They returned to Rome about the middle of August, and changed their dwelling. The mezzanino was really charming, but one of the rooms remained almost empty for lack of furniture.

"We might let it," suggested Regina.

"Fie! Who's the little bourgeoise now?" cried Antonio, indignant.

"Oh, one changes as life goes on," she said, not without bitterness; "one gets older, gets whipped, ends by adapting oneself to anything."

She did in fact adapt herself—without knowing why. In herself and in her surroundings, in the quiet life which she and Antonio had resumed, she was sometimes conscious of an emptiness like that in the new Apartment, but she no longer rebelled.

After dinner they would go out arm in arm in the good bourgeois fashion, stifling the gentle tedium of their existence at the CafÉ Aragno or in Piazza Colonna, oftener in the streets and avenues round Piazza della Stazione. The little tables in front of the CafÉ Gambrinus or CafÉ Morteo were always surrounded by people who at any rate seemed very lively. Crowds tramped the broad streets, bright with electricity and moonlight. Beyond the great white square, where the twin lights of the trams shone like drops of water, the station carriages looked like files of monstrous sleeping insects.

After the long silences and solemn solitudes of the Po, back now in the crowd, in the cold, sharp splendour of the electric lights hidden like little moons among the black ilices, Regina felt herself in a dream. The cafÉs were overflown with light. Livid reflections came from some empty table. Vestiges of lunar rays made their way through the green shadows, the strange semi-darkness of the trees. The crowd rolled past and looked into the cafÉ, merry with a second crowd reflected and multiplied by mirrors. Now and then, in the smoke-wreathed background of the Morteo, hovered the moving and screaming figure of a singer, whose coarse notes were mixed with the melancholy scraping of violins and the buzz of the people. A hundred faces, derisive but brutally pleased, looked at the swaying, strident figure. Regina found a curious interest in watching the crowd, the faces, the light dresses of the women, the physiognomy of the men who ogled the singer, the pitiable arms of this pitiable creature.

One evening a little girl with thick hair falling in a red plait over thin shoulders, with a green hat and a short green dress, which left half-bare her meagre legs and big feet cased in yellow shoes, reminded her of a water bird. Then suddenly, under those trees blackened and burnt up by the heat of a thousand burning breaths, she thought of her great river, of the poplars rising at this hour like candles lighted by the moon, of the white line of the river-banks cleaving the immense circle of the plain; and she marvelled that she no longer felt the nostalgia which she had known of old.

Antonio proposed to sit down at the cafÉ, but Regina preferred moving round with the crowd, going as far as Via Volturno, where the voices of the melon-sellers crossed, followed, answered each other jealously, like the crowing of cocks.

"Favorischino, Signori! Favorischino!"

On the black, damp tables, cut melons showed rosy in the trembling lamp-light, and diffused a fresh and agreeable odour like great red flowers. Children, workmen, a pair of students, a woman or two, bent over the pink flesh of the juicy slices.

"Favorischino, Signori! Behold what beauties! Real blood! Will you buy one, lady?"

There was a stall at the corner of the street against the wall, and the vendor looked condescendingly at the people clustered round his banks of melons; but if any one noticed his money-box, he turned anxiously and put on an air of preternatural solemnity.

"Do you intend to buy, madam?"

And from an ambulant gramaphone, whose red trumpet rose in the shadow like a coral cup, issued a strange, hoarse music, a metallic and rapid laughter, now near, now far, which streamed forth from an unknown and alarming profundity, expressing a false joy, a cry of misery, grief, derision, of wickedness and roguery, of pity and sadness—a voice at once mocking and imploring, empty and portentous, unconscious, and supremely melancholy.

To Regina it seemed the voice of the surrounding crowd. Yes! the voice of the pale young daughter of joy, with the auburn hair under the great black hat, seated alone and thoughtful before one of the tables at the Morteo; the voice of the child like the water bird of the famished singer, of the rough melon-seller, of the bright-eyed old man in the pink shirt, of the gentleman with the thick lips and brutal looks, of the melancholy fat man, of the lady in the red dress lifted to show a trim ankle, of the wet-nurse with the Jewish profile, of the yellow infant which she held in her arms, of the little woman in black with floating veil who ran after the tram, of the pair of lovers leaning romantically against the garden gate.

"And it's my voice too, and Antonio's!" thought Regina, and sometimes the crowd still disgusted her, but her disgust was tempered by compassion. Returning home, she still saw the melon-seller, the fat misanthrope, the nurse, and the girl with the red frock; but above all the thin singing woman, who was probably hungry, and the daughter of joy with the thoughtful, the pure face. She fancied that Antonio had glanced at the latter with a certain interest, and she thought: "Can they have known each other once?" But she felt no resentment, only great compassion for the lost girl, for Antonio, for herself, and for all the unconscious ones, the rich or the wretched, for all the sadness and the weariness of men, which gurgled forth from the blood-coloured cup of the ambulating gramaphone.

