"Where does the signora wish to go?"
"Anywhere out on the lake."
He pushed off. Soon the noise of the waterfall behind Casa Felice died
away, the spectral facade faded and only the plash of the oars and the
tinkle of fishermen's bells above the nets, floating here and there in
the lake, were audible. The distant lights of mountain villages gleamed
along the shores, and the lights of the stars gleamed in the clear sky.
Now that she was away from the land Lady Holme became more conscious of
herself and of life. The gentle movement of the boat promoted an echoing
mental movement in her. Thoughts glided through the shadows of her soul
as the boat glided through the shadows of the night. Her mind was like a
pilgrim, wandering in the darkness cast by the soul.
She felt, first, immensely ignorant. She had scarcely ever, perhaps
never, consciously felt immensely ignorant before. She felt also very
poor, very small and very dingy, like a woman very badly dressed. She
felt, finally, that she was the most insignificant of all the living
things under the stars to the stars and all they watched, but that, to
herself, she was of a burning, a flaming significance.
There seemed to be bells everywhere in the lake. The water was full of
their small, persistent voices.
So had her former life been full of small, persistent voices, but now,
abruptly, they were all struck into silence, and she was left
listening--for what? For some far-off but larger voice beyond?
"What am I to do? What am I to do?"
Now she began to say this within herself.
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