She realized that the torturing restraint of those days had not succeeded in creating in her even a symptom of the new feeling whereby love was to be made sublime. Her secret task, therefore, meant simply continual dissimulation. Was it worth while to live for this?
If once the young man's madness and ardor had caused her to suffer, she now suffered far more in seeing that that ardor had grown calm, and that a sort of reserve had taken its place—a reserve that sometimes repelled the gentlest caress. She felt shame at her regret, knowing that he was possessed by his great idea, and was concentrating all his energies upon it. But a dark rancor often mastered her in the evening, after he had departed, and blind suspicions nightly tortured her sleepless soul.
—To go away!—The necessity to do this came suddenly, urgently. She had said to her beloved once, on a memorable day: "There is only one thing I can do—go away, and leave you free with your fate. This thing I can do, which love alone could not do." Henceforth, delay was no longer possible; she must break off with all hesitation, and emerge finally from that kind of fatal suspension of movement, in which she had lived so long in agitation.
Since that October dawn, their outward life had been unchanged. Nevertheless, she felt that it was impossible for her to continue to live in that way any longer. She felt a consciousness of something fully accomplished, as in the tree that has yielded all its fruit, as in the river that has reached the sea.
Her courage revived; her soul grew stronger, her energies awoke once more, and the virile qualities of the leader again came to life. In a few days she had arranged her professional route, reassembled her dramatic company, and fixed the date of departure.—You must go and work over there among the barbarians across the ocean. You must wander still from town to town, from hotel to hotel, from theater to theater, and every night you will draw howls from the crowd that pays you. You will gain much money; you will return laden with gold and with wisdom, unless it happens that you are crushed by a wheel some misty day on a crowded street. Who knows? From whom have you received the order to depart? From some one within yourself—deep, deep within you—who sees that which you cannot see, like the blind woman in the tragedy. Who knows whether over there, on one of those wide, peaceful rivers, your soul will not find its harmony and your lips will not learn that smile they have attempted so many times in vain! Perhaps you will discover a few white hairs and that smile in your mirror at the same time!—
And she went on preparing for her journey.
CHAPTER XIII
THE STORY OF THE ARCHORGAN
From time to time a breath of Spring passed across the February sky.
"Do you feel the Spring?" said Stelio to his friend, inhaling deep breaths of the new air.