Now she continued her walk towards the harbor of Mergellina alone. The
thought of the green parrot obsessed her mind.
She saw it before her on its board, with the rolled-up bed towering
behind it. Now it was motionless--only the pupils of its eyes moved.
Now it lifted its claw, bowed its head, shuffled along the board to
hear their conversation better.
She saw it with extreme distinctness, and now she also saw on the wall
of the room near it the "Fattura della Morte"--the green lemon with
the nails stuck through it, like nails driven into a cross.
Vaguely the word "crucifixion" went through her mind. Many people,
many women, had surely been crucified since the greatest tragedy the
world had ever known. What had they felt, they who were only human,
they who could not see the face of the Father, who could--some of
them, perhaps--only hope that there was a Father? What had they felt?
Perhaps scarcely anything. Perhaps merely a sensation of numbness, as
if their whole bodies, and their minds, too, were under the influence
of a great injection of cocaine.
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