“Alas! I can but love you,” he cried, in despair at his own poverty.
“Love is not everything, Andrea.”
“It is everything to me, Lucia.”
“You would do anything for love?”
“Anything.”
“Tell the truth, speak as if you were drawing your last breath, before passing into the presence of your Judge; would you do anything?” She had seized his hands, she was gazing fixedly, ardently into his eyes, as if she would have drawn his soul from him. Andrea, completely subjugated, simply said:
“Anything.”
She permitted him to kiss both her hands. She was thinking. Then she raised the green curtain and looked out into the street. It was still raining—in fact the rain was heavier than ever, and fell in long, pointed drops, like needles. They had reached Mergellina. The sea under the rain was of a dirty grey colour, and a mist shrouded the green blot made in the landscape by the villa and the blurred blot made by the Fort. Neither boat nor sail on the sea.
“What desolation!” murmured Lucia, “on sea and land! Ours is an ill-starred love!”
“Lucia, Lucia, my beautiful Lucia, do not say these things. You have not yet given me one kiss.”