All at once he turned: Lucia had disappeared. His pain at this discovery was so intense, that he would have uttered a loud cry but that his voice failed him. Then some of these female phantoms disappeared silently, as if the earth had swallowed them up. Could he get five minutes’ sleep now, quietly? No; a shade had approached him. Cantelmo was talking of flowers, of Kruepper again, and the warlike sound of the barbarous name annoyed him. What did he think of the hyacinths?
The hyacinths reared their stately heads in a jardinière of golden trellis-work. There were pink hyacinths, lilac ones and white, blending and uniting their voluptuous fragrance. Next to them, in a large Venetian amphora, stood a bunch of ten magnolias, exhaling the strongest perfume of them all.
In the lethargy that was upon him Andrea saw Lucia appear under the doorway. In her dark green dress, with her pink bonnet, she looked like a rose, a woman turned into a flower, a flower-made woman. To that flower Andrea felt all his being drawn—and he longed ... sole, supreme desire, to seize that flower, press it to his lips, and drink in its life with its perfume.
IV.
The fountain Michelangelo Viglia....
... SUL AUGUSTO ESEMPIO
LO DO AD ALTRUIDA ME,
dripped tranquilly into its grey stone basin. The second part of the inscription:
IL PELEGRINO, IL VILLICO,
IL CITTADINO L’AVRA.
VENITE, DISSETATEVI,
FRESCA PER VOI QUI STA....[1]
could not incite any one to accept its invitation. In the silent darkness of the night the solitary fountain repeated its purling cadence, for Centurano was asleep; its grey, white, and yellow houses had all their shutters barred. The first lights to be extinguished had been those of the architect Maranca, who rose earlier than any one else to superintend the repairs of the dome of Caserta. Next to his, those of lawyer Marini, who had to plead a case on the morrow at the Court of Santa Maria; and then those of Judge Scardanaglia, with whom they had been keeping rather late hours to play at mediatore, and because on the following day there was no sitting for him in the law courts. The friends of the Member for Santa Maria had driven off towards Caserta after an exchange of salutations from the road to the balcony, in two sleepy carriage-loads—lights, coachmen, and horses. The last lights to go out were those of Casa Lieti, at the corner, overlooking the fountain. The drawing-room had subsided into darkness; lights had appeared in the two sleeping apartments, divided from each other by an intermediate room, each having balconies that overlooked the street. Large and small shadows—tall, thin ones, pygmies, and Colossi—had flitted across the window-panes, defining themselves against the curtains. Then darkness.
A dark night, dark with the profound density of meridional nights. A gleam of stars, a shining dust spread haphazard, hither and thither, with a beating motion, a palpitation of the constellations. Under them, amid the black fields, a whitish line was perceptible; the lane that led to the high road towards Caserta. The lamps were out. Suddenly the first balcony to the left opened; noiselessly, from the narrow opening, a slight white form emerged, remaining motionless on the balcony; it was unrecognisable. It stood still, leaning again the balustrade. Was it gazing at the sky or at the soil? Impossible to tell, nothing could be seen of it except that every now and then the hem of the white garment stirred as if an impatient foot had moved it. Behind that form, which appeared elongated against the dark background of the night, the window remained ajar. It maintained its immobility and its attitude of contemplation. The parish clock struck the quarter, and the calm sound rang out gently on the silent air. Then, with a slight creaking of hinges, the window to the right opened wide. A black mass, that melted into the general darkness, appeared; but nothing was defined. A luminous point glowed, the end of a lighted cigar. At every breath drawn by the person smoking, the lighted end glowed brighter, casting a little light on a heavy moustache, and emitting a light cloud of smoke. Suddenly the glowing ember sped like a star, from the balcony to the road, and the dark mass passed to the extreme end of the balcony to approach the one on the left. The white shadow fluctuated and trembled; it moved towards the right, standing at the corner motionless, then a breath traversed the space between them.