Zingarella could not imagine why the strange man had left. He seemed to
be quite indifferent. Her heart beat with numerical accuracy, but there
was no strength in the beats. The sole creature through which she was
bound to the world was Zephyr.
Night followed night, day followed day. Each was like the preceding. She
spoke when people took enough trouble to speak to her. She laughed when
they had the incomprehensible desire to hear laughter. To-day she
wrapped this dress around her shivering body, to-morrow another. She
waited for the time to come when she was to do something definite. She
lay in bed and dreaded the darkness; she pondered on the injustice of
the world; she thought of her own disgrace, and reflected on the need
that surrounded her. It was too much for her to bear.
A man would come, and at daylight he would leave and mingle with the
rest of the people on the street. When she awoke she could no longer
recall what he looked like. The landlady would bring in soup and meat.
Then some one knocked at the door; but she did not open it. She had no
desire to find out who it was. Perhaps it was the man who had been with
her the night before; perhaps it was another.
She had neither curiosity nor hope. Her soul had dissolved like a piece
of salt in water. When she returned home on the third day she found
Zephyr lying by the coal-scuttle dead. She knelt down, touched the cold
fur, wrinkled her brow, shook her bracelet, and went out.
It was getting along toward night, and the air was heavy with mist. She
went first through lighted streets, and then turned into others that
were not lighted. She passed through avenues of leafless trees, and
walked across silent squares. The snow made walking difficult. When it
was too deep, she was obliged to stop every now and then and take a deep
breath.
She reached the river at a point where the shore was quite flat and the
water shallow. Without thinking for a moment, without a moment's
hesitation, just as if she were blind, or as if she saw a bridge where
there was none, she walked in.
First she felt the water trickling into her shoes. Then she could feel
her legs getting wet, as her clothes, soft, slippery, and ice-cold,
clung to her body. Now her breast was under the water, and now her neck.
She sank down, glided away, took one deep breath, smiled, and as she
smiled she lost consciousness.
The next day her body was washed up on the shore some distance beyond
the city. It was taken to the morgue of the Rochus Cemetery.