We had left the central alley, and were now penetrating into the grassy labyrinth. The bird guests of the cloister were singing, bright insects buzzed around; but my ear was listening to the rustle of the hem of her skirt as it bent down the heads of the long grass. At last Massimilla confessed, in a shy voice—
“My departure has been put off.”
She added, as if to justify herself—
“So I shall be able to keep the last Easter with my own people.”
But to me it seemed as if she had suddenly fallen into my arms, and as if her cheek were clinging to my breast so closely that to unclasp her from me would be to hurt her.
Nevertheless I exclaimed—
“That is good news!”
And I said nothing else, for my emotion at the contact with that throbbing life was so fierce that it prevented any pitiful feigning. It was clear that she expected words of love and joy from me; that I should take her hand and ask: “Will you renounce your vows for ever and be mine entirely?” That was what she expected. And feeling her anguish so close to me, feeling her longing to surrender herself and be happy fanning my face almost like a flame, a shudder ran through me, such as a man would feel if he were suddenly shown a great wound where the most hidden intricacies of the living flesh were laid bare. There was something of that horror in my suffering. Up to that time I had played with the gentle soul, treating it like soft locks of hair through which it was sweet to run one’s fingers with the knowledge that next day it would be cut off. And now this soul was clinging to mine with its whole anguish.
“I could make thee a creature of joy!” It was like a promise, it was almost passion. Both promise and passion too had rung in my last words; and indeed at that very hour my attentive ear had been able at times, as I bent over that sweet soul, to discern some trace of the hidden vein whence the beautiful sudden laughter had sprung one day. Ah, why was I doomed to deceive such sorrowful hope, and to renounce crowning my powers with that silent adoration?
We were alone, and it was a strange solitude in which I could almost feel the emptiness of the airy space that the two other figures would have occupied had they been beside us. And the restlessness which their absence produced in my spirit was as painful as the stress of waiting.