The nurse persuaded her to seek some occupation. “Come and help me make out the list of books that Don Claudio is to have,” she said.
Professor Mora had given a large part of his choice library to Don Claudio.
This woman, Elena, had an interesting face. There was something noble in the calm, direct look of her eyes, and in her healthy matronly figure. It would be difficult to describe her manners, except by saying that there was nothing lacking, and nothing superfluous.
One sees occasionally a great lady whose character is equal to her social position, who has that manner without mannerism. A certain transparency of action follows the outlines of the intention. When this woman spoke, she had something to say, not often anything brilliant, or profound, but something which the moment required.
Tacita at once busied herself with the list, and found comfort in it. She needed comforting; for she was of a tenderly loving nature, and her almost cloistered life had confined her interests to that home circle now quite broken up. Her father had died in her infancy. Her mother, not much older than herself, had been her constant companion, friend and confidant. The loss of her had been a crushing one; and the wound still bled. But she and her grandfather had consoled each other; and while he lived the mother had seemed near. Now he, too, was gone!
And there was yet another pain. Some little tendrils of habit and affection had wound themselves about her grandfather’s favorite pupil, and they bled in the breaking. For they were to separate at once. Nor had she any wish to remain in Venice. She well knew that she would not be allowed to see Don Claudio, except at her peril, and that jealous eyes were already fixed upon them.
Yet how slight, how innocent their intercourse had been! She went over it all again in fancy as she took down book after book.
She and Don Claudio had always saluted each other when he came; at first, with a ceremonious bow, later, with a smile. They seldom spoke.
The table, piled with books, at which the professor and his pupil sat, was placed before the lagoon window, where, later, the old man’s deathbed had been drawn. Her place was at a little casement window on the rio that ran beside the house. They spoke in languages which she did not understand, and she had often dropped her work to listen.
Sometimes, in going, his eyes had looked a wish to linger; but she did not know how he had longed to stay, nor how many glances had strayed from the piles of books to her face. The graceful contours of her form, her delicate whiteness, her modesty, her violet eyes, the golden lights in her hair—he had learned them all by heart.