The carriage stopped in front of the palace and remained there for a long time. The poet was once more absorbed in his impossible dream. And Maria Ferrès was quite near, was perhaps watching and dreaming also, perhaps she too felt the grandeur of the night weighing upon her heart and crushing it in vain.
Slowly the carriage passed her closed door, while the windows reflected the full moon gazing at the hanging gardens of the Villa Aldobrandini where the trees looked like aërial miracles. And as he passed, the poet threw the bunch of roses on to the snow before Donna Maria's door in token of homage.
[CHAPTER V]
'I saw—I guessed—I had been at the window for a long time, unable to tear myself away from the fascination of all that whiteness. I saw the carriage pass slowly in the snow. I felt that it was you, before I saw you throw the roses. No words can describe to you the tenderness of my tears. I wept for you from love and for the roses out of pity. Poor roses! It seemed to me that they were alive and must suffer and die in the snow. I seemed to hear them call to me and lament like human creatures that have been deserted. As soon as your carriage had disappeared, I leaned out of the window to look at them. I was on the point of going down into the street to pick them up. But a servant was still in the hall waiting up for some one. I thought of a thousand plans but could find none that was practicable. I was in despair—You smile? Truly, I hardly know what madness had come over me. I watched the passers-by anxiously, my eyes full of tears. If any one of them had trodden on the roses, he would have trampled upon my heart. And yet in all this torment I was happy, happy in your love, in the delicacy of your passionate homage, in your gentleness, your kindness.—When, at last I fell asleep, I was sad and happy together; the roses must have been nearly dead by that time. After an hour or two of sleep, the sound of spades upon the pavement woke me up. They were shovelling away the snow just in front of my door. I listened; the noise and the voices continued till after daylight and filled me with unutterable sadness!—Poor roses! But they will always live and bloom in my heart. There are certain memories that can perfume a soul for ever—Do you love me very much, Andrea?'
She hesitated for a moment, and then—'Do you love only me? Have you forgotten all the rest? Do all your thoughts belong to me?'
Her breath came fast and she was trembling.
'I suffer—at the thought of your former life,—the past of which I know nothing—of your memories, of all the marks left upon your soul, of that in you which I shall never understand never possess. Oh, if I could but wipe it all out for you! Incessantly, Andrea, I hear your first, your very first words. I believe I shall hear them at the moment of my death——'
She panted and trembled, shaken by the force of all-conquering passion.
'Every day I love you more, every day more!'