Her voice was still tearful; and she dried her face with a handkerchief, seated on a low divan, facing the large mirror of a closet. She had not ceased sobbing convulsively.
I entered the alcove to get the glass. I perceived the bed in the shadow. It was already made; a corner of the covers was raised and thrown back, a long white night-dress was laid close to the pillow. Immediately my subtle and keen sense of smell detected the slight perfume of the batiste, a faint odor of orris and violet, so familiar to me. The sight of the bed, the odor of the familiar perfume, disturbed me deeply. I hastened to pour out the water, and I left the alcove to take the glass to Juliana, who was waiting.
She swallowed a few mouthfuls, a little at a time, while I, standing before her, attentively observed the movement of her mouth.
"Thank you, Tullio," she said.
She gave me back the glass, still half full. As I was thirsty, I drank the water which remained. That mechanical action sufficed to increase my agitation. I sat down, in my turn, on the divan. And we remained silent, both absorbed in our reflections, separated only by a short distance.
The divan with our figures was reflected in the mirror of the closet. We could see each other's faces without looking at one another, but rather confusedly, because the light was feeble and vacillating. On the vague surface of the glass I intently examined Juliana's silhouette, which, in its immobility, gradually acquired a mysterious aspect, the disquieting fascination of certain women's portraits obscured by time, the intensity of fictitious life possessed by beings born of a hallucination. And, gradually, this distant image seemed to me more living than the real person. Gradually I saw in that image the caressing wife, the voluptuous woman, the mistress, the unfaithful one.
I closed my eyes. The Other rose up before me. One of my usual visions appeared.
I thought: "Up to now, she has made no direct allusion to her fall, to the circumstances of her fall. She has uttered only one significant phrase: 'Do you think the sin is grave when the soul has not consented?' And what did that mean? It was only one of those subtle distinctions to which one has usually recourse to excuse and extenuate one's treason and infamy. I suffered a nameless torture. The furious desire to know all racked my soul; the material visions exasperated me. The Other, since the instant in which he had risen in my thoughts, had not ceased for a moment to beset my mind. Was it Filippo Arborio? Had I guessed correctly?"
Suddenly I turned toward Juliana. She looked at me. But the question choked in my throat. I lowered my eyes, bent my head, and with the same spasmodic resistance that I should have felt on plucking a fragment of my flesh from some part of my body, I dared to ask her:
"The name of that man?"