‘I saw, what we shall not see, many a form of half-mysterious loveliness flit by me under flowing veil down the steps of narrow streets in the Ligurian Capital,—for we touched for a few hours at Genoa,—and heard, what we shall not hear, jovial-looking monks vociferating Vespers in the Baptistery at Pisa; and then, Lamia, then! I was borne, I scarce know how, along Val d’ Arno through unending vineyard-avenues that seemed to have dyed the leaves with the colour of their purple fruit, and amongst which sun-bronzed youths, who appeared to disport rather than to toil, were singing love-songs to gaily-kirtled maidens. The fawn-coloured bovi oscillated homeward to the wine-vat, dragging after them the grape-piled carri with their wooden wheels; children and lizards, seemingly of kindred race, twisted in and out among the workers; and, stately of stature and sober of mien, dark-haired matrons stood outside their spacious but unluxurious homes, plaiting straw with rhythmically-moving fingers that never seemed to tire. Then came hills more rounded, softer declivities, a gradual narrowing of the plain, a forest of domes, belfries, and towers, and I was in Florence.‘
‘Why was your visit so brief?’
‘You ask why. Can one give a reason for anything one does in one’s youth? Only I remember, as I reluctantly quitted it, I vowed to return to it ere long.‘
‘And you kept your vow,’ said Veronica.
‘I remember,’ said Lamia.
‘You remember what?’ I asked. ‘You must have been in your cradle.’
‘Then I suppose,’ she replied, ‘I was extraordinarily precocious.
‘The sickle hath performed its work,
The storm-gusts sweep the aspens bare,
Careering clouds and shadows mirk