“That which I have begun I will finish. Having opened the bud, I will not leave the flower; having the flower, I will bring it to fruit and seed; the egg which I found and saved, I will hatch. She who hath said ‘A’ must also say ‘B,’ till all the letters are learned.
“‘Who such a course hath once begun,
To the very end must run.’
And so will I give my life to give a soul to this poor spirit, even as the Lord gave His to save mankind.”
Then Bianca departed, and many days passed. On a time Virgilio saw Balsàbo, who greeted him with a sad smile.
“My sand is well-nigh run out, oh master,” said the spirit. “Yet another day, and the sun which is to rise no more will go down behind the mountain-range of life. Il sole tramonta.”
“And art thou pleased to have been for a time a man?” asked Virgil.
“It was not an ill thing to be loved by the children,” replied Balsàbo. “There I had great joy and learned much—yea, far too much for my own happiness, for I found that I was lost. When I was ignorant, and only a poor child of air and earth, fire and water, I knew nothing of good or evil, or of a soul or a better life in eternity; now I have learned all that by love, and also that it is not for me.”
“Wait and see,” replied Virgilio. “He who has learned to love has made the first step to immortality.”
And after a few days, news was brought to Virgilio that Balsàbo, whom men called Di Tribaldo, was dying, and that Bianca also could not live long; and that night the master, looking from his tower beyond the Arno on the hill, that which is now called the San Gallo, or the Torre di Galileo, saw afar in the night a strange vision, the forms of a man and of a young woman, divinely beautiful, sweetly spiritual, in a golden, rosy light, ever rising higher and higher, while afar there was a sound as of harps and voices singing:
“They walked in the world as in a dream,
For nothing they saw as it now doth seem;
And all they knew of care and woe
Is now but a tale of the long ago;
And they will walk in the land on high
Where flowers are blooming ever and aye,
And every flower in its breath and bloom
Sings in the spirit with song perfume,
And the song which it sings in the land above,
In a thousand forms, is eternal love.”