But on her hands she still felt the pressure of that beloved mouth, a
sensation so surpassingly sweet that she wished it might remain there
for ever indelible like some divine impress.
She looked about her. The light was fading, things looked shapeless in
the shadows, the great Buddha gleamed with a weird pale light. The cries
came up from the street fitfully. She went over to a window, opened it
and leaned out. An icy wind blew through the street; in the direction of
the Piazza dei Termini, they were already lighting the lamps. Across the
way, at the Villa Aldobrandini, the trees swayed to and fro, their tops
touched with a faint red glow. A huge crimson cloud hung solitary in the
sky over the Torre delle Milizie.
The evening struck her as strangely lugubrious. She withdrew from the
window and seated herself again where she had just had her conversation
with Andrea. Why had Delfina not returned yet? She earnestly desired to
escape from her thoughts, and yet she weakly allowed herself to linger
in the place where, only a few minutes ago, Andrea had breathed and
spoken, had sighed out his love and his unhappiness. The struggles, the
resolutions, the contrition, the prayers, the penances of four months
had been wiped out, made utterly unavailing in one second of time, and
she sank down more weary and vanquished than ever, without the will or
the power to fight against the foes that beset her in her own heart,
against the feelings that were upheaving her whole moral foundations.
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