His was
the hard, clear, invulnerable passion of the bones, finely tempered and
unchangeable. She was the flint and he the steel. But in continual
striking together they only destroyed each other. The fire was a third
thing, belonging to neither of them.
She was still heavy and full of desire. She was much younger than he.
'How long did you know your Signora before you were married?' she asked
me.
'Six weeks,' I said.
'_Il Paolo e me, venti giorni, tre settimane_,' she cried vehemently.
Three weeks they had known each other when they married. She still
triumphed in the fact. So did Paolo. But it was past, strangely and
rather terribly past.
What did they want when they came together, Paolo and she? He was a man
over thirty, she was a woman of twenty-three. They were both violent in
desire and of strong will. They came together at once, like two
wrestlers almost matched in strength. Their meetings must have been
splendid. Giovanni, the eldest child, was a tall lad of sixteen, with
soft brown hair and grey eyes, and a clarity of brow, and the same calm
simplicity of bearing which made Paolo so complete; but the son had at
the same time a certain brownness of skin, a heaviness of blood, which
he had from his mother.
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