“What are you doing?” he said, seizing her wrists. “Let us sit here, will you?”
“Not here. Let us find a secret place, that no one knows of; a beautiful green place that the sun cannot reach, where we cannot see the sky; I am afraid of all those things.”
They began the search again eagerly, climbing steep ascents and descending little precipices; he supporting her by passing an arm round her waist. They crossed broad meadows, where the damp grass wetted Lucia’s little shoes; holding each other by the hand, almost in each other’s arms, with eyes averted, subdued by the innocent intoxication of verdant Nature. They came to a tiny stream; Andrea took Lucia in his arms and placed her on the other side; when he put her down his light pressure made her utter a cry.
“Have I hurt you?” he asked in contrition.
“No.”
They had to stoop to pass under low-hanging boughs that knitted into each other like those of a virgin forest. A hare rushed by at full speed, to Lucia’s great surprise.
“Ah!” cried Andrea, biting his forefinger, “if I had but a gun.”
“Wicked, cruel, how can you long for the death of an innocent animal?”
“Oh! it is rapture; you cannot understand the wild excitement of a man on the track of a hare. It is a combat of animal cunning; the man does not always get the best of it. But when he does hit his prey, and the animal falls in the death struggle, and the hot blood rushes out in floods....”
“It is horrible, horrible!”