All that is over, under shall show.
Happy thou who the riddle readest.)
'Come to me this night,' she said gravely and softly, 'and I will tell you all that I know myself—do you hear?—all, to the very end. And now before we part, let us drink together the cup of friendship.'
She fetched a small pottery vessel, sealed with wax as in the far East, poured out wine, thick as oil, golden-ruddy, and with a strange perfume, into an ancient goblet of chrysolite, with a relief of Dionysus and the Bacchantes. Going to the window she raised the cup as if about to pour a libation; the rosy wine, like warm blood, gave life to the figures of the naked Mænads on the transparent cup.
'There was a time, Giovanni,' she said, 'when I fancied that your Master Leonardo possessed the great secret, for his face is as that of an Olympian god, blended with a Titan. But now I see he aims, but he does not attain; seeks and finds not; knows, but understands not. He is the precursor of him who shall come after him, who is greater than he. Let us drink together, O my brother, this farewell goblet to the Unknown whom we both invoke; to the supreme Reconciler.'
Devoutly, as if performing a religious rite, she drank half the cup and handed it to Giovanni.
'Fear not!' she said, 'this is no poisoned philtre; this wine is from grapes of Nazareth; 'tis the purest blood of Dionysus, the Galilæan!'
When he had drunk, she laid her hands on his shoulders, and whispered rapidly and solemnly—
'If you would know all, Come! Come, and I will tell you the secret, which never yet have I uttered to any one. I will reveal the extreme joy, the extreme sorrow which shall unite us for ever, as brother and sister, as bridegroom and bride.'
In the sun's rays, veiled by the thick cypresses, and pale as moonlight, just as once before by the Cantarana water in the whiteness of the summer lightning, she put her face close to his, her face white as marble, framed by its Medusa locks, with its scarlet lips, its amber eyes.