She thought once more of her dead aunt Jane and of her distant infancy.
"Poor aunt!" she said; "she had, I recall, a house like this—a house in which, for a century, the furniture had not been moved from its place. I always recollect her unhappiness when I broke one of those glass globes beneath which artificial flowers are preserved, you know. I remember she cried over it. Poor old aunt! I can see her black-lace cap, with her white curls which hung down her cheeks."
She spoke slowly, pausing from time to time, her gaze fixed on the fire which flamed in the fireplace; and, every now and then, so as to smile at George, she raised her eyes, which were somewhat downcast and surrounded by dark violet rings; while from the street arose the monotonous and regular noise of pavers beating the pavement.
"In the house, I can recall, there was a large hay-loft with two or three windows, where we kept the pigeons. You reached the loft by means of a small, straight stairway, against the wall of which hung, heaven knows since when, skins of hares, hairless and dried, stretched from two ends of crossed reeds. Every day I carried food to the pigeons. As soon as they heard me coming, they clustered around the door. When I entered, it was a veritable assault. Then I would sit on the floor and scatter the barley all around me. The pigeons surrounded me; they were all white, and I watched them pecking up their food. The sound of a flute stole in from a neighboring house; always the same air at the same hour. This music seemed delicious to me. I listened, my head raised to the window, my mouth wide open, as if to drink in the notes which showered. From time to time a belated pigeon arrived, beating her wings on my head, and filling my hair with white feathers. And the invisible flute went on playing. The air still rings in my ears; I could hum it. That is how I acquired a passion for music, in a dovecote, when a child."
And she repeated mentally the air of the ancient flute of Albano; she enjoyed its sweetness with a melancholy comparable to that of the wife who, after many years, discovers a forgotten sugar-plum at the bottom of her wedding-box. There was an interval of silence. A bell sounded in the corridor of the peaceful residence.
"I remember. A lame turtle-dove hopped into the room; and it was one of my aunt's greatest favorites.
"One day a little girl of the neighborhood came to play with me—a pretty little blond girl named Clarisse. My aunt was confined to bed by a cold. We amused ourselves on the terrace, to the great damage of the vases of pinks. The turtle-dove appeared on the sill, looked at us without suspicion, and squatted down in a corner to enjoy the sunshine. Scarcely had Clarisse perceived it, however, when she started forward to seize it. The poor little creature tried to escape by hopping away, but it limped so comically that we could not control our laughter. Clarisse caught it; she was a cruel child. From laughing, we were both as drunk. The turtle-dove trembled with fear in our hands.
"Clarisse plucked one of its feathers; then (I shudder still when I think of it) she plucked the dove almost entirely, before my eyes, with peals of laughter which made me laugh too. One could have believed that she was intoxicated. The poor creature, despoiled of its feathers, bleeding, escaped into the house as soon as it was liberated. We started to pursue it, but, almost at the same moment, we heard the tinkle of the bell, and the calls of my aunt who was coughing in her bed. Clarisse escaped rapidly by the stairway; I hid myself behind the curtains. The turtle-dove died that same night. My aunt sent me to Rome, convinced that I was guilty of this barbarity. Alas! I never saw Aunt Jane again. How I have wept! My remorse will last forever."
She spoke slowly, pausing from time to time, fixing her dilated eyes on the flaming hearth, which almost magnetized her, which began to overcome her with a hypnotic torpor, while from the street arose the monotonous and regular noise of pavers beating the pavement.
CHAPTER VI.