She cried to Heaven for it with clasped hands; Baluzzi answered, as though she had spoken to him.
"None of that! The diamonds! It is my last word!"
"And the price--your everlasting silence!"
"Everlasting? Oh, no! That would be a bad bargain! But, by my honour, for a year, if I live so long, I will not remind you. I will be silent."
"A very sword above my head! And yet a year's felicity! How much happiness does not even a moment contain! Who can destroy what once was ours? And what once it has bought from hell can never be reclaimed! And yet--how my heart will beat at every step, at every rustle or rattle of the leaves. No, no, everlasting silence--and the jewels are yours."
"A year--give them, give them, senseless woman!"
He grasped the diamond circle and wrenched it from Giulia's hands after a short indifferent resistance.
"Then farewell, complete your crime! A year--but pray for my life! For I have sworn before I die to be revenged upon you! I leave no other will, save my curse, which shall be upon you."
With these words, and still holding the sparkling ornament high in the air, he disappeared behind the mirror-door, which he pushed back again into the framework of the wall.
Giulia sank upon a seat. She extinguished the lamp and candles. Sleepless, dreamless, she gazed fixedly through the windows into the night. The moon had set. The grey dawn did her good. Everything faded into uncertainty. A cradle song passed through her mind! How terrible the rising day which gave distinct form again to everything which erected the implacable barriers of life!