"In Treviso," said Francesco. "I have not gone as far as to forbid myself the happiness of still seeing her sometimes."
"In Treviso, Francesco? There you only know me…"
"Only you!" said Francesco.
At that moment the hand of the young princess found itself joined to that of the young painter and the princess spoke. "We did not notice," she said smiling, "that the gondola was stopping and that it has already returned to the palazzo of the Pisani. Now we have nothing further to say to each other on earth. Our final farewell, however, is not without sweetness if we have understood each other correctly, and our first heavenly meeting will be even sweeter."
"Goodbye forever!" said Francesco.
"Goodbye for always!" said Polia. Then she re-attached her mask and got down from the gondola.
The following day Polia was in Treviso. Three days later they tolled at the monastery of the Dominicans that symbolic funeral knell which announces the profession of faith of a new postulant and his death to the world. Polia spent the day in her oratory.
Francesco acquiesced easily to his new destiny. Sometimes he looked back on his talk with Polia as a dream, but, more often, he went over the finest details of it with a childlike enthusiasm, and he went as far as to pat himself on the back for having given rise to, in his misery, a love that was oblivious to the ups and downs of fortune and of age. He accustomed himself after only a few days to divide his time between the duties of a religious and the leisured labour of an artist, at times painting those pure and naive frescos which may still be admired in the monastery of the Dominicans, though the cavalier arrogance of modern art has let them deteriorate, at times writing down in a book, the favourite object of his studies, all the impressions susceptible to him because of his talent and above all of his love. He had taken as the frame for this vast and bizarre work, in which he hoped to live again in his entirety, the somewhat vague form of a dream, and there could be nothing more apt, according to him, to represent, in its apparent disorder, the haphazard ideas of a solitary. We know that, due to one of the rare moments in which he was allowed to have a tender exchange of words with Polia, she had assured him that she would accept his dedication to her of this strange poem, and he tells us himself that she helped him with advice. So it was that he gave up completely the use of the vernacular Italian in which he had first thought out his plan and started it, and 'lasciando il princiniato stilo', he gave himself over to that scholarly language where there were neither models nor imitators for him and the words of which were furnished to his flowing quill by his erudite interest in ancient matters. A year went by in these sweet works mixed with sweet illusions, and Francesco had just put the finishing touches to his work, when the most distressing and heartbreaking news came through the walls where the Dominicans were. The young Antonio Grimani, later admiral and doge of Venice, but already the most brilliant of its nobles and its highest hope, had just asked for the hand of Polia in marriage, and, it was added, the hand of Polia had been granted to him.
It was the day that Francesco was to present his book to Polia. He stood up to the blow that had just struck him, went to her palazzo and stopped on the threshold of her apartment. "Come, my brother," said Polia when she saw him. "Come to communicate to us these secret wonders of your art, a true treasure that Christian humility refuses to the world, and which is to be confided only to us." At the same time she shooed away her women and her servants, and Francesco was alone with her.
His legs gave way under him, a cold sweat broke out on his brow, his arteries beat violently, his breast swelled fit to burst.