"I do not know," he says, "where Don Rodriguez is going. My master
did not tell me."
Did he notice nothing as they rode by that balcony?
"Nothing," Morano answers, "except my master riding."
We may let Morano's shade drift hence again, for we shall discover
nothing: nor is this an age to which to call back spirits.
Rodriguez strolled slowly on the deep dust of that street as
though wondering all the while where he should go; and soon he and
his mandolin were below that very balcony whereon he had seen the
white neck of Serafina gleam with the last of the daylight. And
now the spells of the moon charmed Earth with their full power.
The balcony was empty. How should it have been otherwise? And yet
Rodriguez grieved. For between the vision that had drawn his
footsteps and that bare balcony below shuttered windows was the
difference between a haven, sought over leagues of sea, and sheer,
uncharted cliff. It brought a wistfulness into the music he
played, and a melancholy that was all new to Rodriguez, yet often
and often before had that mandolin sent up through evening against
unheeding Space that cry that man cannot utter; for the spirit of
man needs a mandolin as a comrade to face the verdict of the
chilly stars as he needs a bulldog for more mundane things.
Soon out of the depth of that stout old mandolin, in which so many
human sorrows had spun tunes out of themselves, as the spiders
spin misty grey webs, till it was all haunted with music, soon the
old cry went up to the stars again, a thread of supplication spun
of the matter which else were distilled in tears, beseeching it
knew not what.
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