Sometimes Antonio and Regina sat on a bench at the bottom of the avenue in the shadow. He seemed overcome by depression and fatigue. She watched dreamily the great coloured eyes of the tram, the course of the newspaper carts, carrying to the station their load of glory and of gossip, the going and coming of the people, the shadows of the trees, the clouds which rose up from the silver depths of the horizon. White and tender the moon looked down from heaven. Music of mandolines and violins throbbed and vibrated, a neighbouring bell tolled, a distant trumpet sounded.

"They all make music!" observed Regina. "The whole world seems holiday-making and merry."

"On the contrary, according to you it's sad," said Antonio, not without irony.

"No; it's worse than sad! It's miserable, and I am very sorry for it!"

He made no reply. Since their re-union he did not controvert the melancholy speeches of his wife on those occasions, infrequent now, when she allowed herself to be depressed.

In September Regina perceived that the old miller's prophecy had come true. She was to be a mother.

The fact was not particularly agitating, certainly not displeasing, either to her or to her husband. It occasioned, however, a small dispute between them, for Antonio declared at once that the child must have a nurse, while Regina was for bringing it up herself.

"Too much worry," he said, almost roughly.

"Well, have we the means to pay for a nurse?"

"We have," he affirmed, shortly.

The year passed. Nothing extraordinary happened. During the winter Regina went out little and scarcely saw any one. She did not visit her mother-in-law, finding an excuse in the stairs. When Arduina came to look for her, she bade the maid say she was not at home. She was aware of her own ingratitude, since after all it was Arduina who had got Antonio his post with the Princess; but she could not overcome her antipathy to her husband's whole family.

Before the child's birth she fell into a sort of moral lethargy. In spite of the physical disturbances her prospects did not displease her; on the other hand, the idea of motherhood woke in her little enthusiasm. During the winter she devoured an immense number of novels, which her husband brought from the library. Hour after hour she sat over the fire, which Antonio had arranged in one of the drawing-rooms—quite alone and very quiet.

Antonio went out in the morning often while she was still asleep. He ran in for lunch, went out again, came back towards evening after an extra hour or two in the office, studying or dispatching business for the Princess. Regina had got used to solitude.

All was going on well; perhaps too well. In addition to his two salaries, Antonio said he had made a little by extra work in the Department. Then one evening towards the middle of April, when the birth of the baby was imminent, he told Regina a somewhat curious story.

"If you won't scold," he began, "I'll confess my sins to you."

"I needn't scold if you have upbraided yourself and repented."

"Repented? No; the serious thing is, I haven't repented! Look here. The day you ran away last year I got dragged by a friend of mine into a gambling-house——"

"Ah——!" cried Regina.

"Don't be frightened. It was the one only time. I was irritated, naturally; infuriated—almost desperate. But, you know (I never spoke of it, but I want to tell you now once and for all) I was far angrier with myself than with you. You were perfectly right. I had been imprudent, improvident. I hadn't properly forewarned you of all the little annoyances of middle-class life in a big town. We needn't go over it. It's enough that I was furious with myself for not having the sense to find some way out of my subordinate position. Well, I went with the fellow, and I played. You remember I had 100 lire? I put them all on the green table. I saw I was still a great baby, fancying I understood others and myself, while, on the contrary—why, I saw two or three of my colleagues there, and I even observed one of them cheating! Another had that day gone down from our Department into that of the Intendance, and the man who superseded him had paid him 2000 lire. He (my colleague) had three children and another coming. His wife hadn't been out for two months because she hadn't a decent frock. He had made the exchange because he wanted to get away from Rome, pay his debts, provide for his wife's confinement. That night he had his 2000 lire in his pocket, and, would you believe it, he lost them all! As for me, I began by winning. I got up to 1800 lire; then I lost till I was down to 50. I won and lost again. That's how it always is. Towards morning I had made about 2000 lire. I was worn out, sleepy, nauseated. I thought of you. I thought: 'If Regina only knew!' All at once a quarrel burst out between one of the players and my colleague, who had been cheating. They came to blows. The manager of the house intervened. There was pandemonium! I got up and came away with my fine 2000 lire."

