"Yes, I am sad. I have no hope left."
There was another long silence. Flocks of birds rose from the bushes with a fluttering of wings. The deadened tinkling of the little bells of a distant troop reached us.
"Of what are you hopeless?" asked my brother in the same kind way.
"Of Juliana's health, and also of mine."
He remained silent; he did not speak a single word of consolation. Perhaps he was feeling internally the pressure of pain.
"I have a presentiment," I went on, "that Juliana will never leave her bed."
He remained silent. We passed along a path bordered by trees, and the fallen leaves crackled beneath our feet, and at the places where there were no leaves, the soil had a hollow sound, as if mined by subterranean cavities.
"When she is dead," I added, "what will become of me?"
A sudden fear came upon me, a sort of panicky terror; and I looked at my brother, who remained silent, with a frown on his face. I looked about me at the mute desolation of the day. Never before, so clearly as then, had I had the sensation of the frightful emptiness of life.
"No, no, Tullio," said my brother. "Juliana cannot die."