“If you will not smile, I will drive this trap into that heap of stones, and we shall be thrown out and killed,” said Andrea, in a rage. She smiled with a strange ferocity, saying tenderly:
“I love you. You are mad and boyish, that is what pleases me.”
Andrea instinctively pulled at his reins; the pace slackened.
“Oh! Lucia, you are a witch.”
“You will never recover, I shall be your disease, your fever, your irreparable mischief.”
“Oh! be my health, my strength, my youth!”
“Fire is better than snow, torture is more exquisite than joy, disease is more poetic than health,” said Lucia in ringing tones, her head erect, her eyes flashing, dominating him. Andrea bowed his head; he was subjugated.
At Santa Maria, on the way home, the two equipages stopped, the victoria had caught up the phaeton. They conversed from one carriage to another. Alberto said he was very comfortable, and that he had made the Signora Caterina explain to him how to make mulberry syrup. It was so good for bronchial complaints. He had described his journey to Paris to her. Caterina nodded acquiescingly; she was never bored. Then they started again, the trap on before, the carriage following. The sun was going down.
“Oh, dio! are we going back? We are going back,” moaned Lucia; “this lovely day is coming to an end. Who knows when we shall have another?”