Rough-Hewn/Chapter 56
CHAPTER LVI
They were on their way to hear a Palestrina mass in a chapel at St. Peter's, and stopped beside one of the great fountains rushing with a leap into the brilliant air and falling in white clouds of spray,
"I've heard," said Livingstone, "that if you get at the right angle to the sun, you can see a million little rainbows."
They began to walk here and there over the wet, moss-grown paving-stones around the base of the fountain, looking up at the glittering splendor of the upward plunging water, their ears filled with the liquid silver plashing and dripping of its fall. "Perhaps this isn't the right fountain, with the sun where it is," suggested Livingstone. He and Eugenia walked off across the wide piazza towards the other fountain. Neale turned towards Marise. She was standing on the other side of the basin, and as he looked at her the wind flung the huge white veil of spray over her. She stood in its midst like a novice in her white robes … or like a bride. Her eyes were lifted to the great plume of the leaping water
He sprang toward her, crying jealously, "What do you think of when you look like that?" He raised his voice to drown out the shouting uproar of the water.
The wind caught the spray and cast it away to the other side.
She answered him, dreamily, "I was wondering how we could ever know what we are made for?"
The wind shifted and for an instant cast the white veil over them both. Through it he called to her, "I know! I know what I was made for! To love you all the days of my life."
The wind whirled away the sparkling curtain of water. They stood in the quiet golden sunshine. His ears rang in the silence. Had he really at last cried it out to her? Or was it only one more of the thousand times when he had cried it soundlessly to his own heart? Eugenia and Livingstone had come back, were beside them now, between them; carrying them along up the endless steps to the church door. It was like walking in a dream. Neale tried to see Marise's face, but it was hidden by the broad-brimmed droop of her hat. Only the sweet, sweet lines of her lips.…
No, it could not be that he had spoken. It had been only another of those blinding moments when his heart flung itself up, shouting, into the sunshine of her look.
They stepped silently into the dusky, incense-perfumed chapel. Mass had begun. Eugenia and Marise sank to their knees, Livingstone standing on one side, Neale on the other, the crowd pressing thick and close about them.
From the choir came a long, sonorous chant, and then a silence, in which Neale's thoughts, pounding and hammering in his head, were stilled to one great, solemn petition.
The priest turned and passed from one side of the altar to the other. He raised his hands over the heads of the kneeling people and chanted the "Pax vobiscum."
"Et cum spiritu tuo," responded the choir, on three long, sighing notes that brought peace with them.
Standing, there, upright, looking over the heads of the densely packed crowd, his eyes fixed on the steady yellow flame of the altar-candles, Neale felt a touch on his hand. His heart stopped beating. He knew the lightest touch of that hand, as he knew the lightest sound of that voice.
He stood motionless, not breathing … waiting.
He felt Marise slip her hand into his, and hold it fast in a close, close clasp. But not so firm as his own on hers. Through the dear flesh of that dear hand he felt her pulse beating against his own, as if he held her in his arms.
The yellow flames of the altar-candles flickered and blurred before his eyes.
A great "Hosanna!" burst from the choir. Or was it in his heart?