the conversation began. He found himself suddenly talking in English with the younger one, just as on the preceding morning. She, with the audacity that quickly makes the best of a dubious situation, asked him if he was a sailor. And upon receiving an affirmative response, she then asked if he was Spanish.

"Yes, Spanish."

Ferragut's answer was followed by a triumphant glance toward the chaperone, who seemed to relax a little and lose her hostile attitude. And for the first time she smiled upon the captain with her mouth of bluish-rose color, her white skin sprinkled with yellow, and her glasses of phosphorescent splendor.

Meanwhile, the young woman was talking on and on, verifying her extraordinary powers of memory.

She had traveled all over the world without forgetting a single one of the places which she had seen. She was able to repeat the titles of the eighty great hotels in which those who make the world's circuit may stay. Upon meeting with an old traveling companion, she always recognized his face immediately, no matter how short a time she had seen him, and oftentimes she could even recall his name. This last was what she had been puzzling over, wrinkling her brows with the mental effort.

"You are a captain?... Your name is?..."

And she smiled suddenly as her doubts came to an end.

"Your name is," she said positively, "Captain Ulysses Ferragut."

In long and agreeable silence she relished the sailor's astonishment. Then, as though she pitied his stupefaction, she made further explanations. She had made a trip from Buenos Ayres to Barcelona in a steamship which he had commanded.

"That was six years ago," she added. "No; seven years ago."

Ferragut, who had been the first to suspect a former acquaintance, could not recall this woman's name and place among the innumerable passengers that filled his memory. He thought, nevertheless, that he must lie for gallantry's sake, insisting that he remembered her well.

"No, Captain; you do not remember me. I was accompanied by my husband and you never looked at me.... All your attentions on that trip were devoted to a very handsome widow from Brazil."

She said this in Spanish, a smooth, sing-song Spanish learned in South America, to which her foreign accent contributed a certain childish charm. Then she added coquettishly:

"I know you, Captain. Always the same!... That affair of the rose at Pompeii was very well done.... It was just like you."

The grave lady of the glasses, finding herself forgotten, and unable to understand a word of the new language employed in the conversation, now spoke aloud, rolling her eyes in her enthusiasm.

"Oh, Spain!..." she said in English. "The land of knightly gentlemen.... Cervantes ... Lope!... The Cid!..."

She stopped hunting for more celebrities. Suddenly she seized the sailor's arm, exclaiming as energetically as though she had just made a discovery through the little door of the coach. "Calderon de la Barca!" Ferragut saluted her. "Yes, Señora." After that the younger woman thought that it was necessary to present her companion.

"Doctor Fedelmann.... A very wise woman distinguished in philology and literature."

After clasping the doctor's hand, Ferragut indiscreetly set himself to work to gather information.

"The Señora is German?" he said in Spanish to the younger one.

The gold-rimmed spectacles appeared to guess the question and shot a restless gleam at her companion.

"No," she replied. "My friend is a Russian, or rather a Pole."

"And you, are you Polish, too?" continued the sailor.

"No, I am Italian."

In spite of the assurance with which she said this, Ferragut felt tempted to exclaim, "You little liar!" Then, as he gazed upon the full, black, audacious eyes fixed upon him, he began to doubt.... Perhaps she was telling the truth.

Again he found himself interrupted by the wordiness of the doctor. She was now speaking in French, repeating her eulogies on Ferragut's country. She could read Castilian in the classic works, but she would not venture to speak it. "Ah, Spain! Country of noble traditions...." And then, seeking to relieve these eulogies by some strong contrast, she twisted her face into a wrathful expression.

The train was running along the coast, having on one side the blue desert of the Gulf of Salerno, and on the other the red and green mountains dotted with white villages and hamlets. The doctor took it all in with her gleaming glasses.

"A country of bandits," she said, clenching her fists. "Country of mandolin-twangers, without honor and without gratitude!..."

The girl laughed at this outburst with that hilarity of light-heartedness in which no impressions are durable, considering as of no importance anything which does not bear directly upon its own egoism.

From a few words that the two ladies let fall, Ulysses inferred that they had been living in Rome and had only been in Naples a short time, perhaps against their will. The younger one was well acquainted with the country, and her companion was taking advantage of this enforced journey in order to see what she had so many times admired in books.

