Trieste, spring of 1827
He opens his eyelids with difficulty. The nightmares that had haunted his sleep and his waking hours for months now are finally beginning to fade. Now he falls, weak and exhausted, onto his cotton mattress and is taken by a sleep that pushes him into darkened abysses, into places of desolation.
He opens his eyelids with difficulty and presses his swollen eyes hard with his thumbs. After a while, he manages to find strength in his paralyzed body to stand on his feet. He stands motionless for a moment, as if his body and soul have suddenly turned to stone, then slowly raises his crippled hand and with trembling movements unhooks from his neck the worn, leather case. He takes out the sketch with the faces of his beloved wife and his precious child, which the philhellene Kellner had drawn in charcoal last spring in Messolonghi, at old Kapsalis’ house, shortly before the exodus and the destruction.
“My companion… my child…” he whispers, his lips trembling uncontrollably as he gazes at and kisses the two faded figures on the yellowed paper. “I will never stop believing that we will meet again… Never…”
The morning mist envelops him as soon as he steps through the gate of the old inn. He heads straight for Cape Saint Teresa, to the city’s quarantine station and the small quarantine harbor. In this little harbor, he places most of his hopes every morning.
