'A little further on, the road wound up the hill towards Schifanoja. Oh, the boundless melancholy of the evening! A new moon shone in the faintly-tinted, pale-green sky, where my eyes, and perhaps mine alone, detected a lingering rosy tinge—that same rosy light that gleamed upon the pools down in the pine wood.
'October 5th.—He knows now that I love him, and knows it from my own lips. Nothing is left for me but flight—this is what I have come to!
'When he looks at me now, there is a strange gleam in the depths of his eyes that was not there before. To-day, while Francesca was absent for a moment, he took my hand and made as if he would kiss it. I managed to draw it away, but I saw his lips tremble; I caught, as it were, the reflection of the kiss that never left his lips, and the image of that kiss haunts me now—it haunts me—haunts me——
'October 6th.—On the 25th of September, on the marble seat in the arbutus wood, he said to me—"I know you do not love me and that you never will love me!" And on the 3rd of October—"You love me—you love me—you cannot help but love me——"
'In Francesca's presence, he asked if I would allow him to make a study of my hands, and I consented. He will begin to-day.
'I am nervous and frightened, as if I were going to expose my hands to some nameless ordeal.
'Night. It has begun, the slow, sweet, unspeakable torture.
'He drew with red and black chalk. My right hand lay on a piece of velvet; near me on the table stood a Corean vase, yellow and spotted like the skin of a python, and in the vase was a group of orchids, those grotesque flowers for which Francesca has so curious a predilection.
'When I felt that I could no longer bear the ordeal, I looked at the flowers to distract my thoughts, and their strange, distorted shapes carried me to the distant countries of their birth, giving me a moment's respite from my haunting grief. He went on drawing in silence; his eyes passing continually from the paper to my hand. Two or three times he looked at the vase; at last, rising from his chair, he said—"Excuse me"—and lifting the vase, he carried it away and placed it on another table. I do not know why.
'After that, he resumed his drawing with much greater freedom, as if relieved of an annoyance.