"When one has covered the road from mother's breast to the breast of one's sweetheart, one must go on to another kind of happiness."
The locksmith became silent, tilting his wine in the glass.
Below them the sea murmurs softly; in the hot air above the vineyards floats the perfume of flowers.
"It is the sun that makes us so lazy and good-for-nothing," murmured the locksmith.
"I don't seem to be able to manage lyric verse satisfactorily now. I am rather sick about it," said Vincenzo quietly, knitting his thin brows.
"Have you written anything lately?"
The painter did not reply at once.
"Yes, yesterday I wrote something on the roof of the Hotel Como."
And he read in a low tone and pensive and sing-song manner:
"The autumn sun falls softly, taking leave,
And lights the greyness of the lonely shore.
The greedy waves o'erlip the scattered stones
And lick the sun into the cold blue sea.
The autumn wind goes gleaning yellow leaves,
To toss them idly in the blust'ring air.
Pale is the sky, and wild the angry sea,
The sun still faintly smiles, and sinks, and sets."