Then come out
of the darkness, come out of your prison. I put you there--let me
bring you forth. This is the truth--listen! hear it!--it is this--it
is this--and--this!"
This desire nearly conquered him. Perhaps it would have conquered him
but for an occurrence that, simple though it was, changed the
atmosphere in which their souls were immersed, brought in upon them
another world with the feeling of other lives than their own.
The boat to which Ruffo belonged, going out of the Pool to the
fishing, passed at this moment slowly upon the sea beneath the
terrace, and from the misty darkness his happy voice came up to them
in the song of Mergellina which he loved:
"Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate
Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina:
Mi destan le dolcissime serate
Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."
Dark was the night, moonless, shrouded in the mist. But his boy's
heart defied it, laughed at the sorrowful truths of life, set the
sweet white moon in the sky, covered the sea with her silver.
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