And she smiled. But her lover, struck by the strange coincidence, could not repress an instinctive movement of stupor and fright.
"Could she have felt my thought?"
The dog began to bark with sudden fury, and they both rose at the same time.
"Who is it?" said Hippolyte, uneasy.
The dog barked with renewed energy, still turned in the direction of the olive-groves. Candia and the old man came out of the house.
"What is it?" repeated Hippolyte, uneasy.
"Who can it be?" said the old man, gazing into the darkness.
The sound of a human voice came from the olive-trees, an imploring, sobbing voice. Then appeared an indistinct form, which Candia immediately recognized.
"Liberata!"
The mother carried on her head the cradle, covered with a dark cloth. She walked erect, almost rigid, without turning, without deviating from her path, absorbed in herself, mute like a sinister somnambulist, blindly impelled towards an unknown goal. And a man followed her bareheaded, beside himself, sobbing, imploring, calling her by her name, bending, beating his sides or burying his hands in his hair with gestures of atrocious despair. Grotesque and miserable, following the steps of the deaf woman, he howled, amidst his sobs: