"'It is not exactly a bad way of getting rid of you, though rather primitive. "Just wait for me, I shall be back in a moment." How long are you going to wait? I should not wonder if you were foolish enough to go and look for her at the address she gave you. "Does Mme Rondoli live here, please?" I'll bet that you are longing to go there.'
"'Not in the least,' I protested, 'and I assure you that if she does not come back to-morrow morning I shall start by the express at eight o'clock. I shall have waited twenty-four hours, and that is enough; my conscience will be quite clear.'
"I spent an uneasy and unpleasant evening, for I really had at heart a very tender feeling for her. I went to bed at twelve o'clock, and hardly slept at all. I got up at six, called Paul, packed up my things, and two hours later we started for France together."
III
"The next year, at just about the same period, I was seized, just as one is with a periodical fever, with a new desire to go to Italy, and I immediately made up my mind to carry it into effect. There is no doubt that every really well-educated man ought to see Florence, Venice, and Rome. There is the additional advantage of providing many subjects of conversation in society, and of giving one an opportunity for bringing forward artistic generalities which appear profound. This time I went alone, and I arrived at Genoa at the same time as the year before, but without any adventure on the road. I went to the same hotel, and actually happened to have the same room.
"I was scarcely in bed when the recollection of Francesca which, since the evening before, had been floating vaguely through my mind, haunted me with strange persistency.
"Have you ever been obsessed by the thought of a woman, long afterwards, on returning to the place where you loved her and she gave herself to you? It is one of the most powerful and painful sensations I know. It seems as if one could see her enter, smiling and holding out her arms. Her features, elusive yet clear, are before your eyes. She passes, returns and disappears. She tortures you like a nightmare, holds you, fills your heart, and stirs your senses by her unreal presence. She is visible to the eye, her perfume haunts you, the taste of her kisses is on your lips, and the touch of her body caresses your skin. Yet, one knows one is alone, and one is strangely tortured by the phantom one has evoked. A heavy, heart-breaking melancholy invades you, as if you were abandoned for ever. Everything looks depressing, filling the heart with a horrible sense of isolation and abandonment. Never return to the house, the room, the woods, the garden, the seat, the town, where you have held in your arms a woman you loved.
"I thought of her nearly the whole night, and by degrees the wish to see her again seized me, a confused desire at first, which gradually grew stronger and more intense. At last I made up my mind to spend the next day in Genoa, to try and find her, and if I should not succeed to take the evening train.
"Early in the morning I set out on my search. I remembered the directions she had given me when she left me, perfectly—Victor-Emmanuel Street, the Passage Falcone, St. Raphael Street, house of the furniture-dealer, at the bottom of the yard in a court.
"I found it without the least difficulty, and I knocked at the door of a somewhat dilapidated-looking dwelling. A fat woman opened it, who must once have been very handsome, but who actually was only very dirty. Although she was too fat, she still bore the lines of majestic beauty; her untidy hair fell over her forehead and shoulders, and one fancied one could see her fat body floating about in an enormous dressing-gown covered with spots of dirt and grease. Round her neck she wore a great gilt necklace, and on her wrists were splendid bracelets of Genoa filigree work.