"Government clerk: private secretary to an old Princess. Young. Fair. Very handsome. Tall, athletic; long, fascinating eyes; good mouth; fresh complexion. Lively. Good-hearted. Deeply in love with his young wife. Nevertheless, he is the Princess's lover."
CHAPTER II
Regina had once dreamed of an eclipse of the sun. Reading Gabrie's page, she remembered that dream, because there was reproduced in her the same feeling of fearful darkness, of portentous silence and terrible expectation.
For a moment. When the moment had passed she again saw the light of the sun, felt again the vibration of life, perceived that everything in the outer world had retained its proper aspect and position, and that nothing was changed. But she was no longer the same. Around her, far and near, the light had returned; within her darkness remained.
She laid the note-book on the table, took up the violets, the biscuits, the book, and she went. Later she saw she had fled from the vulgar temptation to question Gabrie, to force her, even by violence, to tell how she had guessed, whom she had heard speak of the hideous secret. As always, she was sustained by pride, stiff and cold as the iron which sustains the clay of the statue.
The dumb woman ran after the visitor as she departed, and made signs which Regina did not understand. That little figure, like a disguised child, woke in her a kind of ferocious repulsion. Why did such beings exist? Why did not nature or society suppress all maimed, useless, weak persons?
For the rest of her life Regina remembered that quiet little Apartment of the strolling musician, the uneven stair, the equivocal landings, the dusty hall of the big house in Via San Lorenzo; but it was with profound disgust, as if she had there come in contact with all the most foul and miserable things of life. She never returned to it.
Again she traversed the sunny street, the Piazza, the avenues, without noticing any one or anything, though she forced herself to remain calm and not to believe that nonsense which she had read. She would speak of it to Antonio. They would laugh at it together!