They arose, and began to saunter along over the broad
avenue that led from the gate to the little square.
The house was soon behind them, lost in the thick
crests of the orange-trees. Leonora smiled mischievously
and lifted a forefinger in warning.
“I took it for granted you had returned from
your trip a more serious, a more well-behaved person.
No nonsense, no familiarities, eh? Besides, you
know already that I’m strong, and can fight—if
I have to.”
Rafael spent a sleepless night tossing about in his
bed.
Party admirers had honored him with a serenade that
had lasted beyond midnight. The “prominents”
among them had shown some pique at having cooled their
heels all afternoon at the Club waiting for the deputy
in vain. He put in an appearance well on towards
evening, and after shaking hands once more all around
and responding to speeches of congratulation, as he
had done that morning, he went straight home.
He had not dared raise his head in Dona Bernarda’s
presence. He was afraid of those glowering eyes,
where he could read, unmistakably, the detailed story
of everything he had done that afternoon. At the
same time he was nursing a resolve to disobey his
mother, meet her domineering, over-bearing aggressiveness
with glacial disregard.
The serenade over, he had hurried to his room, to
avoid any chance of an accounting.
Snug in his bed, with the light out, he gave way to
an intense, a rapturous recollection of all that had
taken place that afternoon. For all the fatigue
of the journey and the bad night spent in a sleeping-car,
he lay there with his eyes open in the dark, going
over and over again in his feverish mind all that
Leonora told him during that final hour of their walk
through the garden. Her whole, her real life’s
story it had been, recorded in a disordered, a disconnected
way—as if she must unburden herself of the
whole thing all at once—with gaps and leaps
that Rafael now filled in from his own lurid imagination.
Italy, the Italy of his trip abroad, came back to
him now, vivid, palpitant, vitalized, glorified by
Leonora’s revelations.
The shadowy majestic Gallery of Victor Emmanuel at
Milan! The immense triumphal arch, a gigantic
mouth protended to swallow up the Cathedral!
The double arcade, cross-shaped, its walls covered
with columns, set with a double row of windows under
a vast crystal roof. Hardly a trace of masonry
on the lower stories; nothing but plate glass—the
windows of book-shops, music shops, cafes, restaurants,
jewelry stores, haberdasheries, expensive tailoring
establishments.
At one end, the Duomo, bristling with a forest of
statues and perforated spires; at the other, the monument
to Leonardo da Vinci, and the famous Teatro de
la Scala! Within the four arms of the Gallery,
a continuous bustle of people, an incessant going
and coming of merging, dissolving crowds: a quadruple
avalanche flowing toward the grand square at the center
of the cross, where the Cafe Biffi, known to actors
and singers the world over, spreads its rows of marble
tables! A hubbub of cries, greetings, conversations,
footsteps, echoing in the galleries as in an immense
cloister, the lofty skylight quivering with the hum
of busy human ants, forever, day and night, crawling,
darting this way and that, underneath it!
