Everything was strange. But strangest of all was to see on the pillow beside hers the dark disordered head of the man who had married her. He was still asleep, his face turned away; and keeping quite still on her side with her knees drawn up and her palm under her cheek, Joanna thought of the past night. Wave after wave of purely physical recollections swept through her; but at the same time in her brain a cool spectator seemed to be sitting aloof and in judgment. This then was marriage! This droll device, this astonishing, grotesque experience was what the poets had sung since the beginning. To this all her quivering dreams had led, all Mario’s wooing touches and his glances of fire! The reality made her feel a stranger in a strange world. Not a rebellious stranger. She was humbly anxious to conform to reality – eager to accept and get used to the new aspect of things. But she was before all things astounded.

Suddenly she felt she must gaze at her husband under the altered conditions he had created, and raising herself very cautiously on her elbow she leaned over and peered down at him in the half-light. He was sleeping like a child with imperceptible breathing, and he had the innocent look of a child on his unconscious face.

Joanna, by gentle degrees shifted her position till she was crouching over Mario, then suddenly he opened infantine eyes. She was caught, and she hung above him breathless, gazing ensnared, stirred to a new feeling by the changing in his eyes from babe to man. The next moment his hands had found her, and he drew her down, uttering a deep chuckling groan of content. “Mia moglie,” he breathed triumphantly. “Mia moglie, mia moglie, moglie mia!”

III

Vallombrosa was as deserted as lovers could wish. The season had ended weeks ago. Hotels and pensions were forbiddingly closed as if for eternity and except for the peasants, and the bitter-faced young priest, there was not a soul about. Even the Foresta had its shutters barred, though the careful padrone walked through the house each day throwing them open to the sunshine for a few hours to keep the place aired. The humble little Villino Medici to which Mario and Joanna went was the only exception, and its proprietor was never tired of telling his guests that they were having the finest weather of the year hitherto. There was hot sunshine all day, and only the least hint of frost every evening.