The white ribbon was there, as if Chiara had left it the evening before and four years had not passed, or as if a mysterious hand had placed the things there as in former times, so that the singular resurrection should seem like a continuation of life. In every particular Maria found this secret care that every line and tint should produce the quiet and persuasive impression of an existence which had had no interruptions, which was pursuing its development without a break, so that to-day was like yesterday, like a year ago or seven years ago, and to-morrow and the day after like yesterday and to-day. Not only had none of the old furniture been moved, not only had the carpets, portières and curtains preserved their usual aspect, but they had not even grown old. Not only did the hundred well-known and familiar objects attract the glance with the sympathetic fidelity of inanimate objects, but they gave more than ever the sense of unelapsed time, of objects viewed no later than yesterday, and to-day found again sympathetically in their place. Maria found again a little antique clock on a small table near her bed, with the hours marked in blue figures, which she had left on her departure and missed. It was ticking lightly and pointed to half-past eleven, as if it had never ceased to go in all the time that had passed. In some vases there were large bunches of grass, and green leaves without a flower, such as she always liked to have in her bedroom, seeking out the grasses most peculiar and delicate in form, and the leaves the most varied in colour and marking. Formerly she did not care for the perfume of flowers in her bedroom, fearing its insidious poison; but the green of gardens and meadows, of fields and mountains, the healthy green of leaves and grasses pleased her simple open spirit, her sane and beautiful youth. The ink was fresh in the pen on the writing-table, just as if her last letter had been written an instant ago, and near by was a book in a dark-green binding, a book unfinished with the marker in its place--_Salammbo_, of Gustave Flaubert.
Thus Donna Maria had the feeling of the abolition of time.
“Does Your Excellency want anything else?” asked Chiara, mechanically uttering the words of formerly which had returned to her memory.