The three alighted in the station of Battipaglia in order to take the train for Paestum. It was a rather long wait, and the sailor invited them to go into the restaurant, a little wooden shanty impregnated with the double odor of resin and wine.

This shack reminded both Ferragut and the young woman of the houses improvised on the South American deserts; and again they began to speak of their oceanic voyage. She finally consented to satisfy the captain's curiosity.

"My husband was a professor, a scholar like the doctor.... We were a year in Patagonia, making scientific explorations."

She had made the dangerous journey through an ocean of desert plains that had spread themselves out before them as the expedition advanced; she had slept in ranch houses whose roofs shed bloodthirsty insects; she had traveled on horseback through whirlwinds of sand that had shaken her from the saddle; she had suffered the tortures of hunger and thirst when losing the way, and she had passed nights in intemperate weather with no other bed than her poncho and the trappings of the horses. Thus they had explored those lakes of the Andes between Argentina and Chile that guard in their pure and untouched desert solitude the mystery of the earliest days of creation.

Rovers over these virgin lands, shepherds and bandits, used to talk of glimpses of gigantic animals at nightfall on the shores of the lakes devouring entire meadows with one gulp; and the doctor, like many other sages, had believed in the possibility of finding a surviving prehistoric animal, a beast of the monstrous herds anterior to the coming of man, still dwelling in this unexplored section of the planet.

They saw skeletons dozens of yards long in the foot-hills of the Cordilleras so frequently agitated by volcanic cataclysms. In the neighborhood of the lakes the guides pointed out to them the hides of devoured herds, and enormous mountains of dried material that appeared to have been deposited by some monster. But no matter how far they penetrated into the solitude, they were always unable to find any living descendant of prehistoric fauna.

The sailor listened absent-mindedly, thinking of something else that was quickening his curiosity.

"And you, what is your name?" he said suddenly.

The two women laughed at this question, amusing because so unexpected.

"Call me Freya. It is a Wagnerian name. It means the earth, and at the same time liberty.... Do you like Wagner?"

And before he could reply she added in Spanish, with a Creole accent and flashing eyes:

"Call me, if you wish, 'the merry widow.' The poor doctor died as soon as we returned to Europe."

The three had to run to catch the train ready to start for Paestum. The landscape was changing on both sides of the way, as now they were crossing over marshy portions of land. On the soft meadows flocks of buffaloes, rude animals that appeared carved out in hatchet strokes, were wading and grazing.

The doctor spoke of Paestum, the ancient Poseidonia, the city of Neptune, founded by the Greeks of Sybaris six centuries before Christ.

Commercial prosperity once dominated the entire coast. The gulf of Salerno was called by the Romans the Gulf of Paestum. And this city with mountains like those of Athens had suddenly become extinguished without being swallowed up by the sea, and with no volcano to cover it with ashes.

Fever, the miasma of the fens, had been the deadly lava for this Pompeii. The poisonous air had caused the inhabitants to flee, and the few who insisted upon living within the shadow of the ancient temples had had to escape from the Saracen invasions, founding in the neighboring mountains a new country--the humble town of Capaccio Vecchio. Then the Norman kings, forerunners of Frederick II (the father of Doña Constanza, the empress beloved by Ferragut), had plundered the entire deserted city, carrying off with them its columns and sculpture.

All the medieval constructions of the kingdom of Naples were the spoils of Paestum. The doctor recalled the cathedral of Salerno, seen the afternoon before, where Hildebrand, the most tenacious and ambitious of the popes, was buried. Its columns, its sarcophagi, its bas-reliefs had come from this Grecian city, forgotten for centuries and centuries and only in modern times--thanks to the antiquarians and artists--recovering its fame.

In the station of Paestum, the wife of the only employee looked curiously at this group arriving after the war had blocked off the trail of tourists.

Freya spoke to her, interested in her malarial and resigned aspect. They were yet in good time. The spring sun was warming up these lowlands just as in midsummer, but she was still able to resist it. Later, during the summer, the guards of the ruins and the workmen in the excavations would have to flee to their homes in the mountains, handing the country over to the reptiles and insects of the marshy fields.

