"Laura, Laura——"
"Be quiet, Anna."
Laura's tone was a little hard, but with her hand she gently caressed her sister's cheek; and Anna said nothing more.
As her recovery progressed, an expression of humility, of contrition, seemed to become more and more constant upon her face when she had to do with Laura or with Dias.
They were very kind to her, with that pitying kindness which we show to invalids, to old people, and to children—a kindness in marked contrast to their former indifference, which awoke in her an ever sharper and sharper remorse. She felt a great difference between herself and them: they were sane in body and mind, their blood flowed tranquilly in their veins, their consciences were untroubled; while she was broken in health, disturbed in spirit, and miserable in thinking of her past, its deceits, its errors, its thousand shameful aberrations, its lack of maidenly decorum—and for whom? for whom? For a fool, a simpleton, a fellow who had neither heart nor courage, who had never loved her, who was cruel and inept. When she drew a mental comparison between Giustino Morelli and these two persons whom she had wished to desert for him—between Giustino, so timid, so poor in all right feeling, so bankrupt in passion, and them, so magnanimous, so forgetful of her fault—her repentance grew apace. It was the exaggerated repentance of a noble nature, which magnifies the moral gravity of its own transgressions. She felt herself to be quite undeserving of the sympathy and affection with which they treated her. Their kindness was an act of gratuitous charity beyond her merits.
She would look from Laura to Cesare Dias and murmur: "You are good; you are good." And then at the sound of her own voice she would be so moved that she would weep; and pale, with great dark circles under her eyes, she would repeat, "So good, so good."
Her sole desire was to show herself absolutely obedient to whatever her guardian demanded, to whatever her sister advised.
She gave herself over, bound hand and foot, to these two beings whom she had so cruelly forgotten on the day of her mad adventure; in her convalescence she found a great joy in throwing herself absolutely upon their wisdom and their goodness.
Little by little it seemed to her that she was being born again to a new life, quiet, placid, irresponsible; a life in which she would have no will of her own, in which, passively, gladly, she would be guided and controlled by them. So, whenever they spoke to her, whenever they asked for her opinion—whether a window should be opened or closed, whether a bouquet of flowers should be left in the room or carried out, whether a note should be written to a friend who had called to inquire how she was—she always said, "Yes," or "As you think best," emphasising her answer with a gesture and a glance.
"Yes" to whatever Cesare Dias suggested to her; Cesare Dias who had grown in her imagination to the proportions of a superior being, far removed from human littleness, invincible, dwelling in the highest spheres of abstract intellect; and "Yes" to whatever Laura Acquaviva suggested, Laura the pure, the impeccable, who had never had the weakness to fall in love, who would die rather than be wanting to her ideal of herself. "Yes" even to whatever her poor governess, Stella Martini, suggested; Stella so kind, so faithful, whom in the past she had so heartlessly deceived. "Yes" to the good Sister of Charity, Maria del Crocifisso, who passed her life in self-sacrifice, in self-abnegation, in loving devotion to others. "Yes" to everybody. Anna said nothing but "Yes," because she had been wrong, and they had all been right.