'What are you thinking about?' she asked Andrea, who was sitting on the floor beside her, leaning his head against the arm of her chair.
'I am listening to you. Go on!'
'I have nothing more to say.'
'Yes, you have. Tell me a thousand, thousand things——'
'What sort of things?'
'The things that you alone know how to say.'
He wanted Maria's voice to lull the anguish caused him by the other; to animate for him the image of the other.
'Do you smell that?' she exclaimed, as she poured the boiling water on to the aromatic leaves.
A delicious fragrance diffused itself through the air with the steam.
'How I love that!' she cried.