“Neither you nor I can do anything for them,” he replied, like a dull echo.
“No one can do anything for any one,” said Maria desperately.
All that was colossal and indestructible in the fatality of existence, in its mysterious and rigorous laws, weighed upon them. In their youth, in their strength and beauty they felt lost and blind, unable to die and unable to live, groping in the shadows, their breasts full of sighs, and their ears closed to the cries of the two who were suffering alone and abandoned in Rome. They felt themselves incapable of being comforted and giving comfort, and they felt as well that their burning tears were useless, just as the tears of the two in Rome were as equally useless and unconsolable.
“Can’t I accompany you, Maria?” he begged desolately.
“Why do you wish to see me?” she asked in a tremulous accent.
“To see the face of a friend, to hear the voice of a friend, not to feel myself so lonely and lost, to-morrow more than ever.”
“O Marco, wouldn’t it be better for us not to see each other to-morrow?” she asked, trembling still more.
“No, Maria, no. You need to see me, you are so lonely and lost. I will look for you to-morrow; and do you promise not to fly from me?”
A trembling seized her, which made her almost hesitate.
“Maria, promise that you won’t fly from me, only then will I let you go?”
On the morrow a keen and pungent wind had rid the lake of all the vapours and clouds, which had robbed the hills and mountains of their lines and colouring. The sky only was covered with a closely fitting veil of clouds. It was a sky quite white, curving from the zenith to the horizon behind the mountains in an immovable whiteness. Beneath this immense inanimate whiteness the ice of the far-away peaks seemed whiter, and the summits blacker and more rocky. Every now and then a gust of wind crossed the quiet streets of Lucerne, and passed over the waters of the lake, causing long, shuddering ripples, while a flight of pigeons wheeled round the arches of the bridge. At the landing-stage the steamer was whistling on its departure for Fluelen.
It was still early when a carriage brought Marco Fiore to Kriens, the last suburb of Lucerne, at the foot of the Sonnenberg funicular. He had the appearance of a man who had slept badly. Only one other person took his place in the carriage, a German or perhaps a Lucernese, who placed himself in a corner and began to smoke a short pipe. The conductor rang his bell and whistled twice in vain; there were no other passengers for Sonnenberg than Marco and the man with the pipe.