Luisa, the heart of his heart. She praised his music and his
poetry in measured terms, but she had never said: "Follow this path,
dare, write, publish." He was thinking of this as he played on in the
dark hall putting into a tender melody the lament of his love, the
timid, secret lament he would never have dared to put into words.

Out on the terrace in the quivering light-and-shade formed by the breath
of the north wind and the passion-flower vines, by the moon and its
reflection in the lake, Don Giuseppe was telling Luisa that Signor
Giacomo Puttini was angry with him on account of Signora Pasotti, who
had repeated to him the false report that he, Don Giuseppe, was going
about preaching the necessity of a marriage between Puttini and
Marianna. "May I be struck dead," the poor priest protested, "if I ever
breathed a single word! Not a single word! It is all a lie!" Luisa would
not believe poor Barborin guilty, but Don Giuseppe declared he had it
straight from the Controller himself. Then she understood at once that
the cunning Pasotti was indulging in a joke at the expense of his wife,
Signor Giacomo, and the priest, and declining to interfere in the matter
as Don Giuseppe wished her to do, she advised him to speak to Signora
Pasotti herself. "She is so terribly deaf!" said the priest, scratching
his head; and he finally departed, dissatisfied, and without saluting
Franco, whom he did not wish to interrupt. Luisa went towards the piano
on tiptoe, and stopped to listen to her husband, to hear the beauty, the
richness, the fire of that soul which was hers, and to which she
belonged for ever. If she had never said to Franco, "Follow this path,
write, publish!" it was perhaps because in her well-balanced affection
she believed, and with reason, that he would never be able to produce
anything superior to mediocrity, but it was above all, because, although
she had a fine feeling for music and poetry, she did not really esteem
either of much account. She did not approve of a man's dedicating
himself wholly to either, and she had an ardent longing that her
husband's intellectual and material activity should flow in a more
manly channel. Nevertheless, she admired Franco in his music more than
if he had been a great master; she found in this almost secret
expression of his soul something virginal, something sincere, the light
of a loving spirit, most worthy to be loved.

He did not perceive her presence until two arms brushed hi