For centuries, ever since the word had been written there, no human voice had been heard in this place. Jeanne did not look, did not see. That finger at Piero’s lips was enough to seal her own. But it was not enough to check the sob in her throat. She gazed at him intently, her lips pressed tightly together, while great, silent tears rolled down her face. Immovable, his arms hanging close to his sides, Benedetto slightly bent his head and closed his eyes, absorbed in prayer. The great, black, imperious word, big with shadows and with death, triumphed over these two human souls, while from the shining balcony the fierce souls of the Anio and of the wind roared in protest.
Suddenly, a few seconds after Benedetto’s eyes had closed to her gaze, she was shaken and rent from shoulder to knee by a great sob, a sob bitter with all the bitterness of her fate. He opened his eyes and looked tenderly at her, while she drank in his look thirstily, sobbing twice, as in sorrowful gratitude. And because this man, her beloved, again raised his finger to his lips she bowed her head in assent. Yes, yes, she would be silent, she would be calm! Still in obedience to his gesture, to his look, she rose to her feet and drew back, allowing him to pass out through the open door; then she followed him humbly, her hope dead in her breast, so many sweet phantoms dead in her heart, her love turned to fear and veneration.
She followed him to the chapel which they call the upper church. There, opposite the three small pointed arches inclosing deep shadows through which an altar looms, and where a silver cross shines against the dark phantoms of ancient paintings, Jeanne, upon a sign from him, knelt on the prie-dieu placed on the right side of the great arch, which follows the line of the pointed vault, while he knelt on the one placed on the left. On the drum of the arch a fourteenth century painter had depicted the Great Sorrow. Through a high window on the left, the light fell upon the Mother of Sorrows—the Dolorosa; Benedetto was in the shadow.
His voice murmured in a scarcely audible tone:
“Still without faith?”
Softly, as he himself had spoken, and without turning her head, she answered:
“Yes.”
He was silent for a time, then he continued, in the same tone:
“Do you long for it? Could you regulate your actions as if you believed in God?”
“Yes, if I be not forced to lie.”