Her fingers worked away all the time in a little, half-fretful movement,
yet spontaneous as butterflies leaping here and there. She chattered
rapidly on in her Italian that I could not understand, looking meanwhile
into my face, because the story roused her somewhat. Yet not a feature
moved. Her eyes remained candid and open and unconscious as the skies.
Only a sharp will in them now and then seemed to gleam at me, as if to
dominate me.
Her shuttle had caught in a dead chicory plant, and spun no more. She
did not notice. I stooped and broke off the twigs. There was a glint of
blue on them yet. Seeing what I was doing, she merely withdrew a few
inches from the plant. Her bobbin hung free.
She went on with her tale, looking at me wonderfully. She seemed like
the Creation, like the beginning of the world, the first morning. Her
eyes were like the first morning of the world, so ageless.
Her thread broke. She seemed to take no notice, but mechanically picked
up the shuttle, wound up a length of worsted, connected the ends from
her wool strand, set the bobbin spinning again, and went on talking, in
her half-intimate, half-unconscious fashion, as if she were talking to
her own world in me.
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