Andrea strained his eyes towards the portico. Would she dare to traverse the garden on foot? He pictured the figure of Elena in the midst of all this dazzling whiteness, then, in an instant, that of Donna Maria appeared to him, obliterating the other, triumphant over the whiteness, Candida super nivem. This night of moonlight and snow then was under the dominance of Maria Ferrès as under some invincible actual influence. The image of the pure creature grew symbolically out of the sovereign purity of the surrounding aspect of things. The symbol re-acted forcibly on the spirit of the poet.
While still watching to see if the other one would come, he gave himself up to a vision suggested by the scene before him.
It was a poetic, almost a mystic dream. He was waiting for Donna Maria—she had chosen this night of supernatural purity on which to sacrifice her own purity to her lover's desire. All the white things about her, cognisant of the great sacrifice about to be accomplished, were waiting to cry Ave and Amen at the passage of their sister. The silence was alive.
And behold, she comes! Incedit per lilia et super nivem. She comes, robed in ermine; her tresses bound about with a fillet; her steps lighter than a shadow; the moon and the snow are less pale than she—Ave!
A shadow, azure as the light that tints the sapphire, accompanies her. The great mis-shapen lilies bend not as she passes; the frost has congealed them, has made them like the asphodels that illumine the paths of Hades. And yet, like those of the Christian paradise, they have a voice and say with one accord—Amen.
So be it—the Beloved glides on to the sacrifice. Already she nears the watcher sitting mute and icy, but whose eyes are burning and eloquent. And on her hands, the dear hands that close his wounds and open the doors of dreams, he presses his kiss.—So be it.
Then on her lips, the dear lips that know no word of falseness, he lays his kiss. Released from the fillet, her hair spreads like a glorious flood in which all the shadows of the night put to flight by the moon and the snow seem to have taken refuge. Comis suis obumbrabit tibi, et sub comis peccavit. Amen.
And still the other did not come! Through the silence, through the poetry, the hours of men sounded again from the towers and belfries of Rome. A carriage or two rolled noiselessly past the Four Fountains towards the Piazza or crawled slowly up towards Santa Maria Maggiore; and each street-lamp shone yellow as a topaz in the light. It seemed as if the night, reaching its highest point, had grown more luminously radiant. The filigree of the gateway twinkled and flashed as if its silver embroideries were studded with jewels. In the palace, great circles of dazzling light shone on the windows like diamond florins.
'What if she does not come?' thought Andrea to himself.
The flood of lyric fervour that had passed over his soul at Maria's name had submerged the anxiety of his vigil, had appeased his desire and calmed his impatience. For a moment, the thought that she would not come only made him smile. But the next, the anguish of uncertainty began again worse than ever, and he was tortured by the vision of the joys that might have been his, here in the warm carriage where the roses breathed so sweet an atmosphere. Besides which, his sufferings were further increased, as on New Year's Eve, by a sharp touch of wounded vanity; it annoyed him particularly that his delicate preparations for a love scene should thus be wasted and useless.