“Scarcely....”
“Oh! believe in this sacred truth; the only happy part of my life is the time I pass here.”
“Oh! indeed,” she said, without looking at him.
“I swear it. Before I arrive here, I am overwhelmed with anxiety, I seem to have so many important things to tell you. When I get to the door, I forget them all. I am afraid my brain is getting weak. Then time flies; you speak to me; I hear your voice; I am here with you, in the room in which you live. I am afraid I stay too long; why don’t you send me away? When I leave you, the first puff of wind on the threshold of the street-door takes all my ideas away with it, and empties my brain, without leaving me the power to hold on to my own thoughts.”
“Here is Signor Sanna, Signorina,” announced the maid Giulietta.
“I am going,” said the perturbed Professor, rising to take his leave.
“As you please.” She shrugged her shoulders.
But he did not go, not knowing how to do so, while Alberto Sanna entered. The latter, buttoned up to his chin in his overcoat, with a red silk handkerchief to protect his throat, held a bunch of violets in his hand. Lucia, rising from her seat, placed both her hands in his, and dragged him to the window, that she might see how he looked.
“How are you, Alberto; do you feel well to-day?”
“Always the same,” he said; “an unspeakable weakness in my limbs.”