The light seemed to stop short at the
entrance to it, where stood the two guardian statues, unable to pierce
the further gloom; and the trees looked as if they spread their branches
in a different atmosphere, or rather in some dark waters at the bottom
of the sea, like giant marine plants.
She was seized with sudden terror. Hastening towards the steps, she ran
down five or six and then stopped, dazed and panting. Through the
silence, she heard the beating of her heart like the roll of distant
thunder. The Villa Medici was no longer in sight; the stairway was
enclosed between two walls, damp and gray and with grass growing in the
cracks, gloomy as a subterranean dungeon. She saw Andrea lean down
swiftly to kiss her on the lips.
'No, no, Andrea--no!'
He stretched out his hands to draw her to him, to hold her fast.
'No!'
Wildly she seized one of his hands and carried it to her lips; she
kissed it twice--thrice, with frenzied passion. Then she fled down the
steps to the gate like a mad creature.
'Maria! Maria! Stop!'
They stood together before the closed gate, pale, panting, shaken,
trembling from head to foot, gazing at one another with wide distraught
eyes, their ears filled with the throb of their mad pulses, a sense of
choking in their throats. Then suddenly, with one impulse, they were in
each other's arms, heart to heart, lips to lips.
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