His thoughts flew at once to Ange! She knew how to laugh! How wonderful her laughter was, so gay and so infectious, and he could not help smiling when he thought how strangely her laughter would have echoed in his sad house.

3

ONE EVENING he had arranged to meet Angiolina punctually at eight o’clock; but half an hour before the appointed time he had a message from Balli to say that he would be waiting for him in Via Chiozza just at that time, and had something very important to tell him. He had several times refused a similar invitation, because he suspected it of being only a pretext for getting him away from Angiolina; but on this occasion he seized the opportunity of paying a visit to her house on the pretense of putting off his appointment. He wanted to continue his study of someone who already played such an important part in his life, by observing the things and people among whom she lived. Although he was already quite blind in any matter where she was concerned, he still played the part of someone whose sight was perfect.

The house where Angiolina lived was on the outskirts of the town, a few yards beyond Via Fabio Severo. It was a tall, barrack-like house, standing by itself out in the fields. The porter’s lodge was closed and Emilio, not without a certain amount of trepidation, for he was uncertain what reception he would meet with, went straight up to the second floor. “It certainly does not look very sumptuous,” he muttered aloud, in order to give himself confidence. The staircase looked as if it had been built in a great hurry, the stonework was badly finished, the banisters were made of the roughest iron, the walls were whitewashed; you could not say it was dirty, but it was mean and poverty-stricken.

The door was opened by a little girl about ten years of age, dressed in a long, clumsy, cobwebby sort of garment. She was fair like Angiolina, but her eyes had a lifeless expression, and her face was yellow and anemic-looking. She did not seem at all surprised to see a new face; she only lifted her hand to her bosom to hold together her ragged little jacket, from which all the buttons were missing. “Good evening,” she said. “What can I do for you?” She treated him with a ceremonious politeness which contrasted oddly with the childishness of her appearance.

“Is Signorina Angiolina at home?”

“Angiolina!” called out a woman who had advanced meanwhile from the end of the passage. “There is a gentleman asking for you.” She was probably the sweet mother to whom Angiolina had so longed to return after she had been deserted by Merighi. She was an elderly woman, dressed like a servant, in colors which had once been bright and now were somewhat faded. She had on a large blue apron, and the handkerchief, which was tied round her head in peasant fashion, was blue too. Her face still bore traces of former beauty and her profile reminded him of Angiolina, but her long, impassive face, with its small, black, haunted-looking eyes, had something in it of an animal on the lookout to avoid the blows of a stick. “Angiolina!” she called again; then announced in a tone of great politeness: “She will be here in a moment,” and repeated several times over, but without ever looking him in the face while she spoke: “Please walk in, and wait till she comes.” With a nasal voice like hers it was not possible for her to create a favorable impression. She hesitated before each sentence, like a stammerer at the beginning of a speech, but once she had started all the words came pouring from her mouth in one jet, entirely without any warmth or expression.

But now Angiolina appeared, running from the opposite end of the passage. She was dressed for going out. When she saw him she at once began laughing, and greeted him very warmly. “Oh, it is Signor Brentani. What a pleasant surprise!” She introduced him without any further ceremony: “My mother, my sister.”

So that really was the mother she had described as being so sweet! Emilio, delighted at being so well received, at once put out his hand, and the old woman, who was unprepared for such condescension on his part, showed a certain delay in holding out her own. She seemed hardly to understand what was expected of her and she fixed him for a moment with her uneasy, wolf-like eyes in obvious and instant mistrust. After her mother had shaken hands with him, the little sister stretched out her hand too, while still holding her dress carefully together over her bosom with her left hand. Then, when she had received that great favor from him, she said gravely: “Thank you.”

“Come in here,” said Angiolina, hurrying towards a door at the end of the passage, and opening it.

Brentani was radiant when he found himself alone with Angiolina; for the mother and the sister, after showing him politely in, had remained on the other side of the door. And directly the door was shut he forgot all about his resolution to play the part merely of an observer. He drew her to him.

“No,” she protested. “My father is asleep in the next room; he is not very well.”

“I can kiss you without making any noise,” he declared, and he pressed his lips against hers and held her mouth a prisoner, while she continued to protest; so that his kiss was broken into a thousand fragments, couched deliciously on her warm breath.

She broke away from him at last, exhausted, and ran to open the door.

“Now you sit down and behave yourself, for they can see us from the kitchen.” She was still laughing, and often when he thought of her afterwards it was with that expression of a happy teasing child, who has just played a successful trick on the person it loves most. Her hair was all ruffled up on her forehead by his arm in which, as usual, he had imprisoned her fair head; and he continued to caress with his eye the traces of his real caress.

It was not till a few moments later that he began to take stock of the room in which he found himself. The wallpaper was none too fresh, but compared with the staircase, the passage and the clothes worn by her mother and sister, the furniture was surprisingly sumptuous.