The door opened without warning. I was kneeling beside the trunk. Glancing over my shoulder I saw her. She slipped into the room like a ray of sunlight, and stood behind me. She wore a golden dress, gathered in at the waist with a girdle of silver. Her arms, bare from the elbow, hung looped before her with the fingers knotted.
I glanced at her a moment. Her face was pale with reproach. Her rebelliousness had departed. Her lips trembled. She looked like a sensitive child, trying not to cry when her feelings had been wounded. This was the true Fiesole I had long suspected, but had never before discovered. We had no use for polite explanations; in the past two months we had lived too near together. She knew what it all meant—the half-filled trunk, the scattered clothing, the piles of books. Feeling ashamed, with a hurried greeting I turned back to my packing.
“You’re going.”
She spoke in a low voice, with a tremble in it. It filled me with panic desire to be kind to her; yet I dared not trust myself. I did not love her. I kept telling myself that I did not love her. My whole mind and being were pledged to another woman. And yet pity is so near to love that I could not allow myself to touch her. I was mad from the restraint I had suffered. To touch her might result in irreparable folly. Kneeling lower over my trunk, I shifted articles hither and thither, pressed them closer, moved them back to their original places, doing nothing useful, simply trying to keep my hands busy.
She watched me. I could not see her, but I felt that behind my back the slow, sweet, lazy smile was curling up the corners of her mouth. I knew just how she was looking—how the eyebrows were twitching and nostrils panting, the long white throat was working. I fixed my mind upon Vi. I was doing this for her. Maybe, if Fiesole had come first, we might have married. But we should not have been happy. I must be true to Vi, I told myself. I was like a man parched with thirst in a burning desert, who sees arise a mirage of green waters and blue palm-trees—and knows it to be a mirage, and yet is tempted.
“You were going away without telling me.”
Her voice broke. I listened for the sob, but it did not follow. Outside in the garden a thrush awoke; his notes fell like flashing silver, gleaming dimmer and dimmer as they sank into the silence.
“You were going away because of me. I would have gone if you had spoken.”
Still kneeling, I looked up at her. “Fiesole, I didn’t dare to tell you. Something was said. We had to separate. I thought this way was best.”
“Said about me?”