Regina listened, seated by the window, against which Antonio was leaning. It was almost night. From the beautiful hushed street, where the lamps shone pale in the last rosiness of the long twilight, from the gardens of the opposite houses, from near, from far, came that warm and grateful perfume of the spring evenings in Rome. The new moon, pale green like a slice of unripe orange, was going down in a violet-pink sky, above the already darkened houses in the far part of the street. Regina remembered the night when she had leaned against the window of their first Apartment and complained that she could not see the stars. What changes within and around her! That night she had formulated to herself the plan of flight and separation. Now—now all that seemed a dream. Why does life change one in this way? And neither was Antonio what he had been that evening. He confessed it himself. He said, "I was a great baby and did not know it."

Now—now he was telling her a story, and Regina was listening, but with an inexplicable conviction that it was not true. Why should he say what was not true? She did not know, did not try to explain her incredulity. She just felt that the story Antonio was telling her was an invention. She was vaguely distressed. She would much rather have thought Antonio had really been gambling, had lost or won—it mattered little which—so long as he were not telling her lies.

He went on—

"Now hear the best of it. When I found myself with the 2000 lire I formed at least two thousand projects. I thought of going to you. I thought of gambling again. What I did was to hand the money over to Arduina and tell her to get me a post as secretary. Then came the days in which I was going to the Exchange about the Princess's matter, and presently I purchased five shares in the Carburo Italiano Company. They were at 300 lire just then. Do you know what they are worth now? Do you know, Regina?"

In spite of herself, Regina was excited. Antonio was bending over her, and though his voice was calm, almost indifferent, she felt in him some unaccustomed agitation.

She forgot the doubts which had assailed her. No; Antonio was no longer lying. The expression of his eyes, brilliant in the light of the window, was truly a sincere expression, on fire with audacity. His eyes, once so soft, so amorous, were now those of a man intent on making a fortune at all costs.

"Do you know?" he repeated.

"How should I know?"

"Guess."

"500 lire?" she hazarded.

"More."

"600?"

"More—more."

"1000?" she suggested, timidly.

"More still."

"Then we are rich!" she exclaimed, with forced irony, angry at her own excitement.

"We are not rich yet, but we can be. It's the first step, which is everything, my dear! Our five shares are each worth 1200 lire. They may go up even higher, but I intend to sell out to-morrow. Half the money I shall give to you; with the other half I'll make another venture. Fortune, it seems, is only a matter of will. But you mustn't be frightened!" he ended, for Regina had turned pale.

"Why did you never tell me about it?"

"What was the use? Suppose the shares had gone down?"

As on that former evening, which rose obstinately before Regina's memory, the maid interrupted by announcing dinner, and the young pair went into the next room. By the lamp-light Antonio again noticed Regina's pallor, but he jested.

"Don't fly away on the wings of Pegasus!"

They talked a little of the morality and the opportunities of speculation, of risks and lotteries.

"Nonsense!" said Antonio. "All life is a lottery. We must risk something or die. And now we'll go out for our walk."

Next day he sold the shares, after having shown them to Regina, and gave her 3000 lire. She put 2000 in the savings bank; with the rest she bought furniture, and provided for the birth and christening of her baby.

"Perhaps I shall die," she said, in the last days of waiting. "You'll see that now, just when we've got a little luck, I shall die."

"Don't talk nonsense," said Antonio, almost angry.

She did not die, but she gave to the light a miserable little being, its life hanging by a thread, a baby like a kitten, ill-formed, ill-coloured, with an enormous head.

When she first saw this little misery she wept with disappointment and repugnance.

"If it would only die!" she mourned, cruelly. "Why oh! why have I given it life!"

"Young lady," she was answered by the nurse, a peasant woman, like a statue, with a bronze face in an aureole formed by a turquoise head ornament, "leave the infant to me. You have brought her into the world, and now you have no more to do. Leave her to me, SignurÌ."

Regina appeared to have little confidence, so the big woman was offended. She sulked, she quarrelled with the servant, who insisted the baby was dying. Next day she fell out with Marianna, who had come to inquire for Regina, and made the remark that the child seemed a kitten.

"Just let her grow a bit," cried the indignant peasant, "and she'll be clawing at you! Little Miss Catharine may be like a kitten, but you're for all the world like a rat!"

By the middle of May Regina had recovered; she had regained her beauty and felt strong and happy. The nurse kept her promise; her rich country milk gave life and vigour to the poor little city infant. The distorted black little face cleared and acquired a profile; the immense heavy eyes began to be human. Sometimes the baby smiled, and her whole little face became animated. Then Regina felt certain her daughter was beautiful; but presently she laughed and thought she must be deluded—a victim of that mania which attacks all mothers.

