"Look! How he has already changed in a few days! He resembles you more than Tullio, but he bears very little resemblance to either of you. He is still too little. We shall see later. Do you want to kiss him?"
She put the child's forehead to the invalid's lips. What sensation did Juliana feel?
The infant began to cry. I had the courage to say to my mother without bitterness:
"Take him away, please. Juliana needs quiet, and these shocks do her great harm."
My mother left the alcove. The wails died away, but continued to cause me the same sensation of painful laceration, the same desire to run and strangle him so as not to hear them. We heard them for some time while he was being carried away. When they finally ceased, the silence seemed horrible to me; it fell on me like an avalanche, it crushed me. But, instead of dwelling on my pain, I thought immediately that Juliana required assistance.
"Ah! Tullio, Tullio, it is not possible..."
"Be silent, Juliana! Be silent, if you love me! I beseech you, be silent!"
My voice, my gesture, was supplicating. All the irritation of my hate had fallen. I suffered only on account of her suffering; I feared only the distress caused the invalid, the shock she had received from that fragile life.
"If you love me you must think of nothing but your cure. Look at me! I think only of you; I suffer only for you. You must not torment yourself. You must abandon yourself entirely to my tenderness, in order to get well..."
In her feeble and trembling voice she answered: