Thus ended the first hour the slave spent with her master; and when he was gone she felt suddenly exhausted, as if she had fought with her hands; and strangely enough she knew all at once that she was weak from want of food, and that the thought of eating no longer disgusted her. Half-ashamed of herself, she glanced at the door through which Zeno had disappeared, as if she thought he might come back, and listened, as though expecting his footstep. Then, not seeing or hearing anything, she began to eat quickly, and almost ravenously, as if she were doing something to be a little ashamed of, and she hoped that the maids would not come in and see her.
She was soon satisfied, for it had been a nervous craving rather than anything else, and every woman who reads these lines knows precisely how Zoë felt, or will know one of these days; for in all that belongs to the instinctive side of life, women are much more alike than men are; whereas, because they are not led, pushed, or dragged through one average course of teaching, as most men are, but are left to think and above all, to guess at truth for themselves, they are much more unlike in their way of looking at things. This also is the reason why many gifted men and a good many really learned ones would rather talk to women than to men; for among men they hear the same things everlastingly, but women always have something new to say, which is flattering, pleasant, amusing, or irritating--perhaps, as they choose. Women have also a sort of mock-humble, wholly appealing way of asking the great man how it is possible that he can really care to talk with a poor, ignorant, little woman, when he might be engaged in a memorable conversation with the other great man, who is talking to the other poor, ignorant little woman with lovely eyes, on the other side of the room. In this way we learn that life is full of contradictions.
Zoë slept ten hours without dreaming, and awoke refreshed and rested, to wonder presently why her mood had changed so much. But Zeno was restless in the night, and dissatisfied with himself and with what he had done; when he lay awake he found fault with his impulsive action, but when he fell asleep for half-an-hour Zoë haunted his dreams. More than once he got up and walked barefoot on the marble mosaic pavement of his room, and he threw open the shutters and looked out. The night was calm and clear, and the air was almost wintry. To the left of Pera's towering outline the northern constellations shone bright and cold. Each time he looked he wondered at the slow motion of the Bear; the seven stars hung above the Pole, for it was springtime, and they hardly seemed to have moved a handbreadth to their westward sinking in a whole hour, when he looked again. When morning came his face was a little paler than usual, and he felt that he was in a bad humour.