“This is the steppe, the steppe,” she murmured, with a sigh.
“Love, love, love!” repeated Andrea, in the excitement of their speed. The phaeton sped on; they no longer looked behind them, nor saw the double row of trees that flew past them, nor the people who met them, nor the cloud of dust from the road. The little carriage flew, assuming a fantastic aspect, like that of a winged car.
“Give me a kiss,” said Andrea.
“No, they are behind us; they can see us.”
“Give me a kiss.”
Then she opened her white linen sunshade, lined with blue, and put it behind her; that dome screened them both and hid their two heads. Before them, no one, no one in the fields; and while the carriage sped along in the broad light of day, they kissed each other lingeringly on the lips.
V.
The audacity of their love increased day by day. Trusting in the quiescence of the other two, they dared all that lovers’ imagination is capable of inventing. They chose seats beside each other, Andrea played with Lucia’s fan or handkerchief, he counted her bangles: if they were apart they talked of their love in a special vocabulary that recalled every incident of the past—an open parasol, a lake, a green shade, a lace scarf, a phrase pronounced by one or the other, then. If Lucia saw Andrea preoccupied, she immediately led the conversation to the subject of the Exhibition, and placidly remarked that the day of the horticultural show had been one of the most delightful in her whole life; and Andrea would find means to drag the word sorceress into his discourse. They understood each other’s every gesture and intonation, even to the movement of an eyelid or a finger. One day, Lucia called across the room to Andrea: “Listen, Andrea, I have something to tell you in your ear; no one else may hear it.”
“Not even I?” said Alberto, in comic wrath.
“Neither you, nor Caterina, who is smiling over there. Come here, Andrea.” He crossed the room and approached her: she laid her hand on his shoulder to draw him towards her, and whispered: