“Well, this evening; but don’t answer me.”
“I shall answer you.”
“No, Alberto, your chest is too weak; it’s bad for you to stoop. Positively I won’t allow it.”
And so the Professor was quite excluded from the intimacy of the little duet; he was evidently in the way.
“What am I doing here, what am I doing here, what am I here for?” he kept repeating to himself. By this time he had succeeded in awkwardly concealing his muddy boot; but he was tormented by a cruel suspicion that his cravat was on one side. He dared not raise his finger to it; and his mind was torn by two conflicting griefs: the letter Lucia was going to write to her cousin, and the possible crookedness of his cravat. The others continued to gaze at each other in silence. On Alberto’s contemptuous face there appeared to be a note of interrogation. He was inquiring tacitly of his cousin: “Is this bore going to stay for ever?” And her eyes made answer: “Patience, he will go some time; he bores me too.”
The strangest part of it all was that Galimberti had a vague consciousness of what was passing in their minds, and wanted to go, but had not the strength to rise. His spine felt as if it were bound to the back of the chair, and there was an unbearable weight in his head.
“Signorina, here is Signor Andrea Lieti,” said Giulietta.
“This is a miracle.”
“If you reproach me,” said Andrea, laughing, “I won’t even sit down. Good-morning, Alberto; good-morning, Galimberti!”
The room seemed to be filled with the strong man’s presence, by his hearty laugh, and his magnificent strength. Beside him, Galimberti, crooked, undersized and yellow; Sanna, meagre, worn, pale, consumptive-looking; Lucia, fragile, thin, and languishing, made up a picture of pitiable humanity. Galimberti shrank in his chair, bowing his head. Alberto Sanna contemplated Andrea from his feet upwards, with profound admiration, making himself as small as possible, like a weak being who craves the protection of a strong one. Lucia, on the contrary, threw herself back in her rocking-chair, attitudinising like a serpent in the folds of rich Turkish stuff, just showing the point of a golden embroidered slipper. The glance that filtered through her lids seemed to emit a spark at the corner of her eyes. All three were visibly impressed by this fine physical type; so admirable in the perfection of its development. The room appeared to have narrowed, and even its furniture to have dwindled to humbler proportions, since he entered it; all the minute bric-à-brac and curios with which Lucia had surrounded herself had become invisible, as if they had been absorbed. Andrea sat down against the piano, and it seemed to disappear behind him. He shook his curly head, and a healthy current leavened the morbid atmosphere of the room; his laugh was almost too hearty for it, it disturbed the melancholy silence, which until his arrival had only been broken by undertones.