When Dante came to the loggia it was very white in the moonlight, save
where the shadows of the marble pillars barred it with bands of black.
Amid the moonlight and the shade Beatrice walked, and waited for his
coming. When she heard his footsteps she came to a halt in her course,
and he, as he advanced, could see the shining of her eyes and the
quickened color of her cheeks; and it seemed to him in his rapture that
he did not move as mortals do, but that he went on winged feet toward
that vision of perfect loveliness. But when he came nigh to her, so near
that if he had stretched out his arm he could have touched her with his
hand, he stopped, and while he longed with all his soul to speak, the
use of words seemed suddenly to be forbidden to him, and his members
began to tremble again, as they had trembled before, when he came to an
end of reading the poem.
Madonna Beatrice saw the case he was in, and her heart pitied him, and,
perchance, she marvelled that Dante, who carried himself so valiantly
and could make songs of such surpassing sweetness, should be so
downcast and discomfited in the presence of her eighteen years. However
that may be, she addressed him, and the sound of her voice fell very
fresh and soft upon his ears, enriching the summer splendor of the night
with its music as her beauty enhanced its glory with the glory of her
bodily presence. "What have you to say to me," she asked, "that is so
urgent that it cannot wait for the day?"
At this question Dante seemed to pluck up some courage--not much,
indeed, but still a little; and he made bold to answer her after the
manner that is called symbolic, and this, or something like this, is
what he said:
"Madonna, I may compare myself to a man that is going on a journey very
instantly, and since no man that rides out of a gate can say to himself
very surely that he will ride in again, I have certain thoughts in my
heart that clamor to make themselves known to you, and will not by any
means be gainsaid if I can at all compass the way to utter them."
Beatrice smiled at him very kindly in the moonlight, for the youth in
his voice appealed very earnestly to the youth in her heart, and it may
be to a gaingiving that had also its lodging in her body and warned her
of youth's briefness.
While she smiled she spoke. "Many would say that I lacked modesty if
they knew that I talked with you thus belated and unknown, but I think
that I know you too well, though I know you so little, to have any doubt
of your honesty and well-meaning."
At the kindness in her voice and the confidence of her trust Dante
carried himself very straight and held his head very high for pride at
her words, and he was so strangely happy that he was amazed to find
himself even more happy than he had hoped to be in her presence.
With that blissful exaltation upon him, he addressed her again. "Lady,
when a traveller takes the road, if he has possessions, and if he be a
wise man, he makes him a will, which he leaves in safe hands, and he
sets all his poor affairs in order as well as may be. And he leaves this
possession to this kinsman, and that gift to that friend, till all that
he has is properly allotted, so that his affairs may be straight if evil
befall. But I, when I go upon a journey, have no greater estate than my
heart to bequeath." He paused for a moment, watching her wistfully, and
seeing that her face was changeless in the moonlight, showing no sign
either of impatience or of tolerance, he spoke again, in a very low
voice, asking her, "Have I your leave to go on with what I am hot to
say?"
"You may go on," Beatrice answered him, and her voice seemed calm as she
spoke.
But if Dante had known women better--if he had been like me, for
instance--he would have known that, for all her show of calm, she was no
less agitated than he who stood before her and adored her. But he only
saw her divinely aloof and himself most humanly mortal. Yet he took
courage from her permission to speak again. "Madonna, ever since that
sacred day when you gave me the rose that I carry next my heart, my mind
has had no other thought but of you, and my life no other purpose than
to be worthy, if only in a little, of your esteem. Yet, for some reason
unknown to me, you have of late, in any chance encounter, chosen to
withdraw from me the solace of your salutation, and I grieve bitterly
that this is so, though I know not why it is so."
"Let that pass," said Beatrice, gently, "and be as if it had not been. I
had heard that you kept light company. Young men often do so, and it is
no part of my duty to judge them. But you yourself, Messer Dante,
invited my judgment, challenged my esteem, told me that for my sake you
meant to do great things, prove yourself noble, a man I must admire.
