'_October 2nd._--To-day is Saturday--just a week since the
never-to-be-forgotten day, the 25th of September.
'By some strange chance, although I no longer avoid being alone with
him--for I am anxious now for the dread and heroical moment--by some
strange chance, that moment has not yet occurred.
'Francesca has always been with me the whole day long. This morning we
had a ride along the road to Rovigliano, and we spent the best part of
the afternoon at the piano. She made me play some sixteenth-century
dance music, and then Clementi's famous Toccata and two or three
Caprices of Scarlatti's, and, after that, I had to sing certain songs
from Schumann's _Frauenliebe_--what contrasts!
'Francesca has lost much of her old gaiety, she is not as she used to be
in the first days of my stay here. She is often silent and preoccupied,
and when she does laugh or make fun, her gaiety seems to me very forced.
I said to her once. "Is something worrying you?"
'"Why?" she answered with assumed surprise.
'"Because you seem to me a little out of spirits lately."
'"Out of spirits? oh, no, you are quite mistaken," she answered, and she
laughed, but with an involuntary note of bitterness. This troubles me
and causes me a vague sense of uneasiness.
'We are going to Vicomile to-morrow afternoon.
'He asked me--"Would it tire you too much to come on horseback? In that
way we could cut right through the pine wood!"
'So we are going to ride and Francesca will join us.
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