The lodging keeper and his wife in the little station were the only evidences of humankind still able to exist in this solitude, trembling with fever, trying to endure the corrupt air, the poisonous sting of the mosquito, and the solar fire that was sucking from the mud the vapors of death. Every two years this humble stopping place through which passed the lucky ones of the earth,--the millionaires of two hemispheres, beautiful and curious dames, rulers of nations, and great artists,--was obliged to change its station-master.

The three tourists passed near the remains of an aqueduct and an antique pavement. Then they went through the _Porta della Sirena_, an entrance arch into a forgotten quarter of the city, and continued along a road bordered on one side by marshy lands of exuberant vegetation and on the other by the long mud wall of a grange, through whose mortar were sticking out fragments of stones or columns. On turning the last corner, the imposing spectacle of the dead city, still surviving in the magnificent proportions of its temples, presented itself to view.

There were three of these temples, and their colonnades stood forth like mast heads of ships becalmed in a sea of verdure. The doctor, guide-book in hand, was pointing them out with masterly authority--that was Neptune's, that Ceres', and that was called the Basilica without any special reason.

Their grandeur, their solidity, their elegance made the edifices of Rome sink into insignificance. Athens alone could compare the monuments of her Acropolis with these temples of the most severe Doric style. That of Neptune had well preserved its lofty and massive columns,--as close together as the trees of a nursery,--enormous trunks of stone that still sustained the high entablature, the jutting cornice and the two triangular walls of its façades. The stone had taken on the mellow color of the cloudless countries where the sun toasts readily and the rain does not deposit a grimy coating.

The doctor recalled the departed beauties and the old covering of these colossal skeletons,--the fine and compact coating of stucco which had closed the pores of the stone, giving it a superficial smoothness like marble,--the vivid colors of its flutings and walls making the antique city a mass of polychrome monuments. This gay decoration had become volatilized through the centuries and its colors, borne away by the wind, had fallen like a rain of dust upon a land in ruins.

Following an old guard, they climbed the blue, tiled steps of the temple of Neptune. Above, within four rows of columns, was the real sanctuary, the _cella_. Their footsteps on the tiled flags, separated by deep cracks filled with grass, awoke all the animal world that was drowsing there in the sun.

These actual inhabitants of the city,--enormous lizards with green backs covered with black warts,--ran in all directions. In their flight they scurried blindly over the feet of the visitors. The doctor raised her skirts in order to avoid them, at the same time breaking into nervous laughter to hide her terror.

Suddenly Freya gave a cry, pointing to the base of the ancient altar. An ebony-hued snake, his sides dotted with red spots, was slowly and solemnly uncoiling his circles upon the stones. The sailor raised his cane, but before he could strike he felt his arm grasped by two nervous hands. Freya was throwing herself upon him with a pallid face and eyes dilated with fear and entreaty.

"No, Captain!... Leave it alone!"

Ulysses thrilled upon feeling the contact of her firm, curving bosom and noting her respiration, her warm breath charged with distant perfume. It would have suited him if she had remained in this position a long time, but Freya freed herself in order to advance toward the reptile, coaxing it and holding out her hands to it as though she were trying to caress a domestic animal. The black tail of the serpent was just slipping away and disappearing between two square tiles. The doctor who had fled down the steps at this apparition, by her repeated calls, obliged Freya also to descend.

The captain's aggressive attitude awoke in his companion a nervous animosity. She believed she knew this reptile. It was undoubtedly the divinity of the dead temple that had changed its form in order to live among the ruins. This serpent must be twenty centuries old. If it had not been for Ferragut she would have been able to have taken it up in her hands.... She would have spoken to it.... She was accustomed to converse with others....

Ulysses was about to express his doubts rudely as to the mental equilibrium of the exasperated widow when the doctor interrupted them. She was contemplating the swampy plains of acanthus and ferns trembling under the shrill chirping of the cicadas, and this spectacle of green desolation made her recall the roses of Paestum of which the poets of ancient Rome had sung. She even recited some Latin verses, translating them to her hearers so as to make them understand that the rose bushes of this land used to bloom twice a year. Freya smoothed out her brow and began to smile again. She forgot her recent ill humor and expressed a great longing for one of the marvelous rose bushes: and at this caprice of childish vehemence, Ferragut spoke to the custodian with authority. He had to have at once a rose bush from Paestum, cost what it might.

