“That’s Leopardi again, Lucia; you promised me not to read Leopardi again.”
“I will not read him again. But listen; we are blind, miserable beings, destined to pain and death. Do you see beautiful Naples, smiling, voluptuous, nestling between her fruitful hills and her divine sea, in the magic of her radiant colouring? Do you really love Naples?”
“Yes, for I was born there,” said the other in a low voice.
“I hate her, with her odour of flowers, of humanity, of sparkling wines; her starred and seductive nights. I hate her; for she is the embodiment of sin and sorrow. There, where the tall lightning conductors shoot into the air, is the aristocratic quarter; the home of corruption and sorrow. Here below us, where the houses are closer together and look darker, are the people’s dwellings; but here, too, are corruption and sorrow. She is a sinner, like the city of Sodom, like the city of Gomorrah; she is a sinful woman, like the Magdalen. But she writhes in her sin, she inundates her bed with her tears, she weeps in the fatal night of Gethsemane. Oh! triumphant city, accursed and agonising!”
Her gesture cut the air like an anathema; but immediately her excitement calmed down, and the flush died out of her cheeks.
“It is bad for you to stand here, Lucia; shall we walk?”
“No, let me speak; I think too much, and thought ploughs too deep a furrow, when I cannot put it into words. Have I saddened you, Caterina?”
“A little; I fear for your health.”
“I beg your pardon. I ought not to talk to you of these things. You don’t like to hear them.”
“I assure you....”