"
Benedetto raised his head.
"Pain, and still not pain," said he. Noemi maintained a reverent
silence. Benedetto asked if she knew when this person had passed away.
Towards the end of April, she believed. She was absent from Italy at the
time. She was in Belgium, at Bruges, with a friend to whom the news had
been sent. She had understood from her friend that that person--a sense
of delicacy prevented Noemi from pronouncing the name--had died a very
holy death. She had also been asked to say that his papers had been
entrusted to the bishop of the city. Benedetto made a gesture of
approval which might also serve to close the interview. Noemi did not
move.
"I have not yet finished," she said, and hastened to add:
"I have a Catholic friend--I myself am not a Catholic, I am a
Protestant--who has lost her faith in God. She has been advised to
devote herself to deeds of charity. She lives with her brother, who is
very hostile to all religions. This innovation, the fact that his sister
interests herself in charities, that she associates with people who
promote good works from religious principles, is most displeasing to
him.
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