He fell to kissing Rosa’s hands, those hands that had combed, bathed and clothed Violetta. He stammered, while kissing them, composed verses so strange that Rosa could scarcely refrain from laughter. But at last she understood and with feminine perception forced herself to remain serious, while she summed up the advantages that might ensue from this foolish comedy. She grew docile, let him caress her, let him call her Violetta, made use of all that experience acquired from peeping through key-holes many times at her mistress’s door; she even sought to make her voice more sweet.
In the room one could scarcely see them. Through the open windows a red reflection entered and the trees in the garden, almost black, twisted and turned in the wind. From the sloughs around the arsenal came the hoarse croak of the frogs. The noises of the city street were indistinct.
Don Giovanni drew the woman to his knees, and, completely confused as if he had swallowed some very’ strong liquor, murmured a thousand childish nothings and babbled on without end, drawing her face close to his.
“Ah, darling little Violetta!” he whispered. “Sweetheart! Don’t go away, dear...! If you go away your Nini will die, Poor Nini...! Ban-ban-ban-bannn!”
Thus he continued stupidly, as he had done before with the opera-singer. Rosa Catana patiently offered him slight caresses, as if he were a very sick, perverted child; she took his head and pressed it against her shoulder, kissed his swollen, weeping eyes, stroked his bald crown, rearranged his oiled locks.
VI
Thus, Rosa Catana, little by little, earned her inheritance from Don Giovanni Ussorio, who, in the March of 1871, died of paralysis.
III THE RETURN OF TURLENDANA
The group was walking along the seashore. Down the hills and over the country Spring was coming again. The humble strip of land bordering the sea was already green; the various fields were quite distinctly marked by the springing vegetation, and every mound was crowned with budding trees. The north wind shook these trees, and its breath caused many flowers to fall. At a short distance the heights seemed to be covered with a colour between pink and violet; for an instant the view seemed to tremble and grow pale like a ripple veiling the clear surface of a pool, or like a faded painting.
The sea stretched out its broad expanse serenely along the coast, bathed by the moonlight, and toward the north taking on the hue of a turquois of Persia, broken here and there by the darker tint of the currents winding over its surface.