When, after all the fine-sounding promises, I found you counted by
gossip as the companion of Vittoria, you need not wonder if I was
disappointed, and if my disappointment showed itself plainly on my
averted face."
"Madonna," Dante began, eagerly, but the girl lifted her hand to check
interruption, and Dante held his peace as the girl continued to speak.
"I know now that I was wrong in my reading of your deed; that what you
did, you did for a reason that you believed to be both wise and good.
Though I do not think that it is ever well for a true man to play an
untrue part, yet I know that you acted thus in the thought of serving
me. So let it pass, and be as if it had not been."
She was silent, and for a little while Dante was silent too, staring at
her beautiful face and clasping his hands tightly together, as one that
has much to say and knows not how to say it. Once and again his lips
that parted to speak closed again, for if he rejoiced greatly to stand
there in her presence and be free to speak his mind unimpeded, yet also
he feared greatly lest the words he might utter should prove unworthy of
this golden chance given him by Heaven.
But at length his longing conquered his alarm, and he spoke quickly.
"Hear me, Beatrice," he pleaded. "My heart is young, and I will never be
so vain as to swear that it is untainted by the folly of youth, or free
from the pride of youth, or clean of the greed of youth. But now it is
swept and garnished, made as a fair shrine for a divine idol, for a
woman, for a girl, for an angel--for you!"
Beatrice looked very steadfastly upon the eager face of her lover while
she listened to his eager words, and when he paused she began to murmur
very softly the opening lines of one of the sonnets that Dante had
written in those days of his secrecy:
"The lady that is angel of my heart,
She knows not of my love and may not know--"
She stopped and looked at Dante as if she questioned him, and Dante
answered her by carrying on the lines:
"Until God's finger gives the sign to show
That I to her the secret may impart."
He paused for a moment, rejoicing to think that she had so far cherished
his verses; then he went on, eagerly: "God's finger gives me the sign
to-night, and I will speak, lest I die with the message of my soul
undelivered. I love you." It seemed to him that she must needs hear the
fierce beatings of his heart as he spoke these words.
Beatrice looked at him with a melancholy smile. "Is that the message of
your soul?" she asked.
And Dante answered: "That is my soul itself. All my being is uplifted by
my love for you. It has made a new heaven and a new earth for me: a new
heaven whither you shall guide me, a new earth where I shall walk more
bravely, and yet more warily, than of old, fearing nothing, for your
sake, save only to be found unworthy to say, 'I love you.'"
If Dante spoke with a passionate happiness in thus setting free his
soul, there was happiness too, in Beatrice's voice as she answered him.
"I am, indeed, content to hear you speak, for your words seem, as words
seldom seem in this city and in this world, to be quite true words. So
when you say you love me, I feel neither agitation, nor flattered
vanity, nor amazement--all which feelings, as I have read in books and
heard of gossips, are proper to maidens in these hours. Only I know that
I believe you, and that I am glad to believe you."
Dante interrupted her, crying her name with passionate
eagerness--"Beatrice!" But he kept the place where he stood.
The girl spoke again, finishing her thought. "And I think you will
always be worthy to offer love and to win love."
Dante moved a little nearer to her, and he stretched out his hands as
one that begs a great gift. "Beatrice," he entreated, "will you give me
your love?"
The smile that was partly kind and partly wistful came again to the
girl's face. "Messer Dante, Messer Dante," she said, "how can you ask,
and how can I answer? A raw youth and a green girl do not make the world
between them, nor change the world's laws, nor the laws of this little
city, nor the laws of my father in my father's house. And my father's
law is like a hand upon my lips, forbidding them to speak, and like a
hand upon my heart, forbidding it to beat."
Dante protested very vehemently, in all the zeal and freshness of his
youth. "The law of Love is greater than all other laws. The strength of
Love is stronger than all strength. The sword of Love is stronger than
the archangel's sword, and conquers all enemies."
