She shook her head.
"What is the use?"
"Tell me all," he commanded. "There's a limit to my patience also!"
"Don't raise your voice, Antonio! The excise officer is there. Don't be so small!"
"Have done with your own smallness! I am small; yes, I'm small, and that's just the reason why I want to know! You see, you are driving me mad! Tell me! I insist."
Regina turned and looked at him. Her eyes, large and melancholy, sparkled in the reflection of the sunset. Never had Antonio seen them more beautiful, sweeter, deeper. At that moment he was overpowered by some sort of fascination and could not turn away from those eyes, burning and sad like the dying sun. Regina said—
"And when I shall have told you everything you want to know, what will you do? How will you know, how do I know, if the things I have heard are or are not real illusions, evil surmises? or whether the doubt has not come of my own instinct?"
"But a few minutes ago you said you didn't believe it! I don't understand you, Regina!"
"And I, do I understand you? Can we understand each other? Think, Antonio, think. Have we ever understood each other? How do I know you speak the truth? How do you know I speak the truth? Look," she said, stretching her hand towards the Tiber; "we seem near to each other, while, on the contrary, we are distant as the banks of this river, which for ever gaze at each other, but will never come into touch!"
"For pity's sake, finish it!" he said, bitterly, but supplicatingly and humbly. "Be merciful, my dear, and don't torment me. Don't say these horrible things. It's very possible I don't understand you, but you, you ought to understand me. Let us discuss, let us see together what is to be done. I—I will do whatever you wish. Haven't I always done so? Am I not good to you? Do you say I am not good to you? Tell me what I am to do, but don't doubt me! It's the last straw. If we lose our peace, our concord, what is there left for us?"