The Wanderer Read Free Page A

me the more stubborn, so that by force I dragged the veil from her grasp and bared her face. She lay in my embrace with her fair curls over my arm and her dark-lashed eyes tightly closed. Her lips were like cherries, and my caress had brought a warm glow to her cheeks. I was at a loss to imagine why she had so long and so tantalizingly veiled her features from me, for they were beautiful. But she kept her eyes closed, and covered them with her hands; she was unresponsive to my kisses.
    Ah, that I had been content with this! But I urged her wildly to open her eyes. She shook her head violently and all her joy had melted away; she lay in my arms like one dead, and not my most daring caresses could revive her. Dismayed I released her and begged her earnestly to open her eyes and look into mine, that she might read there the intensity of my longing.
    At length she said sadly, “Then it’s over between us, Pilgrim Michael, and may this be the last time that I seek love. You’ll soon forget me when our voyage is ended. Let us hope that I shall forget you as easily. For the love of God, Michael, don’t look into my eyes. They are evil.”
    I knew of course that there are people who without any malicious intent can injure others with their gaze. My teacher, Doctor Paracelsus, believed that the evil eye could cause a fruit tree to wither. But it was on account of such beliefs that my wife Barbara was beheaded and burned in a German city, although she was relatively innocent. In my despair I rejected all the evidence that had been heaped against her as malice and superstition, and so incurred the guilt of heresy. Nor did I believe now that Giulia’s fair face could be marred by evil eyes, and I laughed. Perhaps my laughter was a little forced, because of her grief, but when I swore that I did not fear her gaze she turned pale and at last withdrew her hands. Her frightened eyes, clear as raindrops, looked into mine.
    My blood turned to ice, my heart stopped, and I stared back, as mute and horror stricken as herself.
    Her eyes were beautiful indeed, yet they lent a sinister look to her face, for they were of different colors. The left eye was blue as the sea, but the right was nut brown; I had never before seen such a thing—I had never even heard of it—and I sought in vain a natural explanation.
    We gazed long at one another, face to face, and instinctively I recoiled and sat a little distance, still gazing, until she too sat up and covered her breast. All warmth had drained from my body and cold shivers ran down my spine; what malignant planets must have presided at my birth! The only woman I had ever loved was beheaded and burned as a witch, and now that another had captured my heart, she too was cursed by God and must veil a face that brought horror and consternation to all beholders. My life was accursed; it might be that within myself there lurked some fatal affinity with what we call witchcraft. I remembered how Giulia’s presence, from the time I first beheld her, had attracted me like a magnet, and I could no longer feel that this was merely youth calling to youth. In my heart I suspected some dread mystery.
    I was in no condition to express my thoughts to Giulia, and when she had sat for a little while with bowed head, twisting a grass blade about her slender fingers, she rose and said coldly, “Well, Michael, you’ve had your way and it’s time for us to go.”
    She walked away with her head held high, and I leaped up to rejoin her. Without turning she said in a hard voice, “Master Carvajal, I rely upon your honor not to betray my secret to the ignorant people aboard our ship. Although life is indifferent to me, although it might be better for me and my fellows if I died, yet I long to reach the Holy Land now that I have undertaken the pilgrimage. I want no superstitious seaman to throw me overboard.”
    I caught her wrists, and turning her to me I said, “Giulia, don’t think that my love for you has died; that