When Luisa returned the Professor had been gone some time.
"Ah, here is Sciora Luisa!" said Don Giuseppe, who was feeling quite satisfied, having had his fill of primero, and he gently stroked the modest rotundity of his ribs and belly. Then this little personage of the world of long ago remembered the second object of his visit. He had wished to speak a little word to Signora Luisa. The engineer had gone out to take his usual short walk as far as the Tavorell hill, which he jokingly called the St. Bernard, and Franco, after a glance at the moon which was just then sparkling above the black brow of the Bisgnago, and below, in the undulations of the water, began improvising on the piano outpourings of ideal sorrow, that floated out of the open windows upon the deep sonorousness of the lake. His musical improvisations were more successful than his elaborate poems because in music his impulsive feelings found a mode of expression more facile, more complete, and the scruples, the uncertainties, the doubts which rendered the labour of language most wearisome and slow, did not torment his fancy at the piano. There he would give himself up, body and soul, to the poetic rage, and quivering to the roots of his hair, his clear, speaking eyes reflecting every little shade in the musical expression, while his face worked with the continuous movement of inarticulate words, his hands, though neither very agile nor very supple, would make the piano sing ineffably.
At the present moment he was passing from one tone to another, breathing hard, and putting all the strength of his intellect into those passages, eviscerating the instrument, as it were, with his ten fingers, and almost with his glowing eyes as well. He had begun to play under the spell of the moonshine, but as he played, sad clouds had arisen from the depths of his heart. Conscious that as a youth he had dreamed of glory and that later he had humbly laid aside all hope of attaining it, he said, almost to himself, with his sad and passionate music, that in him there was indeed some glow of genius, some of the fire of creation seen only by God, for not even Luisa exhibited that esteem for his intellect which he himself lacked, but which he could have wished to find in her; not even Luisa, the heart of his heart. She praised his music and his poetry in measured terms, but she had never said: "Follow this path, dare, write, publish." He was thinking of this as he played on in the dark hall putting into a tender melody the lament of his love, the timid, secret lament he would never have dared to put into words.
Out on the terrace in the quivering light-and-shade formed by the breath of the north wind and the passion-flower vines, by the moon and its reflection in the lake, Don Giuseppe was telling Luisa that Signor Giacomo Puttini was angry with him on account of Signora Pasotti, who had repeated to him the false report that he, Don Giuseppe, was going about preaching the necessity of a marriage between Puttini and Marianna. "May I be struck dead," the poor priest protested, "if I ever breathed a single word! Not a single word! It is all a lie!" Luisa would not believe poor Barborin guilty, but Don Giuseppe declared he had it straight from the Controller himself. Then she understood at once that the cunning Pasotti was indulging in a joke at the expense of his wife, Signor Giacomo, and the priest, and declining to interfere in the matter as Don Giuseppe wished her to do, she advised him to speak to Signora Pasotti herself. "She is so terribly deaf!" said the priest, scratching his head; and he finally departed, dissatisfied, and without saluting Franco, whom he did not wish to interrupt. Luisa went towards the piano on tiptoe, and stopped to listen to her husband, to hear the beauty, the richness, the fire of that soul which was hers, and to which she belonged for ever. If she had never said to Franco, "Follow this path, write, publish!" it was perhaps because in her well-balanced affection she believed, and with reason, that he would never be able to produce anything superior to mediocrity, but it was above all, because, although she had a fine feeling for music and poetry, she did not really esteem either of much account. She did not approve of a man's dedicating himself wholly to either, and she had an ardent longing that her husband's intellectual and material activity should flow in a more manly channel. Nevertheless, she admired Franco in his music more than if he had been a great master; she found in this almost secret expression of his soul something virginal, something sincere, the light of a loving spirit, most worthy to be loved.
He did not perceive her presence until two arms brushed his shoulders and he saw two little hands hanging on his breast. "No! no! Play, play!" Luisa murmured, for Franco had grasped the hands; but, without answering, his head thrown back, he sought her, sought her lips and her eyes, and she kissed him and then raised her face, repeating, "Play." He drew the imprisoned wrists still farther down, silently praying for the sweet, sweet mouth: then she surrendered, and pressed her lips upon his in a long kiss, full of understanding, and infinitely more exquisite, more exhilarating than the first. Then she once more whispered, "Play."
And in his happiness he played the music of triumph, full of joy and of cries. For at that moment it seemed to him he possessed the soul of this woman in its entirety, whereas sometimes, even though convinced that she loved him, he seemed to feel in her that lofty reason, towering serene and cold, above love itself, and far beyond the reach of his enthusiasms. She would often place her hands upon his head, and from time to time kiss his hair softly. She was aware of her husband's doubts, and always protested that she was all his, but in her heart she knew he was right. There was in her a tenacious, fierce sense of intellectual independence which withstood love. She could judge her husband calmly, recognising his imperfections, but she felt he was not capable of doing the same, felt how humble he was in his love, in his boundless devotion. She did not think she was unjust to him, she felt no remorse, but she was touched with loving pity when she pondered these things. Now she guessed the meaning of this joyous musical outpouring, and, deeply moved, she embraced Franco and the piano became suddenly silent.
Uncle Piero's slow, heavy step was heard on the stairs; he was returning from his St. Bernard.
It was eight o'clock, and the usual tarocchi-players, Signors Giacomo and Pasotti, had not yet arrived, for in September Pasotti himself became a regular visitor at Casa Ribera, where he pretended to be in love with the engineer, with Luisa, and even with Franco. Franco and Luisa suspected some duplicity, but Pasotti was an old friend of the uncle's, and must be tolerated out of respect to him. As the players failed to appear Franco proposed to his wife that they should go out in the boat to enjoy the moon. First, however, they went to see Maria, who was asleep in her little bed in the alcove, her head drooping towards her right shoulder, one arm under her pillow, and the other resting across her breast. They looked at her and kissed her smiling, and then the silent thoughts of both flew to Grandmamma Teresa, who would have loved her so dearly. With serious faces, they kissed her once more. "My poor little one!" said Franco. "Poor, penniless, Donna Maria Maironi!"
Luisa placed her hand upon his mouth. "Be quiet!" said she. "We are fortunate, we who are the penniless Maironis."