The old fellow made a bored gesture. Everybody asked the same thing, and he who belonged to that country had never seen a rose of Paestum.... Sometimes, just in order to satisfy the whim of tourists, he would bring rose bushes from Capaccio Vecchio and other mountain villages,--rose bushes just like others with no difference except in price.... But he didn't wish to take advantage of anybody. He was sad and greatly troubled over the possibility of war.

"I have eight sons," he said to the doctor, because she seemed to be the most suitable one to receive his confidences. "If they mobilize the army, six of them will leave me."

And he added with resignation:

"That's the way it ought to be if we would end forever, in one blow, our eternal enmity with the Goth. My sons will battle against them, just as my father fought."

The doctor stalked haughtily away, and then said in a low voice to her companions that the old guard was an imbecile.

They wandered for two hours through the ancient district of the city,--exploring the network of its streets, the ruins of the amphitheater and the _Porta Aurea_ which opened upon a road flanked with tombs. By the _Porta di Mare_ they climbed to the walls, ramparts of great limestone blocks, extending a distance of five kilometers. The sea, which from the lowlands had looked like a narrow blue band, now appeared immense and luminous,--a solitary sea with a feather-like crest of smoke, without a sail, given completely over to the sea-gulls.

The doctor walked stiffly ahead of them, still ill-humored about the guide's remark and consulting the pages of her guide book. Behind her Ulysses came close up to Freya, recalling their former contact.

He thought that it would be an easy matter now to get possession of this capricious and free-mannered woman. "Sure thing, Captain!" The rapid triumphs that he had always had in his journeys assured him that there was not the slightest doubt of success. It was enough for him to see the widow's smile, her passionate eyes, and the little tricks of malicious coquetry with which she responded to his gallant advances. "Forward, sea-wolf!"... He took her hand while she was speaking of the beauty of the solitary sea, and the hand yielded without protest to his caressing fingers. The doctor was far away and, sighing hypocritically, he encircled Freya's waist with his other arm while he inclined his head upon her open throat as though he were going to kiss her pearls.

In spite of his strength, he found himself energetically repulsed and saw Freya freed from his arms, two steps away, looking upon him with hostile eyes that he had not noticed before.

"None of your child's play, Captain!... It is useless with me.... You are just wasting time."

And she said no more. Her stiffness and her silence during the rest of the walk made the sailor understand the enormity of his mistake. In vain he tried to keep beside the widow. She always maneuvered that the doctor should come between the two.

Upon returning to the station they took refuge from the heat in a little waiting room with dusty velvet divans. In order to beguile the time while waiting for the train, Freya took from her handbag a gold cigarette-case and the light smoke of Egyptian tobacco charged with opium whirled among the shafts of sunlight from the partly-opened windows.

Ferragut, who had gone out in order to ascertain the exact hour of the arrival of the train, on returning stopped near the door, amazed at the animation with which the two ladies were speaking in a new language. Recollections of Hamburg and Bremen came surging up in his memory. His companions were talking German with the ease of a familiar idiom. At sight of the sailor, they instantly continued their conversation in English.

Wishing to take part in the dialogue, he asked Freya how many languages she spoke.

"Very few,--no more than eight. The doctor, perhaps, knows twenty. She knows the languages of people who passed away many centuries ago."

And the young woman said this with gravity, without looking at him, as though she had lost forever that smile of a light woman which had so deceived Ferragut.

In the train she became more like a human being, even losing her offended manner. They were soon going to separate. The doctor grew less and less approachable as the cars rolled towards Salerno. It was the chilliness that appears among companions of a day, when the hour of separation approaches and each one draws into himself, not to be seen any more.

Words fell flat, like bits of ice, without finding any echo in their fall. At each turn of the wheel, the imposing lady became more reserved and silent. Everything had been said. They, too, were going to remain in Salerno in order to take a carriage-trip along the gulf. They were going to Amalfi and would pass the night on the Alpine peak of Ravello, a medieval city where Wagner had passed the last months of his life, before dying in Venice. Then, passing over to the Gulf of Naples, they would rest in Sorrento and perhaps might go to the island of Capri.

