She felt like a very poor woman, who can
never know the joy of giving, because she does not possess even a mite.
The church bell chimed again among the palms. Domini heard voices quite
clearly below her under the arcade. A French cafe was installed there,
and two or three soldiers were taking their _aperitif_ before dinner
out in the air. They were talking of France, as people in exile talk of
their country, with the deliberateness that would conceal regret and the
child's instinctive affection for the mother. Their voices made Domini
think again of the recruits, and then, because of them, of Notre Dame de
la Garde, the mother of God, looking towards Africa. She remembered the
tragedy of her last confession. Would she be able to confess here to
the Father whom she had seen strolling in the tunnel? Would she learn to
know here what she really was?
How warm it was in the night, and how warmth, as it develops the
fecundity of the earth, develops also the possibilities in many men and
women. Despite her lassitude of body, which kept her motionless as an
idol in her chair, with her arm lying along the parapet of the verandah,
Domini felt as if a confused crowd of things indefinable, but violent,
was already stirring within her nature, as if this new climate was
calling armed men into being.
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