Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

"We must meet soon," Lamberti said, as they reached the fountain.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should say it. She stopped and looked at him, and recognised every feature of the face she had seen in her dreams almost ever since she could remember dreaming. Her fear was all gone now, and she was sure that it would never come back. Had she not heard him say those very words, "We must meet soon," hundreds and hundreds of times, just as he had said them long ago—ever so long ago—in a language that she could not remember when she was awake? And had they not always met soon?

"I shall see you to-night," she answered, almost unconsciously.

"Tell me," he said, looking into the clear water in the fountain, "does your dreaming make you restless and nervous? Does it wear on you?"

"Oh no! I have always dreamt a great deal all my life. I rest just as well."

"Yes—but those were ordinary dreams. I mean—"

"No, they were always the same. They were always about you. I almost screamed when I recognised you at the Princess's that afternoon."

"I had never dreamt of your face," said Lamberti, "but I was sure I had seen you before."

They looked down into the moving water, and the music of its fall made it harmonious with the distant song of the nightingale. Lamberti tried to think connectedly, and could not. It was as if he were under a spell. Questions rose to his lips, but he could not speak the words, he could not put them together in the right way. Once, at sea, on the training ship, he had fallen from the foreyard, and though the fall was broken by the gear and he had not been injured, he had been badly stunned, and for more than an hour he had lost all sense of direction, of what was forward and what was aft, so that at one moment the vessel seemed to be sailing backwards, and then forwards, and then sideways. He felt something like that now, and he knew intuitively that Cecilia felt it also. Amazingly absurd thoughts passed through his mind. Was to-morrow going to be yesterday? Would what was coming be just what was long past? Or was there no past, no future, nothing but all time present at once?

He was not moved by Cecilia's presence in the same way that Guido was. Guido was merely in love with her; very much in love, no doubt, but that was all. She was to him, first, the being of all others with whom he was most in sympathy, the only being whom he understood, and who, he was sure, understood him, the only being without whom life would be unendurable. And, secondly, she was the one and only creature in the world created to be his natural mate, and when he was near her he was aware of nature's mysterious forces, and felt the thrill of them continually.