“Why, make the poor woman who was kneeling and praying here your son’s wife, Donna Elisa!” Donna Elisa looks up. Such a face as she sees before her! So bewitching, so captivating, so smiling! But she may not look at it for more than a second. Donna Micaela hides it instantly in Donna Elisa’s old black dress. * * * * * Donna Micaela and Donna Elisa go together into the town. The street winds so that they cannot see Donna Elisa’s house until they are quite near. When it at last comes into view they see that the shop windows are lighted up. Four gigantic wax-candles are burning behind the bunches of rosaries. Both the women press each other’s hands. “He lives!” one whispers to the other. “He lives!” “You must not tell him anything about what the image commanded you to do,” says Donna Micaela to Donna Elisa. Outside the shop they embrace one another and each goes her own way. In a little while Gaetano comes out on the steps of the shop. He stands still for a moment and breathes in the fresh night air. Then he sees how lights are burning in the dark palace across the street. Gaetano breathes short and panting; he seems almost afraid to go further. Suddenly he dashes across like some one going to meet an unavoidable misfortune. He finds the door to the summer-palace unlocked, takes the stairs in two bounds, and bursts open the door to the music-room without knocking. Donna Micaela is sitting there, wondering if he will come now in the night or the next morning. Then she hears his step outside in the gallery. She is seized with terror; how will he be? She has longed so unspeakably for him. Will he really be so that all that longing will be satisfied? And will no more walls rise between them? Will they for once be able to tell each other everything? Will they speak of love, and not of socialism? When he opens the door she tries to go to meet him, but she cannot; she is trembling in every limb. She sits down and hides her face in her hands. She expects him to throw his arms about her and kiss her, but that he does not do. It is not Gaetano’s way to do what people expect of him. As soon as he could stand upright he has thrown on his clothes to come to see her. He is apparently wildly gay when he comes now. He would have liked her to take it lightly also. He will not be agitated. He had fainted in the forenoon. He could stand nothing. He stands quietly beside her until she regains her composure. “You have weak nerves,” he says. That is actually all he says. She and Donna Elisa and every one is convinced that he has come to clasp her in his arms and say that he loves her. But just for that reason it is impossible for Gaetano. Some people are malicious; it is their nature never to do just what they ought to do. Gaetano begins to tell her of his journey; he does not speak even of socialism, but talks of express-trains and conductors and curious travelling companions.