FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  
m and silent funeral. The men with their hooked noses and rapacious eyes were all as like one another as brothers. The two horses separated to let the procession pass, keeping close to the wall on either side, and the lovers looked at each other across the dead, their spirits sinking lower with every moment. When presently they rejoined one another, Andrea said--'Tell me--what is the matter? What is on your mind?' She hesitated a moment before replying, keeping her eyes on her horse's neck and stroking it with the end of her riding whip, irresolute and very pale. 'You have something on your mind,' persisted the young man. 'Very well then--yes--and I had better tell you and get it over. I am going away next Wednesday. I do not know for how long--perhaps for a long time--perhaps for ever. I cannot say. We must break with one another. It is entirely my fault. But do not ask me why--do not ask me anything, I entreat you--I could not answer you.' Andrea looked at her incredulously. The thing seemed to him so utterly impossible that it did not affect him painfully. 'Of course you are only joking, Elena?' She shook her head; there was a lump in her throat, and she could not speak. She suddenly set her horse into a trot. Behind them the bells of Santa Sabina and Santa Prisca began to ring through the twilight. They trotted on in silence, awakening the echoes under the arches and among the temples--all the solitary and desolate ruins on their way. They passed San Giorgio in Velabo on their left, which still retained a gleam of rosy light on its campanile; they passed the Roman Forum, the Forum of Nerva already full of blue shadow like that which hovers over the glaciers at night, and stopped at last at the Arco dei Pantani, where their grooms and carriages awaited them. Hardly was Elena out of the saddle, than she held out her hand to Andrea without meeting his eyes. She seemed in a great hurry to be gone. 'Well?' said Andrea as he helped her into the carriage. 'To-morrow--not this evening--I cannot----' CHAPTER VII The Campagna stretched away before them under an ideal light, as a landscape seen in dreams, where the objects seem visible at a great distance by virtue of some inward irradiation which magnifies their outlines. The closed carriage rolled along smoothly at a brisk trot; the walls of ancient patrician villas, grayish-white and dim, slid past the windows with a continuous and ge
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Andrea

 
keeping
 

carriage

 
looked
 

passed

 

moment

 
stopped
 

hovers

 

shadow

 

glaciers


twilight

 
solitary
 

desolate

 

trotted

 

temples

 

awakening

 

arches

 
silence
 

Giorgio

 

campanile


echoes

 

retained

 

Velabo

 

irradiation

 

magnifies

 
outlines
 
rolled
 

closed

 
virtue
 

objects


dreams
 

visible

 

distance

 

smoothly

 
windows
 

continuous

 

grayish

 

ancient

 
patrician
 

villas


landscape

 
meeting
 

saddle

 

grooms

 

Pantani

 
carriages
 

awaited

 
Hardly
 

CHAPTER

 

Campagna