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.
Donna Micaela sits and looks at him; her eyes beg and implore more and more eagerly. Gaetano seems to be glad and happy to see her, but why can he not say what he has to say?
“Have you been on the Etna railway?” she asks.
“Yes,” he answers, and begins quite unconstrainedly to speak of the beauty and usefulness of the road. He knows nothing of how it came to be.
Gaetano is saying to himself that he is a brute. Why does he not speak the words for which she is longing? But why is she sitting there so humbly? Why does she show that he needs only to stretch out his hand and take her? He is desperately, stormily happy to be near her, but he feels so sure of her, so certain. It is so amusing to torture her.
The people of Diamante are still standing outside in the street, and they all feel as great a happiness as if they had given away a daughter in marriage.
They have been patient till now in order to give Gaetano time to declare himself. But now it surely must be accomplished. And they begin to shout:--