Ulysses wished to say that his line of march was exactly the same, but he was afraid of the doctor. Furthermore, their trip was to be in a vehicle which they had already rented and they would not offer him a seat.

Freya appeared to surmise his sadness and wished to console him.

"It is a short trip. No more than three days.... Soon we shall be in Naples."

The farewell in Salerno was brief. The doctor was careful not to mention their stopping-place. For her, the friendship was ending then and there.

"It is probable that we shall run across each other again," she said laconically. "It is only the mountains that never meet."

Her young companion was more explicit, mentioning the hotel on the shores of S. Lucia in which she lodged.

Standing by the step of the carriage, he saw them take their departure, just as he had seen them appear in a street of Pompeii. The doctor was lost behind a screen of glass, talking with the coachman who had come to meet them. Freya, before disappearing, turned to give him a faint smile and then raised her gloved hand with a stiff forefinger, threatening him just as though he were a mischievous and bold child.

Finding himself alone in the compartment that was carrying toward Naples the traces and perfumes of the absent one, Ulysses felt as downcast as though he were returning from a burial, as if he had just lost one of the props of his life.

His appearance on board the _Mare Nostrum_ was regarded as a calamity. He was capricious and intractable, complaining of Toni and the other two officials because they were not hastening repairs on the vessel. In the same breath he said it would be better not to hurry things too much, so that the job would be better done. Even Caragol was the victim of his bad humor which flamed forth in the form of cruel sermons against those addicted to the poison of alcohol.

"When men need to be cheered up, they have to have something better than wine. That which brings greater ecstasy than drink ... is woman, Uncle Caragol. Don't forget this counsel!"

Through mere force of habit the cook replied, "That is so, my captain...." But down in his heart he was pitying the ignorance of those men who concentrate all their happiness on the whims and grimaces of this most frivolous of toys.

Two days afterwards those on board drew a long breath when they saw the captain taken ashore. The ship was moored in a very uncomfortable place,--near some that were discharging coal,--with the stern shored up so that the screw of the steamer might be repaired. The workmen were replacing the damaged and broken plates with ceaseless hammering. Since they would undoubtedly have to wait nearly a month, it would be much more convenient for the owner to go to a hotel; so he sent his baggage to the _Albergo Partenope_, on the ancient shore of S. Lucia,--the very one that Freya had mentioned.

Upon installing himself in an upper room, with a view of the blue circle of the gulf framed by the outlines of the balcony, Ferragut's first move was to change a bill for five liras into coppers, preparatory to asking various questions. The jaundiced and mustached steward listened to him attentively with the complacency of a go-between, and at last was able to formulate a complete personality with all its data. The lady for whom he was inquiring was the _Signora_ Talberg. She was at present away on an excursion, but she might return at any moment.

Ulysses passed an entire day with the tranquillity of one who awaits at a sure place, gazing at the gulf from the balcony. Below him was the _Castello dell' Ovo_ connected with the land by a bridge.

The _bersaglieri_ were occupying their ancient castle, work of the viceroy, Pedro of Toledo. Many turrets of dark rose color were crowded together upon this narrow, egg-shaped island, where, in other days, the pusillanimous Spanish garrison was locked in the fortress for the purpose of aiming bombards and culverins at the Neapolitans when they no longer wished to pay taxes and imposts. Its walls had been raised upon the ruins of another castle in which Frederick II had guarded his treasures, and whose chapel Giotto had painted. And the medieval castle of which only the memory now remained had, in its turn, been erected upon the remnants of the Palace of Lucullus, who had located the center of his celebrated gardens in this little island, then called _Megaris_.

The cornets of the _bersaglieri_ rejoiced the captain like the announcement of a triumphal entry. "She's going to come! She's going to come at any moment!..." And he would look across the double mountain of the island of Capri, black in the distance, closing the gulf like a promontory, and the coast of Sorrento as rectilinear as a wall. "There she is...." Then he would lovingly follow the course of the little steamboats plowing across the immense blue surface, opening a triangle of foam. In some of these Freya must be coming.

