A horrible thing that no one can blame himself for. Do you see how I talk to you about it? Why I can tell you about it? Because I'm not to blame! And neither is he! But it's precisely for this very reason... Listen, listen, and when you've found out everything, maybe you'll go mad too, just like I'm about to go mad, like he has gone mad... Listen! You've relived in your mind the day you left the villa to go to Perugia by car, right? The day he gave you a couple of roses and asked you to bring him back some books..."

"Yes."

"Well, it was on that morning!"

"What was?"

"Everything that happened. Everything, and nothing... let me tell you, for heaven's sake. It was quite hot, remember? After seeing you leave, he and I walked back through the garden... The sun was scorching, and the buzzing of the cicadas was deafening... We went back into the villa and sat down in the small living room, right by the entrance to the dining room. The blinds were drawn, the inside shutters pulled shut. It was almost dark in there, and the air was cool and motionless... (I'm giving you now my impression of it, the only one I could possibly have, the one I remember and shall always remember. Perhaps he, too, had the same impression of it, identical to mine... He must have, because otherwise I'd never be able to explain anything to myself!) It was that cool, motionless air, after all that sun and the deafening buzzing of the cicadas... In an instant, without thinking about it, I swear it! Never, never, neither he nor I, certainly not... as if by some irresistible attraction present in that bewildering void, in the delightful coolness of that semidarkness... Bice, Bice... it happened like that, I swear it! In an instant!..."

Donna Bicetta Daddi sprang to her feet, impelled by a sudden access of hatred and contempt.

"Oh, that's why!" she hissed through her teeth, recoiling like a cat.

"No, that's not why!" cried Gabriella Vanzi, stretching her arms towards her in a gesture of supplication and despair.

"That's not why, that's not why, Bice! Your husband went mad on your account, on your account, not because of me!"

"He went mad on my account? What do you mean? Out of remorse?"

"No! What remorse? There's no reason to feel remorse when you haven't willfully committed the sin. You can't understand! Just as I wouldn't have been able to understand it if, considering what's now happened to your husband, I had not thought about my own! Yes, yes, I now understand your husband's madness, because I think about my own husband, who would go mad in the same way, if what happened to your husband with me, ever happened to him! Without remorse! Without remorse! And precisely because it is without remorse... Do you understand? And this is the horrible thing about it! I don't know how to make you understand! I understand it, I repeat, only if I think of my husband and see myself like this, without remorse for a sin I didn't intend to commit. Do you see how I can speak to you about it without blushing? Because I don't know, Bice, I really don't know how your husband is, just as he certainly doesn't know, he can't know, how I am... It was like a whirlpool. Understand? Like a whirlpool that suddenly, without any forewarning, opened up between us and took hold of us, and in an instant swept us away. And then it immediately closed without leaving behind the slightest trace of itself! Immediately afterwards, his conscience and mine became clear, just like they were before. We no longer thought about what had occurred between us, not even for an instant. Our turmoil was only momentary. We rushed out of the room, he going in one direction, I in another. But as soon as we were alone — nothing. It was as if nothing at all had happened. Not only when we were in your presence after your return to the villa a short time later, but even when we were alone together. We could look into one another's eyes and talk to one another, just as before, exactly as before, because no longer was there in us any vestige of what had been, I swear it.