Loving hearts and gentle souls shall rule the world some day, for all your pestiferous fashions; and old as I am,—I do not mean aged, but well on in years,—I believe in love still, and I always will. It is true that it was not given to me to love as Nino loves Hedwig, for Nino is even now a stronger, sterner man than I. His is the nature that can never do enough; his the hands that never tire for her; his the art that would surpass, for her, the stubborn bounds of possibility. He is never weary of striving to increase her joy of him. His philosophy is but that. No quibbles of "being" and "not being," or wretched speculations concerning the object of existence; he has found the true unity of unities, and he holds it fast.
Meanwhile, you object that I am not proceeding with my task, and telling you more facts, recounting more conversations, and painting more descriptions. Believe me, this one fact, that to love well is to be all man can be, is greater than all the things men have ever learned and classified in dictionaries. It is, moreover, the only fact that has consistently withstood the ravages of time and social revolution; it is the wisdom that has opened, as if by magic, the treasures of genius, of goodness, and of all greatness, for everyone to see; it is the vital elixir that has made men of striplings, and giants of cripples, and heroes of the poor in heart though great in spirit. Nino is an example; for he was but a boy, yet he acted like a man; a gifted artist in a great city, courted by the noblest, yet he kept his faith.
But when I have taken breath I will tell you what he and Hedwig said to each other at the gate, and whether at the last she went with him, or stayed in dismal Fillettino for her father's sake.
CHAPTER XXI
"Let us sit upon the step and talk," said Hedwig, gently disengaging herself from his arms.
"The hour is advancing, and it is damp here, my love. You will be cold," said Nino, protesting against delay as best he could.
"No; and I must talk to you." She sat down, but Nino pulled off his cloak and threw it round her. She motioned him to sit beside her, and raised the edge of the heavy mantle with her hand. "I think it is big enough," said she.
"I think so," returned Nino; and so the pair sat side by side and hand in hand, wrapped in the same garment, deep in the shadow of the rocky doorway. "You got my letter, dearest?" asked Nino, hoping to remind her of his proposal.
"Yes, it reached me safely. Tell me, Nino, have you thought of me in all this time?" she asked, in her turn; and there was the joy of the answer already in the question.