“I will be what you wish me to be.”
“If I were your husband, Massimilla,” I added, to soothe her little
trembling soul, “I would give you a house where the light should enter
through slabs of honey-coloured alabaster, or through windows painted
with legends; you should be served by ladies-in-waiting and mutes shod
with felt and dressed in quiet colours, who would pass by you like
great night-moths; and some of the rooms should have crystal walls
looking over immense pools of water, hidden from sight by curtains
which your hand could easily draw back whenever you felt the desire
of a dream voyage with open eyes over an ocean valley full of strange
rich forms of life; and round the house I would make you a garden
of trees which should strew flowers and weep spices, and it should
be peopled with gentle, graceful animals, such as gazelles, doves,
swans, peacocks. And there in harmony with everything around you, you
should live for me alone. And every day, after satisfying my desire of
rulership over men by some worthy act, I would come and breathe the
rarefied air of your silent love, I would come and live by your side
the pure life of my thoughts. And sometimes I would inspire you with a
vehement fever; and sometimes I would make you weep inexplicable tears;
and sometimes I would make you die and come to life again, so that I
might appear more than man in your eyes.”
Was she in the meantime preparing herself for departure, or was she
lingering, impatiently expecting that which for her henceforth was not
to be?
As I walked up the alley of old box-trees where Violante had first
appeared to me under the great archway, she came to meet me almost at
the same place, smiling a new smile.
“You look like an angel bringing good tidings to-day,” I said. “The
whole spirit of April is in you.”
She gave me her hand, which I took and held for a moment in my own.
“What have you got to tell me?” I asked, for I read in her eyes the
presence of something new which transfigured her.
My look embarrassed her; and once more her colour rose, seeming almost
violent in contrast to her pallor.
“Nothing,” she said.
“And yet,” I said, “your whole figure seems to express annunciation.
You shall tell me about it without speaking, if you will allow me
to walk beside you for a little. I have never felt your harmony so
perfect, Massimilla, as just now.”
She certainly thought I was speaking to her of love, she was so
confused. And there shone from her whole figure such a bright spirit of
gentleness, that I thought once more of those gentle ladies assembled
in the imagination of young Dante; from whose lips from time to time
fell words mingled with sighs, as falls “water mingled with beautiful
snow.” And because I loved her in a superhuman way, some of those
ancient words came back to my memory: “To what purpose dost thou love
thus? Tell us, for certain it is that the purpose of such love must be
quite new.”
We had left the central alley, and were now penetrating into the grassy
labyrinth. The bird guests of the cloister were singing, bright insects
buzzed around; but my ear was listening to the rustle of the hem of her
skirt as it bent down the heads of the long grass. At last Massimilla
confessed, in a shy voice--
“My departure has been put off.”