They sat down to supper, which was lively and noisy enough. Then Regina went out again, and, in spite of the fatigue which stiffened her limbs, she walked a long way by the river-side. Adamo and her sister were with her, but she felt alone, quite alone and very sad. He was far away, and his presence was wanted to fill the wondrous solitude of that pure and luminous night. What was he doing? Even in Rome at the end of June the nights are sweet and suggestive. Regina thought of the evening walks with Antonio, through wide and lonely streets near the Villa Ludovisi. The moon would be rising above the tree tops, and sometimes Antonio would take his inattentive wife in by saying—
"How high up that electric light is!"
The fragrance of the gardens mixed with the scent of hay carted in from the Campagna, and the tinkle of a mandoline, moved the heart of the homesick Regina. Yes; even at Rome the nights had been delicious before the great heat had come, when already many of the people had gone away. Now she too had gone, and who could know if she would return? Who could tell if Antonio would want her ever again! Lost in this gnawing fear, she suddenly started and checked her steps. There, on the edge of the bank, abandoned in the lush grass, was that despised old millstone, which so often had stood before her eyes in her attacks of Nostalgia. Now she saw it in reality, and she noticed for the first time that it lay just exactly where a little track started, leading to the river through a grove of young willows and acacias. One evening, last autumn, standing on that little sandy path in the rosy shadow of the thicket, Antonio had sung her the song "The Pearl Fishers," and presently they had exchanged their first kiss. Now still she heard his voice vibrating in her soul.
"Mi par d'udire ancora."
(Still meseems I hear thee.)
And now she understood why she had always remembered the old stone. It would have meant nothing to her if it had not lain exactly at that spot, on that little tree-shadowed pathway, which was full of memories of him.
She stepped down it, standing for a minute among the willows, which had grown immensely, then approaching the water, now all bluish-white, gleaming under the moon. But the Po had made a new island, as soft and frothy as a chocolate cream, and even the river-side seemed to her changed.
Adamo and Toscana descended also to the water's edge, and the girl began to sing. Her voice trembled in the moonlit silence like the gurgle of a nightingale. Why she knew not, but Regina remembered the first evening at the Princess's and the voice of the elderly lady who had sung
"A te, cara."
How far off was that world! So far that perhaps she might never—never enter it again!