III
That evening Gian-Luca wrote the letter to Millo, but he wrote for the old lame mule. Of himself he said little, having little to say, beyond thanking Millo yet again for his kindness.
“If you could try Mario Varese,” he wrote, “I think he would give you satisfaction. He would make an excellent storeroom keeper, for there his lameness would not affect him, and, moreover, he knows a great deal about food, its price, and how to select it. He is honest and sober, and a very hard worker; he has had to work hard all his life, and although he is not as young as he was, he must be as young as Agostino.”
Gian-Luca went out and slipped the letter in the postbox, after which he returned to Maddalena. For a moment he looked at her without speaking—she was darning his socks by the fire. Then he called her and made her sit down beside him, and he took the darning from her hand, while she stared at him silent and always fearful, wondering what he would say. As gently as he could he told Maddalena the thing that he knew he must do. He must go right away all alone, he told her, he must try to find God in great solitude—he must try to understand this thing she called God; for only in that way would he ever understand the reason and the meaning of life, and only in that way could he find Gian-Luca, the man who had lost himself. He wanted to understand pity, he told her, and the suffering that had called it into being, and why the beggar had lost his eyes, and why the singing bird had been blinded. He wanted to think out the problem of death and where it must ultimately lead, but above all the problem of God concerned him.
“Because,” he said slowly, “if your God does exist and is good, as you think Him, Maddalena, then all these big problems must come right in the end—but supposing you are wrong and God does not exist, is there any hope for the world?” Then he said: “I have always been a good fighter, and now I am fighting again. I am fighting to get to your God, Maddalena; I am like a poor sailor who looks for a light that will get him to port in a storm. I have never uttered a prayer in my life, for I felt that I had nothing to pray to. All my life I have depended entirely on myself, but now I have not got myself to depend on—because I have lost myself.”
And all this time she had sat there quite silent, speaking never a word, and Gian-Luca appeared not to notice her strange silence, for he went on to tell her of his plans. He would take very little with him, he told her; whatever he needed he could buy on his journey—but then he would need scarcely anything at all, for he meant to live very simply. At the end of his journey he would send her an address to which she could always write, and he too would write, but their letters must be brief: “I am well, Maddalena.” “I am well, Gian-Luca,”—though if either of them were in sore need they must say so; only, he begged her to wait for that need before she summoned him home. And now he made yet another condition: she must not let anyone know his address, nor must she come herself, trying to find him, for he wanted to be quite alone.
He said: “I shall not forget you, Maddalena, and I promise that I will come back—while I am gone I shall think out our future, and what I must do to earn my living, and if I find God it will all be so simple, for of course He will show me the way.”
Then he groped for her hand and tried to hold it, but she wrenched it free with a cry; and now she had risen, and he too had risen, staring at her aghast. For Maddalena’s face was white to the lips, and her gentle, mothering eyes were on fire, and all of her shook with a kind of fury, and her voice when it came was choked with passion, so that he scarcely knew it.
“You will never come back, Gian-Luca,” she said wildly, “you will never come back any more—and as God is my witness I will not let you go—you belong to me only, and God gave you to me, therefore He cannot take you away—not like this, not while you still live, Gian-Luca. I need you, I need you far more than God does. He has got the whole world, I have only got you—”
“It is I who need Him,” said Gian-Luca.
“The Church—” she began.
But he held up his hand, and a strange, new authority looked from his eyes: “I am told to find God in my own way, Maddalena. I am told to go now and find Him.”
“You are told?” she said loudly. “Who has told you, Gian-Luca?”
And he answered: “I do not know; but I mean to obey that summons, Maddalena—I will not ignore it any longer.”
Then all that lies dormant in the heart of woman rose up and gripped Maddalena. The long years of civilization slipped from her, and she stood forth a naked, primitive thing, and she crushed down her spirit and she called on her body to help her in her fight for this man.
“I love you, I love you!” she whispered fiercely, and her arms were around his neck. Her soft, ample body was pressed against him, so that he could feel the warmth of her body; all that was gracious in it he felt, and the deep, happy comfort of her breasts. Her lips were on his, insistent, compelling, while she murmured the words of her love; and her love swept the years away from Maddalena, so that she seemed like the splendid young virgin who had walked that day by the side of her lover into the woods at Hadley.
“Stay with me—stay with me, amore,” she pleaded, “you cannot leave Maddalena—you have so often slept with your head on her breast—” and she lifted her hand and pressed down his head, as she had done long ago in the woods.
For one moment he let his cheek rest on her shoulder, kissing her strong, white throat—for was not this wife of his a woman made more lovely through her love for him? But then he must push her away very gently—pitiful and almost ashamed.
He said: “If you love me, have mercy, Maddalena.” And he knelt down before her and prayed for her mercy—prayed her to let him go forth in peace on this journey in quest of God.
Then the passion died out of Maddalena’s eyes, and the motherhood came back and possessed them entirely—and her eyes filled with gentle and most blessed tears, to see him kneeling before her. She stooped, and he grasped at her outstretched hands as she drew him up from his knees.
“May God go each step of the way beside you, and may you feel Him and know Him, Gian-Luca, and may He give you the thing you most need, which is surely peace,” she murmured.
Then they kissed each other very gravely and sadly and they looked into each other’s eyes, and Gian-Luca said: “God must exist somewhere, since you exist, Maddalena.”