The first day was golden and full of hope. The sun was sparkling in a cloudless sky, and the gulf was foaming with bubbles of light under an atmosphere so calm that not the slightest zephyr was rippling its surface. The smoke plume of Vesuvius was upright and slender, expanding upon the horizon like a pine tree of white vapor. At the foot of the balcony the strolling musicians kept succeeding each other from time to time, singing voluptuous barcarolles and love serenades.... And--she did not come!

The second day was silvery and desperate. There was fog on the gulf; the sun was no more than a reddish disk such as one sees in the northern countries; the mountains were clothed with lead; the clouds were hiding the cone of the volcano; the sea appeared to be made of tin, and a chilly wind was distending sails, skirts, and overcoats, making the people scurry along the promenade and the shore. The musicians continued their singing but with melancholy sighs in the shelter of a corner, to keep out of the furious blasts from the sea. "To die.... To die for thee!" a baritone voice groaned between the harps and violins. And--she came!

Upon learning from the waiter that the _signora_ Talberg was in her room on the floor below, Ulysses thrilled with restlessness. What would she say upon finding him installed in her hotel?...

The luncheon hour was at hand, and he impatiently awaited the usual signals before going down to the dining room. First an explosion would be heard behind the _albergo_ making the walls and roofs tremble, swelling out into the immensity of the gulf. That was the midday cannonade from the high castle of S. Elmo. Then cornets from the _Castello dell' Ovo_ would respond with their joyous call to the smoking _olio_, and up the stairway of the hotel would come the beating of the Chinese gong, announcing that luncheon was served.

Ulysses went down to take his place at table, looking in vain at the other guests who had preceded him. Freya perhaps was going to come in with the delay of a traveler who has just arrived and has been occupied in freshening her toilet.

He lunched badly, looking continually at a great glass doorway decorated with pictures of boats, fishes, and sea gulls, and every time its polychromatic leaves parted, his food seemed to stick in his throat. Finally came the end of the lunch, and he slowly sipped his coffee. She did not appear.

On returning to his room, he sent the whiskered steward in search of news.... The _signora_ had not lunched in the hotel; the _signora_ had gone out while he was in the dining-room. Surely she would show herself in the evening.

At dinner time he had the same unpleasant experience, believing that Freya was going to appear every time that an unknown hand or a vague silhouette of a woman pushed the door open from the other side of the opaque glass.

He strolled up and down the vestibule a long time, chewing rabidly on a cigar, and finally decided to accost the porter, an astute brunette whose blue lapels embroidered with keys of gold were peeping over the edge of his writing desk, taking in everything, informing himself of everything, while he appeared to be asleep.

The approach of Ulysses made him spring up as though he heard the rustling of paper money. His information was very precise. The _signora_ Talberg very seldom ate at the hotel. She had some friends who were occupying a furnished flat in the district of Chiaja, with whom she usually passed almost the entire day. Sometimes she did not even return to sleep.... And he again sat down, his hand closing tightly upon the bill which his imagination had foreseen.

After a bad night Ulysses arose, resolved to await the widow at the entrance to the hotel. He took his breakfast at a little table in the vestibule, read the newspaper, had to go to the door in order to avoid the morning cleaning, pursued by the dust of brooms and shaken rugs. And once there, he pretended to take great interest in the wandering musicians, who dedicated their love songs and serenades to him, rolling up the whites of their eyes upon presenting their hats for coins.

Some one came to keep him company. It was the porter who now appeared very familiar and confidential, as though since the preceding night a firm friendship, based upon their secret, had sprung up between the two.

He spoke of the beauties of the country, counseling the Spaniard to take divers excursions.... A smile, an encouraging word from Ferragut, and he would have immediately proposed other recreations whose announcement appeared to be fluttering around his lips. But the sailor repelled all such amiability, glowering with displeasure. This vulgar fellow was going to spoil with his presence the longed-for meeting. Perhaps he was hanging around just to see and to know.... And taking advantage of one of his brief absences, Ulysses went off down the long _Via Partenope_, following the parapet that extends along the coast, pretending to be interested in everything that he met, but without losing sight of the door of the hotel.

