I knew one Benedicta who filled earth and air with the ideal; and from
whose eyes men learnt the desire of greatness, of beauty, of glory, and
of all whereby we believe in immortality.
But this miraculous child was too beautiful to live long; and she died
only a few days after I had come, to know her, and I buried her with my
own hands, one day when Spring shook out her censer in the graveyards.
I buried her with my own hands, shut down into a coffin of wood,
perfumed and incorruptible like Indian caskets.
And as I still gazed at the place where I had laid away my treasure,
I saw all at once a little person singularly like the deceased, who
trampled on the fresh soil with a strange and hysterical violence, and
said, shrieking with laughter: "Look at me! I am the real Benedicta! a
pretty sort of baggage I am! And to punish you for your blindness and
folly you shall love me just as I am!"
But I was furious, and I answered: "No! no! no!" And to add more
emphasis to my refusal I stamped on the ground so violently with my
foot that my leg sank up to the knee in the earth of the new grave; and
now, like a wolf caught in a trap, I remain fastened, perhaps for ever,
to the grave of the ideal.