However, she was happy, happy in her freedom, her health, her life. After the few first delicious walks on Antonio's arm she began to go with the nurse and the baby. The mornings were splendid; breaths of perfumed wind gave stimulating sweetness to the air; bands of shining silver furrowed the luminous heights of the heaven.

How different from the spring of a year ago! Now Regina felt impulses of tenderness for everything and everybody. The warm surging of that breeze which came from the summer of the southern plains and passed on to her northern home still stung by the sharpness of winter, ravished her soul, sending it forth in flight like a bird drunk with light and space.

One day she sallied forth quite alone. She felt like that hero of Dostoievsky's, who, unexpectedly obliged to cross the principal streets of the great city in which he had long lived without attention, seemed to himself born again to a new life. Roaming in the immensity of Via Nazionale, Regina looked about her with childish curiosity. For the first time she perceived that the Hotel Quirinale was a soft grey, while to her it had always seemed mustard colour; she saw the tower of the American Church striped and elegant like a lady's dress; she admired the fine perspective of Via Quattro Fontane; she stood on the sunlit carpet which covered regally the steps of the Exhibition. A red-faced cabman raised two fingers, thinking her a foreigner seeking a carriage; a Moor in European dress passed near her and stared; a flower-girl offered her roses. It was all interesting; but a year ago she would have been annoyed.

She descended Via dei Serpenti, and as she advanced saw the arches of the Colosseum open to the deep sky, and she fancied them huge blue eyes looking at her and full of eternal dream. She found herself alone before the great dead sphinx; only a boy—fair-haired, rosy, dressed in green—was watching the entrance from between two baskets of oranges. The broken columns lying in the sun showed metallic reflections; the voluptuous wind brought whiffs of country fragrance; cries of love-making birds came from the trees of the Palatine; the outline of the trees was soft against the feathery silver clouds which veiled the sky.

Regina descended, almost running. She penetrated under an archway and paused, checked by a sudden chill. A priest passed close to her, black and fluttering, like a melancholy bird. She moved on, opened her guide-book, but did not read. Play of sun and shade painted the background of the Colosseum's immense emptiness. The walls, dotted with wild plants and yellow flowers, suggested a mountain-side; shady corners, green with moss, seemed little damp pastures; mysterious caverns opened great black mouths. Hoarse cawing of rooks came from behind the huge blue eyes which the great sphinx fixed on its own ruin. From the hopeless profundity of heaven rained a dream of solitude and death.

"I have never cared for history," thought Regina. "There are persons who come miles to gush about a stone on which possibly some Roman warrior set his dirty foot! That seems silly to me. Why? A stone is for me only a stone! Nothing speaks to me by its past, but by its present significance. The past is death; the present is life. Here am I, and here once laboured twelve thousand slaves—or how many was it?" (Again she opened the guide-book, but did not read.) "Here the lions devoured the Christians, and cruel eyes of emperors, women, plebeians, with less conscience than the lions, enjoyed the horrid spectacle. But all that is past, and it doesn't move me a bit. Oh, dear! Here come the foreigners, bursting into this dream of death, chattering like ducks in a stagnant pond! Let me escape!"

She went away. The Palatine trees trembled in the breeze against a sky ever brighter and brighter. The campanile of Santa Francesca Romana was clear-cut, bright, and dark. The Arch of Constantine framed the bright picture of the roadway with its background of silvery cloud. Regina followed the road and seated herself on the highest step of the stair of San Gregorio. Everything she could see in front of her, from the pine-trees, noisy with birds, to the rosy vision of the city's edge, all was light, life, joy; behind her, in the damp cloister, green with moss, in the portico guarded by tombs, in the abandoned garden, all was silence, sadness, death. Always the great contrast! Vibrating with life, she nevertheless entered into that place of death and allowed herself to be taken round by a friar, who seemed a skeleton wrapped in a yellow tunic. They visited the chapels, in whose silence the beautiful figures of Domenichino and Guido grow pale, like persons condemned to solitude. Regina crossed the desolate garden and watched the friar, with profound pity, wondering he could still walk, though he was dead to life.

She thought of her baby, the little Caterina. Ah! she should be taught to appreciate, to enjoy, to adore life!

"How many dead people there are in the world!" she thought. "I myself was dead till a few months ago. Now I have revived a little, but I am not so much alive as my baby shall be! I am only a resuscitated person with the memory of the grave still in my soul."

As she went out she put a small coin in the friar's yellow palm, and, from the manner in which he thrust the money into his pocket and looked at the donor, she perceived that he had still some life in him, this little yellow skeleton of a friar!

Then she went out, hurrying from the sepulchre-guarded portico, thirsting for the sun, for noise, and for immensity.