Tales of My Native Town. Gabriele D'Annunzio

scarcely refrain from laughter. But at last she understood and with feminine perception forced herself to remain serious, while she summed up the advantages that might ensue from this foolish comedy. She grew docile, let him caress her, let him call her Violetta, made use of all that experience acquired from peeping through key-holes many times at her mistress’s door; she even sought to make her voice more sweet.

      In the room one could scarcely see them. Through the open windows a red reflection entered and the trees in the garden, almost black, twisted and turned in the wind. From the sloughs around the arsenal came the hoarse croak of the frogs. The noises of the city street were indistinct.

      Don Giovanni drew the woman to his knees, and, completely confused as if he had swallowed some very’ strong liquor, murmured a thousand childish nothings and babbled on without end, drawing her face close to his.

      “Ah, darling little Violetta!” he whispered. “Sweetheart! Don’t go away, dear … ! If you go away your Nini will die, Poor Nini … ! Ban-ban-ban-bannn!”

      Thus he continued stupidly, as he had done before with the opera-singer. Rosa Catana patiently offered him slight caresses, as if he were a very sick, perverted child; she took his head and pressed it against her shoulder, kissed his swollen, weeping eyes, stroked his bald crown, rearranged his oiled locks.

VI

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      Thus, Rosa Catana, little by little, earned her inheritance from Don Giovanni Ussorio, who, in the March of 1871, died of paralysis.