“You cause Donna Elisa great grief,” she burst out.—“And you too, do I not?” he said, with a slight sneer. “I cause you all sorrow. I am the lost son; I am Judas. I am the angel of justice who is driving you from that paradise where people eat grass.”
She answered: “Perhaps we think that what we have is better than being shot by the soldiers.”—“Yes, of course; it is better to starve to death. We are used to that.”—“Nor is it pleasant to be murdered by bandits.”—“But why for Heaven’s sake have any bandits, if you do not want to be murdered by them?”—“Yes, I know,” she said, more passionately, “that you want all the rich to perish.”
He did not answer immediately; he stood and bit his lips, so as not to lose his temper. “Let me talk with you, Donna Micaela!” he said at last. “Let me explain it to you!”
At the same time he put on a patient expression. He talked socialism with her, so clear and simple that a child could have understood.
But she was far from being able to follow it. Perhaps she could have, but she did not wish to. She did not wish just then to hear of socialism.
It had been so wonderful to her to see him. The ground had rocked under her; and something glorious and blessed had passed through and quite overcome her. “God, it is he whom I love!” she said to herself. “It is really he.”
Before she had seen him she had known very well what she would say to him. She would have led him back to the faith of his childhood. She would have shown him that those new teachings were detestable and dangerous. But then love came. It made her confused and stupid. She could not answer him. She only sat and wondered that he could talk.
She wondered if he was much handsomer now than formerly. Formerly she had not been confused at all when she saw him. She had never been attracted to that extent. Or was it that he had become a free, strong man? She was frightened when she felt how he subdued her.
She dared not contradict him. She dared not even speak, for fear of bursting into tears. Had she dared to speak, she would not have talked of public affairs. She would have told him what she had felt the day the bells rang. Or she would have prayed to be allowed to kiss his hand. She would have told him how she had dreamed of him. She would have said that if she had not had him to dream of she could not have borne her life. She would have begged to be allowed to kiss his hand in gratitude, because he had given her life all these years.
If there was to be no uprising, why did he talk socialism? What had socialism to do with them, sitting alone in Donna Elisa’s garden? She sat and looked along one of the paths. Luca had put up wooden arches on both sides of it, and up these climbed garlands of light rose-shoots, full of little buds and flowers. One always wondered whither one was coming when one went along that path. And one came to a little weather-beaten cupid. Old Luca understood things better than Gaetano.