He had sold himself. Regina did not doubt it for a single instant, nor did the absurd thought pass for a single instant through her mind, that before his marriage he could have been the disinterested lover of that rich old woman.
He had sold himself. He had sold himself for her, for Regina, precisely as women sell themselves, to get money, to get a fine house, light and air, bits of silk, gewgaws, gloves, silk petticoats—all the things she had asked, all the things for lack of which she had reproached him.
"Oh, wretched, stupid boy! to be so weak, so vile. I will come home, I will take you and punish you as one punishes a wicked child! You ought to have understood me—you ought to have understood me!"
But while in her heart she sobbed out these and other recriminations, she felt them vain. Words of a very different truth were resounding in her soul, turning it into a threatening whirlwind.
It was she who had been weak and vile; she who had not understood the seriousness and fatality of life; and now life was punishing her like the wicked child which she had been.
Her head burned and throbbed as if she had literally been beaten. How long had she been sitting on this bench? People passed and stared at her. Young men turned their heads. One of them smiled after a glance of admiration at her green shoes and the edge of her green silk petticoat showing under the flounces of her dress.
She remembered that nurse was waiting in the gardens, but she could not move. Through the veil of her anguish she saw the people passing, the trees, the ruins in their spring clothing of weeds. There was a yellow awning among the ruins, and two doves with grey plumage were kissing in the ivy. The telegraph wires engraved the vivid azure of the heavens. She saw the advertisements on a corner of the Terme, a hunting scene, notice of a sale. She read senseless words, "Odol! Odol! Odol!" which afterwards remained strangely impressed on her memory. Builders were at work in the Piazza, and never afterwards could she forget the earthy red colour of their shirts. She followed with her gaze the scintillations of the wheels of the vehicles.
The simple scene, familiar after having been seen a hundred times, woke in her a profound disquiet, attracted, absorbed her. Then she suddenly realised that she herself was creating this curious interest in it, as an excuse for not moving from the bench, not going back to the gardens, delaying the hour for returning home.