Beatrice shook her head at her lover's fury, and her eyes shone very
brightly in the moonlight. "Oh, Dante! Dante!" she said, softly, "if
this were indeed so, the world would be an easier world for lovers. If
you were to tell my father what you have told me, or if I were to tell
my father what I have told you, he would twit us for a pair of silly
children, and take good heed that we were kept apart. If you were to ask
my father for me, he would deny you, and laugh while he denied; for my
father is a proud man, and one that loves wealth and power very greatly,
and will not give his child save where wealth and power abide. If he
were to come upon us here, now, where we talk alone in the moonlight, he
would raise his hand to slay you, and he has not a neighbor nor a friend
but would say he did right. You know all this, even as I know it. Why,
then, do you ask me to give what I cannot give?"
She was very calm and sad as she spoke, and the truth that was in her
mournful words was not to be denied by Dante. But all the ardors of his
being were spurred by his consciousness that he had made known his love
for her, and that she, surely, had scarcely done less than confess her
love for him, and while such sweet happenings hallowed the world, it did
not seem to the poet possible that any mortal power could come between
them. And in this confidence he addressed his beloved again, all on
fire.
"Dear woman," he urged, "not all the fathers in Florence can bind our
spirits. I love you now, I shall love you while I live--in hunger and
thirst, in feasting and singing, in the church and in the street, in
sorrow and in joy, in cross or success. My life and every great and
little thing within my life is sanctified to a sacrament by my love for
you. Cannot your spirit, that is as free as mine, uplift my heart with a
word?"
So he petitioned her, ardently, and his warmth found favor in the girl's
grave, watchful eyes.
"I have heard you praised highly of late," she said, "and men give you
great promise. But, truly, I judge you with the sight of my own eyes,
not with the sound of others' words. And I think you are indeed a man
that a woman might be happy to love."
Dante's heart leaped to hear such sweet speech, and for very joy he was
silent awhile. Then he said: "If I be indeed anything worth weighing in
the scales of your favor, it is for your sake that I have made myself
so, Madonna."
Beatrice laughed a little, very gently, at his words, and pretended to
frown, and failed. "My cold reason," she asserted, "tells me that I
would rather you bettered yourself just for the sake of being better,
and with no less unselfish intention; but, to be honest, my warm heart
throbs at your homage."
Dante would have come closer, but she stayed him with a gesture. "You
make me very proud," he murmured.
Beatrice went on. "Yet I know well that men have done greatly to please
women that were not worth the pleasing, or merely for the lure of some
grace of hand or lip. I should like to think that my lover would always
live at his best for my sake, though he never won a kiss of me."
"Then here I swear it," Dante said, proudly, "to dedicate my life to
your service, and to make all honorable proof of my devotion. But you,
beloved, will you not give me some words of hope?"
Beatrice extended her hands to him, and he caught those dear hands in
his, and held them tightly, and Beatrice was smiling as she spoke,
although there were tears in her eyes. "So far," she said, "as a woman
can promise the life that is guided by another's law, I give you my
life, Dante. But my love is my own, to hold or to yield, and I give it
all to you with all my heart, knowing that because you think it worth
the winning, you will be worthy of what you have won."
Now, as I think, here my Dante made to take his lady in his arms, but
she denied him, very delicately and gently, pleading with such sweet
reason that the most ardent lover in the world could not refuse her
obedience. For she would have it thus, that until their love could be
avowed, as in time it might be, if Dante won to fame and honor in the
state, until their love could be avowed there should be no lover's
commerce between them, not even to the changing of a kiss. For she would
not have him nor her act otherwise than in perfect honorability as
befitted their great love. Because Dante did, indeed, cherish a great
love for her, that was greater than all temptings of the flesh, he let
it be as she wished. So this pair, that were almost as the angels in the
greatness of their love, pledged their troths with the simplicity of
children, and parted with the innocence of children, as gentle and as
chaste.