Lark Ascending by Mazo de la Roche

Author:Mazo de la Roche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII

DIEGO could think of nothing but Varvara. As he lay in his little room, the windows of which looked into the garden, he was conscious of a spark burning on the mountain-side—the spark of her magnetism drawing him. He gave himself up to her magnetism with a deep, indolent satisfaction. He was like a plant or an animal that is aware of a dark, powerful communion between itself and an unseen source of energy. There was no excitement, no uneasy reaching out, there was just a quiet self-pleasure in the consciousness of this spark.

To-morrow he would go up the mountainside alone. The others could do what they liked—Fay and Montleone make love—Josie and Bond wander off by themselves. He would find Varvara and she would tell him all about herself, if she chose, but it did not matter if she told nothing, he would find her, look into her bronze-coloured slanting eyes—that would be enough. Enough—until he wanted more.

Just now Fay and Bond and Josie were nothing to him. They were shadows thrown on the unyielding rock of his egotism. Bond, disappointed, sombre—Josie, thin as a monkey, craving for she knew not what—Fay, absorbed by her passion for the Sicilian. There were only two realities, himself and Varvara—he, lying in this trance-like self-satisfaction—she, asleep on the mountain-side. For he chose to think of her asleep, not even dreaming of him, not dreaming at all, just lying there unconscious, passive, exercising this effortless magnetism on him. He thought of her as lying with her knees drawn up, her body curved in the shape of a horseshoe, charged with magnetism.

He thought he would not sleep at all that night but would surrender it to deep, pleasurable wonderings about her. All the dark hours of the night should remain in his remembrance forever, sensuous unpainted pictures.

Whether or not he had slept he could not tell, when morning came, but he rose refreshed and stood at the open window, drinking in the smell of violets and the purple bloom of shadows in the garden.

He went to Fay’s room and pushed a half-sheet of note-paper under the door. On it he had written:

“I’m off to spend the day by myself. You know that I like to do that, so I guess you won’t mind. You’ll be with Montleone, won’t you? Josie told me about you and him. I’m glad because I want you to have whatever you want now. You had a rough deal for a good many years.

“Congratulations and kisses.

“DIEGO.”

He walked up the steps to the road carrying a paper bag with cord handles packed with his lunch. He had just reached the corner when the clang of the bell from the church of San Sebastiano at the corner shattered the morning quiet. The bell was not rung but beaten by an iron hammer into a ferocious call for attention. It was an early call to Mass, he supposed, standing subdued by the noise. But then a solemn tolling began, and, turning the

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