And smiling again, as if those words, uttered with such gravity and conviction, had been too cruel in their effective summary of the whole story of their love, she added in a jesting tone: 

“That was a fine little paragraph, wasn’t it?  What a pity you didn’t hear it in time to tack it on at the end of your speech!”

The carriage had entered the Plaza de Oriente; and was drawing up in front of Leonora’s house.

“May I go in with you?” the deputy asked anxiously, much as a child might beg for a toy.

“Why?  You’ll only be bored.  It will be the same as here.  Upstairs there is no moon, and there are no orange-trees in bloom.  You can’t expect two nights like that in a life like yours.  Besides, I don’t want Beppa to see you.  She has a vivid recollection of that afternoon in the Hotel de Roma when I got your note.  I’d lose prestige with her if she saw me in your company.”

With a commanding gesture she motioned him to the sidewalk.  When the carriage had gone they stood there together for a moment looking at each other for the last time.

“Farewell, Rafael.  Take good care of yourself, and try not to grow old so rapidly.  I believe it’s been a real pleasure, though, to see you again.  I needed just this to convince myself it was really all over!”

“But are you going like this!...  Is this the way you let a passion end that still fills my life!...  When shall we see each other again?”

“I don’t know:  never ... perhaps when you least expect it.  The world is large, but when a person gads about it the way I do, you never can tell whom you are going to meet.”

Rafael pointed to the Opera nearby.

“And if you should come to sing ... here?...  If I were actually to see you again?....”

Leonora smiled haughtily, guessing what he meant.

“In that case, you will be one of my countless friends, I suppose, but nothing more.  Don’t imagine that I’m a saint even now.  I’m just as I was before you knew me.  The property of everybody—­understand—­and of nobody!  But of the janitor of the opera, if necessary, sooner than of you.  You are a corpse, in my eyes, Rafael....  Farewell!”

He saw her vanish through the doorway; and he stood for a long time there on the sidewalk, completely crushed, staring vacantly into the last glow of twilight that was growing pale beyond the gables of the Royal Palace.

Some birds were twittering on the trees of the garden, shaking the leaves with their mischievous playfulness, as if the fires of Springtime were coursing in their veins.  For Spring had come again, faithful and punctual, as every year.

He staggered off toward the center of the city, slowly, dejectedly, with the thought of death in his mind, bidding farewell to all his dreams, which that woman seemed to have destroyed forever in turning her back implacably upon him.  Yes!  A corpse, indeed!  He was a dead man dragging a soulless body along under the sad glimmering of the first street-lamps.  Farewell!  Farewell to Love!  Farewell to Youth!  For him Springtime would never return again.  Joyous Folly repelled him as an unworthy deserter.  His future was to grow a fatter and fatter paunch under the frock coat of a “personage”!