"Yes, we shall."
Then Maria began to dance around the room in token of her joy, dragging
her sister with her. I looked at Juliana.
"Does it suit you that we should go there?" I asked, fearfully, almost
humbly.
She consented by a nod.
"I see you are not well," I added, "nor am I well. Perhaps the country
... the spring..."
She was stretched out in an arm-chair, the arms of which supported her
white hands, and that attitude recalled another attitude--that of the
convalescent on the morning when she first rose, after I had told her.
The departure was decided upon. We made our preparations. A hope shone
in the depth of my soul, but I dared not look straight at it.
*I.*
My first recollection is as follows:
By this, when I began this narrative, I meant: "Among my recollections
this is the first in any way connected with the frightful thing."
It was, therefore, in April. We had been at the Badiola for several
days.
"Ah! my children," my mother had said, with her unceremonious candor,
"how pale you both look! Oh! that Rome, that Rome. To put some color
in your cheeks you must stay in the country with me for a long, long
time."
"Yes," Juliana had answered, with a smile; "yes, mother, we will stay as
long as you wish."
That smile often appeared on Juliana's lips when my mother was by. And,
although her eyes invariably retained their melancholy, that smile was
so sweet, so profoundly kind, that I permitted even myself to be
deceived by it. I dared now to entertain some hope.
During the first few days my mother could not tear herself away from her
dear visitors; one might have thought she wished to surfeit them with
tenderness. I saw her two or three times under the influence of some
indefinable emotion, I saw her caress Juliana's hair with her blessed
hand, I heard her ask her:
"Is he as kind to you as ever?"
"Yes, poor Tullio!" replied the other voice.
"So it is not true..."
"What?"
"I was told that..."
"What were you told?"
"Nothing, nothing ... I thought that Tullio had caused you some
unhappiness."
They spoke in the embrasure of a window, behind waving curtains, while
outside the wind sighed through the elm-trees. I came up to them before
they were aware of my presence, and raising a portiere, showed myself.
"Ah! Tullio!" cried my mother.
They exchanged a look, a little embarrassed.
"We were speaking of you," said my mother.
"Of me? Bad or good?" I asked lightly.
"Good," replied Juliana, quickly.