As if in answer to my question, Raymond began to cough.
"Do you hear?"
It was a little, hoarse cough, unaccompanied by any sound of any of the internal organs. It ceased immediately.
I thought: "We must wait." But in proportion as the fatal presentiment was resuscitated in me, my aversion toward the intruder diminished, my irritation subsided. I perceived that my heart remained oppressed and miserable, incapable of a single joyful transport.
I remember that evening as being the saddest I have ever passed during the course of my fatal career.
Supposing that Giovanni di Scordio might be in the neighborhood, I left the house and walked along the walk where my brother and I had met him the last time. There were signs of a snowstorm in the night air. Under the row of trees stretched a carpet of leaves. The bare and dry branches stood out against the sky.
I looked around me in the hope of seeing the old man. I thought of his tenderness for his godson, of that senile and desolate love, of those large, callous, and rugged hands which I had seen become ennobled and tremble on the whiteness of his clothes. I thought: "How he will weep!" I saw the little dead body in its swaddling-clothes lying in its coffin, amidst the wreaths of white chrysanthemums, between four lighted candles, and Giovanni weeping on his knees. "My mother will weep, will be in despair. The entire house will be in mourning. Christmas will be funereal. And what will Juliana do when I present myself on the threshold of the alcove, at the foot of the bed, and announce: 'He is dead!'"
I had arrived to the end of the avenue. I looked around; I saw no one. The country was silently disappearing in the darkness; a fire shone red on the hill, very distant. I retraced my steps, alone. Suddenly something white trembled before my eyes and disappeared. It was the first snow.
That evening, while I was at Juliana's bedside, I again heard the bagpipes continuing the nine days' prayer, at the same hour.
XLVIII.