They were both silent for a time. The painter's head had sunk and his eyes were fixed on the ground. The big, burly locksmith smiled and said at last:
"One can speak in a beautiful way about everything, but what is most beautiful of all is a word about a good man, a song of good people."
[THE HUNCHBACK]
The sun, like a golden rain, streams down through the dark curtain of vine leaves on to the terrace of the hotel; it is as if golden threads were strung in the air.
On the grey pavement and on the white table-cloths the shadows make strange designs, and it seems as though, if one looked long at them, one might learn to read them as one reads poetry, one might learn the meaning of it all. Bunches of grapes gleam in the sun, like pearls or the strange dull stone olivine, and the water in the decanter on the table sparkles like blue diamonds.
In the passage between the tables lies a round lace handkerchief, dropped, without a doubt, by a woman divinely fair—it cannot be otherwise, one cannot think otherwise on this sultry day full of glowing poetry, a day when everything banal and commonplace becomes invisible and hides from the sun, as if ashamed of itself.
All is quiet, save for the twitter of the birds in the garden and the humming of the bees as they hover over the flowers. From the vineyards on the mountain-side the sounds of a song float on the hot air and reach the ear: the singers are a man and a woman. Each verse is separated from the others by a moment's pause, and this interval of silence lends a special expression to the song, giving it something of the character of a prayer.
A lady comes from the garden and ascends the broad marble steps; she is old and very tall. Her dark face is serious; her brows are contracted in a deep frown, and her thin lips are tightly compressed, as if she had just said:
"No!"