The white ribbon was there, as if Chiara had left it the evening before and four years had not passed, or as if a mysterious hand had placed the things there as in former times, so that the singular resurrection should seem like a continuation of life. In every particular Maria found this secret care that every line and tint should produce the quiet and persuasive impression of an existence which had had no interruptions, which was pursuing its development without a break, so that to-day was like yesterday, like a year ago or seven years ago, and to-morrow and the day after like yesterday and to-day. Not only had none of the old furniture been moved, not only had the carpets, portières and curtains preserved their usual aspect, but they had not even grown old. Not only did the hundred well-known and familiar objects attract the glance with the sympathetic fidelity of inanimate objects, but they gave more than ever the sense of unelapsed time, of objects viewed no later than yesterday, and to-day found again sympathetically in their place. Maria found again a little antique clock on a small table near her bed, with the hours marked in blue figures, which she had left on her departure and missed. It was ticking lightly and pointed to half-past eleven, as if it had never ceased to go in all the time that had passed. In some vases there were large bunches of grass, and green leaves without a flower, such as she always liked to have in her bedroom, seeking out the grasses most peculiar and delicate in form, and the leaves the most varied in colour and marking. Formerly she did not care for the perfume of flowers in her bedroom, fearing its insidious poison; but the green of gardens and meadows, of fields and mountains, the healthy green of leaves and grasses pleased her simple open spirit, her sane and beautiful youth. The ink was fresh in the pen on the writing-table, just as if her last letter had been written an instant ago, and near by was a book in a dark-green binding, a book unfinished with the marker in its place—Salammbo, of Gustave Flaubert.
Thus Donna Maria had the feeling of the abolition of time.
“Does Your Excellency want anything else?” asked Chiara, mechanically uttering the words of formerly which had returned to her memory.
“Nothing, Chiara; good-night.”
In greeting her maid Maria’s voice trembled with tenderness. For seven years she had given all her services to Maria, and little by little had become a friendly and devoted shadow, almost as if she no longer existed for her own personality. In every peculiar contingency of these seven years, without speaking, without murmuring, even without judging or thinking, Chiara had continued to serve and obey—the shadow of Donna Maria.
On this day, profound with diverse and contrary sentiments, she returned with her mistress silently and humbly, like her with a contrite heart, to the house from which they had fled together, from which they had been absent so long, and just as Donna Maria strangely began her life again where it had been interrupted, and time and her deeds had seemed abolished, so the poor little shadow of a Chiara returned to that which had been formerly, naturally and tacitly like a faithful shadow.
IV
When Chiara had disappeared and Donna Maria’s eyes had followed her with a little thrill of affection and gratitude for so much altruism in a service requiring such tact, she settled herself in an arm-chair as of yore. She resumed the novel on Carthage where she had left off, removed the marker methodically from the open page, and fixed her eyes on the printed letters, waiting for Emilio, her husband, to come as he used to.
“He will come now,” thought Maria, as her eyes read about the curious refinements of the attiring of Salammbo, as she sets off for the field of the rebels to seize from Matho the veil of Tanith, which he had stolen.
However, her reading was but short. There arose in her soul a dull agitation, which became stronger there where for a moment it had been lulled, as it seemed to her that nothing had happened, and that her life had had no break in its continuity; so much so that she awoke from the calm and peaceful surroundings, speaking of an uninterrupted serenity from which she had obtained a lingering caress of contentment, as in a dream, only to be confronted with a reality. How could she read? Salammbo slid from her knees to the carpet. She rose to her feet, crossed the large room, approached the closed door and listened if Emilio were coming towards her, as formerly, even if differently to formerly so long as he came to that room which had been theirs for years; that she may confront his eyes, that their glances may unite and melt together, that she may seize his hand and clasp it with hers, that she may remember the gentle way he used to open his arms and close her tenderly to his bosom.