"Everything!" I replied, dropping on my knees before her. "You do not mean it!" she retorted, with a melancholy air. "Return to your place," she added, pointing to the bow. "I wish to rest a while here." I returned to the bow, but I left the door of the _camerino_ open. I could see her lying on the black cushions, fair and pale, wrapped in her black cape, buried and, as it were hidden in the black velvet of that mysterious bower, which seems made for stealthy pleasures and forbidden joys. She resembled a beautiful swan which swims into a dark grotto to avoid the hunter. I felt that my reason was abandoning me; I crept to her side and fell on my knees. To give her a kiss and then die in expiation of my crime was my whole thought. Her eyes were closed, she pretended to be asleep, but she felt the fire of my breath. Then she called to me aloud, as if she believed me to be at a distance, and pretended to wake gradually, to give me time to go away. She bade me go to the _bottega_ on the Lido to fetch her some lemonade, then closed her eyes again. I put one foot on shore, and that was all. I stepped back into the gondola and stood still, gazing at her. She opened her eyes, and her glance seemed to draw me to her by a thousand chains of steel and diamond. I took one step toward her, she closed her eyes again; I took another step, and she opened them, assuming an expression of contemptuous surprise. I went ashore again, then returned to the gondola. This cruel game lasted several minutes. She attracted and spurned me as the hawk plays with the mortally wounded sparrow. Anger took possession of me; I slammed the door of the _camerino_ so violently that the glass was shivered. She uttered a cry which I did not deign to notice, but rushed ashore, singing in a voice of thunder, which I thought reckless and devil-may-care: "La Biondina in gondoleta L'altra sera mi o mena; Dal piazer la povareta La x' a in boto adormenta. E la dormiva su sto bracio Me intanto la svegliava; E la barca che ninava La tornava a adormenzar." I sat down upon one of the Jewish tombstones on the Lido, and remained there a long while; I purposely compelled her to wait for me. Then, of a sudden, thinking that she might be suffering with thirst, I ran, stricken with remorse, to fetch the drink for which she had asked me, and carried it to her with deep solicitude. And yet I hoped that she would reprimand me; I would have liked to be dismissed from my employment, for it had become intolerable to me. She received me with no trace of anger; indeed she thanked me sweetly as she took the glass I handed her. Thereupon I saw that her hand was bleeding, it had been cut by the broken glass. I could not restrain my tears. I saw that hers were flowing too; but she did not speak to me, and I dared not break that silence, fraught with loving reproaches and timid passion.