Benvenuta. Yes. I was a little lame. But I was a worldly little girl.
Atalanta. Forgive me, dear sister. I meant no hurt.
Benvenuta. You did not hurt me.
[Another pause.]
Atalanta. Dear Benvenuta, one thing I must tell you. I must. It happened just before I came here.
[Benvenuta looks at her soberly.]
Benvenuta. Are you sure it is to me you should tell it?
Atalanta. It is not a sin—not something I could confess, dear. It was this. Just as you looked over the wall at the barges, it was. In our gardens there was a time when the old gardener brought a vinedresser to help him. And the vinedresser's wife came with his dinner and their baby. And I came on them eating under the ilex trees, very secretly, of course. And the baby was clambering over her. She was no older than I am now—the vinedresser's wife. And she fed the baby at her breast in the deep shade under the ilexes. And I talked to her. Then the old gardener came, and of course I walked away, very haughtily, as became a daughter of the house. But hear me, sister. I cannot forget her, the vinedresser's wife with the baby clambering over her, under the shade of the ilex trees, I cannot put her out of my thoughts.
Benvenuta. I understand you, dear. I cannot put out of my thoughts the poor little Bambino in the Sacristy closet all the year around, shut up with the saint's bones and the spare vestments, and he with only a piece of stiff purple and gold stuff around his middle.
Atalanta. I cannot think that the same. The vinedresser's baby was alive—so alive.