CHAPTER XI
REMINISCENCE
They left the factory, and walked along a road that was enclosed between the walls of silent gardens. The bronze-like laurels were touched with gold at the tops by the setting sun. The air was filled with sparkling gold-dust.
"How sweet and terrible was the fate of Gaspara Stampa," said Stelio. "Do you know her Sonnets? Yes, I saw them one day on your table. She was a strange mingling of ice and fire. Sometimes her mortal passion, above the Petrarchism of Aretino, lifted a glorious cry. I remember a magnificent verse of hers:
Vivere ardendo e non sentire il male!"
"Do you remember, Stelio," said La Foscarina, with that peculiar slight smile of hers which gave her face the look of one walking in her sleep, "do you remember the sonnet that begins:
Signore, io so che in me non son più viva,
E veggo omai ch'ancor in voi son morta?"
"I don't remember, Fosca."
"Do you remember your beautiful fancy about the dead Summer? Summer was lying on a funeral barge, dressed in gold like a dogaressa, and the procession was bearing her toward the Island of Murano, where a master of the flame was to enclose her in a shroud of opalescent glass, so that when she should be submerged in the depths of the lagoon, she could at least watch the waving seaweed. Do you remember?"
"It was an evening in September."
"The last night of September, the night of the Allegory. There was a great light on the water. You were in an exalted mood, and talked and talked. What things you said! You had come from solitude, and your overcharged soul broke forth. You poured a sparkling wave of poetry over your companion. A bark passed, laden with pomegranates. I called myself Perdita. Do you remember?"