Then she was quite alone. He could see her
sitting at evening upon the terrace with a book in her lap, gazing out
across the ravine and the olive-covered mountain slopes to the waters
that kissed the shore of the Sirens' Isle. He could see her, when
night fell, going slowly up the steps into the lighted cottage, and
turning on its threshold to wish him "Buon riposo."
Then there was an interval--and she came again. He was waiting at the
station of Cattaro. Outside stood the little train of donkeys,
decorated with flowers under his careful supervision. Upon Monte
Amato, in the Casa del Prete, everything was in readiness for the
arrival of the Padrona--and the Padrone. For this time his Padrona was
not to be alone. And the train came in, thundering along by the sea,
and he saw a brown eager face looking out of a window--a face which at
once had seemed familiar to him almost as if he had always known it in
Sicily.
And the new and wonderful period of his boy's life began.
But it passed, and in the early morning he stood in the corner of the
Campo Santo where Protestants were buried, and threw flowers from his
father's terreno into an open grave.
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