“No.”
“Really, is that all?”
“All.”
“It is a very meagre composition, Spaccapietra. It is but the bare narrative of the historical fact, as it stands in the text-book. Does not the hapless fate of Beatrice inspire you with any sympathy?”
“I don’t know....” murmured the young scholar, pale with emotion.
“Yet you are a woman.... It so happens that I had chosen a theme which suggests the manifestation of a noble impulse; say of pity, or contempt for the false accusation. But like this, the story turns to mere chronology. The composition is too meagre. You have no imagination, Spaccapietra.”
“Yes, Professor,” replied the young girl, submissively, as she took her seat again, while tears welled to her eyes.
“Let us hear Altimare.”
Lucia appeared to start out of a lethargy. She sought for some time among her papers, with an ever increasing expression of weariness. Then, in a weak inaudible voice, she began to read, slowly, dragging the syllables, as if overpowered by an invincible lassitude....
“Louder, Altimare.”