He stopped before the oystermen's stands, examining the valves of pearly shells piled up on the shelves, the baskets of oysters from Fusaro and the enormous conch-shells in whose hollow throats, according to the peddlers, the distant roll of the sea was echoing like a haunting memory. One by one he looked at all the motor launches, the little regatta skiffs, the fishing barks, and the coast schooners anchored in the quiet harbor of the island _dell' Ova_. He stood a long time quietly watching the gentle waves that were combing their foam on the rocks of the dikes under the horizontal fishing rods of various fishermen.

Suddenly he saw Freya following the avenue beside the houses. She recognized him at once and this discovery made her stop near a street-opening, hesitating whether to continue on or to flee toward the interior of Naples. Then she came over to the seaside pavement, approaching Ferragut with a placid smile, greeting him afar off, like a friend whose presence is only to be expected.

Such assurance rather disconcerted the captain. They shook hands and she asked him calmly what he was doing there looking at the waves, and if the repairs of his boat were progressing satisfactorily.

"But admit that my presence has surprised you!" said Ulysses, rather irritated by this tranquillity. "Confess that you were not expecting to find me here."

Freya repeated her smiles with an expression of sweet compassion.

"It is natural that I should find you here. You are in your district, within sight of a hotel.... We are neighbors."

In order more thoroughly to amuse herself with the captain's astonishment, she made a long pause. Then she added:

"I saw your name on the list of arrivals yesterday, on my return to the hotel. I always look them over. It pleases me to know who my neighbors are."

"And for that reason you did not come down to the dining-room?..."

Ulysses asked this question hoping that she would respond negatively. She could not answer it in any other way, if only for good manners' sake.

"Yes, for that reason," Freya replied simply. "I guessed that you were waiting to meet me and I did not wish to go into the dining-room.... I give you fair warning that I shall always do the same."

Ulysses uttered an "Ah!" of amazement.... No woman had ever spoken to him with such frankness.

"Neither has your presence here surprised me," she continued. "I was expecting it. I know the innocent wiles of you men. 'Since he did not find me in the hotel, he will wait for me to-day in the street,' I said to myself, upon arising this morning.... Before coming out, I was following your footsteps from the window of my room...."

Ferragut looked at her in surprise and dismay. What a woman!...

"I might have escaped through any cross street while your back was turned. I saw you before you saw me.... But these false situations stretching along indefinitely are distasteful to me. It is better to speak the entire truth face to face.... And therefore I have come to meet you...."

Instinct made him turn his head toward the hotel. The porter was standing at the entrance looking out over the sea, but with his eyes undoubtedly turned toward them.

"Let us go on," said Freya. "Accompany me a little ways. We shall talk together and then you can leave me.... Perhaps we shall separate greater friends than ever."

They strolled in silence all the length of the _Via Partenope_ until they reached the gardens along the beach of Chiaja, losing sight of the hotel. Ferragut wished to renew the conversation, but could not begin it. He feared to appear ridiculous. This woman was making him timid.

Looking at her with admiring eyes, he noted the great changes that had been made in the adornment of her person. She was no longer clad in the dark tailor-made in which he had first seen her. She was wearing a blue and white silk gown with a handsome fur over her shoulders and a cluster of purple heron feathers on top of her wide hat.

The black hand-bag that had always accompanied her on her journeys had been replaced by a gold-meshed one of showy richness,--Australian gold of a greenish tone like an overlay of Florentine bronze. In her ears were two great, thick emeralds, and on her fingers a half dozen diamonds whose facets twinkled in the sunlight. The pearl necklace was still on her neck peeping out through the V-shaped opening of her gown. It was the magnificent toilet of a rich actress who puts everything on herself,--of one so enamored with jewels that she is not able to live without their contact, adorning herself with them the minute she is out of bed, regardless of the hour and the rules of good taste.

But Ferragut did not take into consideration the unsuitableness of all this luxury. Everything about her appeared to him admirable.

Without knowing just how, he began to talk. He was astonished at hearing his own voice, saying always the same thing in different words. His thoughts were incoherent, but they were all clustered around an incessantly repeated statement,--his love, his immense love for Freya.