"I know. But I think they are. For they forgive. We never do."
"Some of us do."
"Not as the beasts do. Agnoto's house-lamb, the other day, licked his hand as he cut its throat. He told me so."
"That was because it loved him," said Palma.
"And how can it love if it have not a soul?" said Signa.
Palma munched her crust. This sort of meditation, which Signa was very prone to wander in, utterly confused her.
She could talk at need, as others could, of the young cauliflowers, and the spring lettuces, and the chances of the ripening corn, and the look of the budding grapes, and the promise of the weather, and the likelihood of drought, and the Parocco's last sermon, and the gossips' last history of the neighbours, and the varying prices of fine and of coarse plaiting; but anything else—Palma was more at ease with the heavy pole pulling against her, and the heavy bucket coming up sullenly from the water-hole.
She felt, when he spoke in this way, much as Bruno did—only far more intensely—as if Signa went away from her—right away into the sky somewhere—as the swallows went when they spread their wings to the east, or the blue wood-smoke when it vanished.
"You love your music better than you do Bruno, or me, or anything, Signa," she said, with a little sorrow that was very humble, and not in the least reproachful.
"Yes," said Signa, with the unconscious cruelty of one in whom Art is born predominant. "Do you know, Palma," he said suddenly, after a pause—"Do you know—I think I could make something beautiful, something men would be glad of, if only I could be where they would care for it."