'"Listen!" she said.
'The sound of women's voices, singing, floated over to us from the
fields, a slow song, full and solemn as a Gregorian chant. Further on,
we came in sight of the singers. They were coming away from a field of
dried sunflowers; walking in single file like a religious procession,
and the sunflowers on their long leafless stalks, their great discs
stripped of their halo of petals and their wealth of seed, were like
liturgic emblems or monstrances of pale gold.
'My emotion waxed greater. The song spread wide through the evening air.
We passed through Rovigliano, where the lamps were beginning to twinkle,
and came out again upon the high road. The church bells rang softly
behind us. A moist breeze rustled in the trees that cast a faint blue
shadow on the white road, and in the air a shadow as liquid as water.
'"Are you not cold?" she asked me, and she ordered the footman to spread
a rug over us, and told the coachman to turn homewards.
'In the belfry at Rovigliano, a bell tolled with deep slow strokes as
for some solemn rite, and the wave of sound seemed to send a wave of
cold through the air. With a simultaneous movement, we drew closer to
one another, settling the rug more warmly over our knees, and a shiver
ran through us both. The carriage entered the town at a walk.
'"What can that bell be ringing for?" she murmured in a voice that
hardly seemed like her own.
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