And Messer Severo answered the question in his cry, very slowly and
sadly, "Madonna Beatrice is dead."
Then Dante cried, "Take me to her!" And after that he spoke no other
word, but walked in silence and tearless by Severo's side till they came
to the room where Beatrice lay in her last sleep. The women that were
about the bier drew away, and the God of Love took Dante by the hand and
drew him a little nearer to where the girl lay, and Love stooped down
and kissed the white face of Beatrice--kissed her on the forehead and on
the lidded eyes and on the pale lips. Dante heard the voice of the God,
that said, "It is your love that kisses her thus." But Dante spoke no
word, and there were no tears in his eyes; only he stood there a little
while looking at Beatrice, and then he turned and went his ways,
unquestioned and unstayed, back to his own place. When Messer Guido and
I came to him later we found him sitting all alone in his chamber
looking at a little unfinished drawing of an angel, and murmuring to
himself, over and over again, "How doth the city sit solitary that was
full of people? How is she become a widow?"
* * * * *
Here my tale comes to an end. The rascal Maleotti confessed later, on
being put to the question, that it was his master, Simone dei Bardi, who
sent to Madonna Beatrice the casket containing the rose, and that the
petals of the rose had been poisoned by a cunning leech that was in
Messer Simone's service, for Messer Simone was sure that Beatrice would
think it came from Dante, and Messer Simone was of a mind that if he
could not have Beatrice no one else should have her. But when Simone
heard from Maleotti of Dante's visit to the Portinari palace so soon
after the sending of the casket, he felt sure that Dante would deny, as
Dante did deny, the sending of the rose, and that the evil thing would
scarcely have had time to effect its purpose. Then the flames of his
jealousy blazed hotter within him, and he thought that Dante's presence
in the palace would be an excuse for him to break the peace that had
been put upon him, and that he might, after all, win Beatrice for
himself. In this, as you know, he failed, and it is my belief that he
failed in the first part of his plotting, for Messer Tommaso Severo,
that had examined the rose, gave it as his opinion that though the
petals had been impregnated with some kind of venom, their odor had not
been inhaled by Beatrice sufficiently long to cause any malignant
effect, and he affirmed that the fair lady's death was due solely to the
woful agitations of the last hours of her life acting upon a body ever
too frail to house so fine a spirit. However that may be, and I hope it
was so, we found great satisfaction in the hanging of Maleotti. We
would have hanged the leech, too, whom Maleotti accused, but he
forestalled our vengeance by poisoning himself--partly, I think, out of
hurt pride at the alleged failure of his cunning device.
I have little more to say--no more, indeed, than this: It has been said
by many, and believed by more, that, after the death of his lady, my
dear friend fell into a kind of moral torpor, in which all sense of
things righteous and things evil was confused. Thus he went his ways,
like the godless man of whom it is spoken in the Wisdom of Solomon,
feeding on mean and secret pleasures, and consorting with the strange
women that are called Daughters of Joy. I do not know that he ever did
so; I should never credit it, though it is such folly as weaker men
might fall into readily enough in the freshness of their despair. But I
will set down this story which I have heard told of him. It relates that
one night Dante drifted toward that quarter of the city where such light
loves find shelter. There many women plucked at his sleeve as he passed,
and, at last, surrendering to temptation, he followed through the
darkness one that was closely cloaked and hooded. It seemed to him that
they went a long way together, he and the hooded woman by his side, and
though at times he spoke to her, she answered him no word. After a while
they came to an open place that was moon-lit, and then the woman paused
and pulled back her hood, and there for a moment Dante looked upon the
face of the dead Beatrice. In that instant Dante found himself alone,
and he fled from the place in a great horror.