“I begin to see the desert now,” Domini said after a moment of silent walking. “How wonderful it is!” “Yes, it is. The most wonderful thing in Nature. You will think it much more wonderful when you fancy you know it well.” “Fancy!” “I don’t think anyone can ever really know the desert. It is the thing that keeps calling, and does not permit one to draw near.” “But then, one might learn to hate it.” “I don’t think so. Truth does just the same, you know. And yet men keep on trying to draw near.” “But sometimes they succeed.” “Do they? Not when they live in gardens.” He laughed for the first time since they had been together, and all his face was covered with a network of little moving lines. “One should never live in a garden, Madame.” “I will try to take your word for it, but the task will be difficult.” “Yes? More difficult, perhaps, when you see what lies beside my thoughts of truth.” As he spoke they came out from the tunnel and were seized by the fierce hands of the sun. It was within half an hour of noon, and the radiance was blinding. Domini put up her parasol sharply, like one startled. She stopped. “But how tremendous!” she exclaimed. Count Anteoni laughed again, and drew down the brim of his grey hat over his eyes. The hand with which he did it was almost as burnt as an Arab’s. “You are afraid of it?” “No, no. But it startled me. We don’t know the sun really in Europe.” “No. Not even in Southern Italy, not even in Sicily. It is fierce there in summer, but it seems further away. Here it insists on the most intense intimacy. If you can bear it we might sit down for a moment?” “Please.” All along the edge of the garden, from the villa to the boundary of Count Anteoni’s domain, ran a straight high wall made of earth bricks hardened by the sun and topped by a coping of palm wood painted white. This wall was some eight feet high on the side next to the desert, but the garden was raised in such a way that the inner side was merely a low parapet running along the sand path. In this parapet were cut small seats, like window-seats, in which one could rest and look full upon the desert as from a little cliff. Domini sat down on one of them, and the Count stood by her, resting one foot on the top of the wall and leaning his right arm on his knee. “There is the world on which I look for my hiding-place,” he said. “A vast world, isn’t it?” Domini nodded without speaking.