That was the quickest way. The tram-bell sounded.
Was he glad? As he watched the tram gliding towards him he was
conscious of an almost terrible reluctance--a reluctance surely of
fear--to go that night to the island.
But he must go.
The sun was setting when he got down before the Trattoria del
Giardinetto. Three soldiers were sitting at a table outside on the
dusty road, clinking their glasses of marsala together, and singing,
"Piange Rosina! La Mamma ci domanda." Their brown faces looked vivid
with the careless happiness of youth. As Artois went down from the
road into the tunnel their lusty voices died away.
Because his instinct was to walk slowly, to linger on the way, he
walked very fast. The slanting light fell gently, delicately, over the
opulent vineyards, where peasants were working in huge straw hats,
over the still shining but now reposeful sea. In the sky there was a
mystery of color, very pure, very fragile, like the mystery of color
in a curving shell of the sea.
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