“Yes, and it was then I made you cry.”
“Could you repeat those same words to-day?”
“Oh, no!”
So saying, Giovanni kissed his wife’s white forehead reverently, as if it were a holy thing. When the waiter came in to light the fire in the little salon at Hergyswyl, Giovanni had dropped the beloved hand, and had said, while the servant still lingered:
“The old log will surely burn on to the end, but who can tell how long the youthful flame will last?” Maria had not answered, but had looked at him, her eyes dilating, and dimmed by the cold touch of the unjust suspicion, as the glass of a hothouse is dimmed by the touch of a frost outside.
No, Giovanni had never again harboured such a thought. He and Maria often said to each other that perhaps there was no other union on earth like theirs, so penetrated with, so full of peace derived from the solemnly sweet and grave certainty that, no matter how God might order their existence after death, their spirits would surely be united in the love of the Divine Will. Nevertheless, they did not neglect to lay the desire of their souls before the Almighty. The prayer they had just prayed together, both wrapt in inward contemplation, had been composed by Giovanni, and ran as follows:
“Father, let it be with us as Jesus prayed that last night; life with Him in Thee, for all eternity.”
Even in the present they were two in one, in the narrowest, the most accurate sense of the phrase, for their duality was also perceptible in their spiritual union; as, when a green current mingles with a blue current, it sometimes happens, at the beginning of their united course, that broken waves flash here and there—some the colour of the woods, some as blue as the sky. Giovanni was a mystic, who harmonised all human affections with Divine love, in his heart. His wife, who had come through him from Protestantism to a Catholicism thirsting for reason, had entered into his mystic soul as far as was possible; but love for Giovanni predominated in her over every other sentiment. She was rich and he comfortably off, but they lived almost poorly, that they might have greater means for their broad charities. They lived in Rome in the winter, in Subiaco from April to November, in the modest villa of which they had hired the second floor. Only on books and on their correspondence did they spend freely. Giovanni was preparing a work on reason in Christian morality. His wife read for him, made extracts, took notes.
“I should so much like to go to Hergyswyl next summer,” said she, “that you might write the last chapter of the book there, the chapter on Purity!”
So saying, she clasped her hands, happy in the vision of the little village, nestling among the apple trees at the head of the tiny bay, the calm lake, the great religious mountains, the quiet days, spent in work and peaceful contemplation. She was acquainted with the entire plan of her husband’s work, with the subject of each chapter, with the principal arguments.