'Not before?'
'How do I know? Possibly for a minute one of those three days. But I will come on Thursday for certain. Good-bye, my friend!'
'Oh, stay!' he cried, holding her back by the hand.
'How childish you are! Good-bye!' And she flitted down the stairs, as though she were making a fortunate escape.
Immediately he felt as if life were ebbing from him; he felt as if all his blood was flowing away out of a deadly wound. He did not look back into the room where they had been together, nor at the place where they had sat side by side. He took his hat and darted off to find Angelica, in the wild hope of finding her. The square, so full of sunlight in the middle of the day, dazzled him, and instinctively he made for the Via Condotti. But nowhere did he descry the pretty gray dress and the white veil. Halfway up the street he retraced his steps, and hastened in the direction of the Via Propaganda Fide—a name fresh in his memory—wandered through the Via Sant' Andrea delle Fratte, the Via Mercede, and the Via San Silvestro, like one befogged, like someone eagerly looking for a thing he is sure of having lost.
But the dear shape seemed to have melted into the sunshine, for, after searching all the streets in the neighbourhood of the Piazza di Spagna in hot haste, spurred by an invincible impulse, Sangiorgio had not succeeded in finding her. He then walked for another hour by the Via Babuino, the Via Due Macelli, and the Via Sistina, to the Villa Medici and the Pincio, prey to a nervous tension which prevented him from feeling fatigued, giving rein to the mad idea that Donna Angelica must have intended to take a walk at this time of the day. He arrived in the Piazza del Popolo, suddenly composed, with tired legs, with his brain all confused. It must be late, he thought, very late; he seemed to have spent a long, eventful day; he felt the moral and physical fatigue incident to the great days of a lifetime. He took out his watch. It was barely half-past one; the rest of the day was a blank to him. Mechanically and very, very slowly, in obedience to former habits, he wended his way down the Corso to the Chamber, with a disgusted expression, ignoring the handsome middle-class Roman women going home from Mass, recognising no one who bowed to him in the glad, bright beams of that May Sunday. He went to the Parliament, but did not know whether on a Sunday there would be a sitting. Nevertheless, he went to take refuge there, not knowing what to do with body or soul. The people he met all appeared new and foreign to him, and as he looked at them, surprised at so many strange faces, they, too, seemed to look at him in surprise and askance. At this hour the coming and going of deputies about Montecitorio was incessant; friends went up and down in couples, and also little groups of politicians, who had lunched together at the Colonne, the Parliamente, the Fagiano, or the Sorelle Venete. Sangiorgio acknowledged a bow now and then as if he was in a dream. He saw them debating, heard them arguing; passing close by them, he caught snatches of their discussions, but it all conveyed nothing to him. Luckily, there was a sitting that day.
He took his usual seat, and from the force of physical habit put the papers in front of him in order, while hearing the small but penetrating voice of Sangarzia read out the schedule of proceedings. What was it all about? That voice was bewildering to his mind. Those words he seemed to have heard before—but when? It cost him a stupendous effort to pull himself together. He was like a man who, after experiencing a growing nervous exhilaration for a certain period, afterwards yields to utter lassitude, his strength being totally exhausted.
He sat with his head between his hands, trying to grasp the sound and sense of all that was being said. But he was too weak. A torpor was creeping over him; he was afraid he might fall asleep! He went out upon the corridors to smoke a cigar. The Honourable di Carimate, the agreeable Lombard gentleman, chairman of an agrarian committee, accosted him:
'Well, Sangiorgio, what about that report?'
'The report? Yes, when was I to have given it to you?'