coffin carried by the black phantoms, who wore heavy shoes.

Therese sighed:

"What will be the use of having tormented ourselves in this world?"

He looked as if he had not heard, and said:

"Before I knew you I was not unhappy. I liked life. I was retained in
it by dreams. I liked forms, and the mind in forms, the appearances that
caress and flatter. I had the joy of seeing and of dreaming. I enjoyed
everything and depended upon nothing. My desires, abundant and light,
I gratified without fatigue. I was interested in everything and wished
for nothing. One suffers only through the will. Without knowing it,
I was happy. Oh, it was not much, it was only enough to live. Now I
have no joy in life. My pleasures, the interest that I took in the
images of life and of art, the vivid amusement of creating with my hands
the figures of my dreams--you have made me lose everything and have not
left me even regret. I do not want my liberty and tranquillity again.
It seems to me that before I knew you I did not live; and now that I feel
that I am living, I can not live either far from you or near you. I am
more wretched than the beggars we saw on the road to Ema. They had air
to breathe, and I can breathe only you, whom I have not. Yet I am glad
to have known you. That alone counts in my existence. A moment ago I
thought I hated you. I was wrong; I adore you, and I bless you for the
harm you have done me. I love all that comes to me from you."

They were nearing the black trees at the entrance to San Niccola bridge.
On the other side of the river the vague fields displayed their sadness,
intensified by night. Seeing that he was calm and full of a soft