Thus at times I felt as though I were living in a myth which the youth of the human soul created under the skies of Hellas. The ancient spirit of deity was abroad upon the earth, as it was when the daughter of Rhea gave to Triptolemus the gift of ears of corn that he might sow them in the furrows, and that all men by him might enjoy the divine benefit. The immortal energies which flowed through visible things seemed always conscious of the old transfiguring spirit that used to convert them into great symbols of beauty for the enjoyment of men. Three in number, like the Graces, the Gorgons, and the Fates, were the maidens who moved with me through this mysterious springtime. And I loved to compare myself to the youth pictured on the vase of Ruvo, who is enticing a winged genius across the threshold of a myrtle grove. Over his head is written the name Happiness, and three maidens surround him; one bears in her hands a dish heaped up with fruit, another is wrapped in a starry mantle, and the third has the thread of Lachesis in her nimble fingers.
One day we came by chance on a piece of enclosed ground, which the peasant cultivators had, according to the old heathen custom, dedicated to an oak-tree struck by lightning.
“What a beautiful death!” exclaimed Violante, as she leant over the oblong wooden fence which protected it.
The lonely place was full of almost terrible solemnity. The aspect of the altar which the Latin priests consecrated with the sacrifice of a white lamb must have been something like this.
“You are committing sacrilege,” I said to Violante. “This sacred enclosure cannot be touched without profanation. Heaven punishes the transgressor with madness....”
“With madness?...” she said, and drew away with a kind of instinctive superstition; her action gave an unexpected seriousness to my allusion to the pagan belief.
In one flash I saw the pale, swollen face of her mad mother, and Antonello’s wandering eyes, and I heard again the tragic cry: “We are breathing her madness”; and an icy sensation of fatality ran through me.
“No, no, don’t be afraid!” I said involuntarily, only deepening the shadow, perhaps, by thus clearly expressing my regret for the remark which must have seemed like a gloomy omen or a cruel presentiment.
“I am not afraid,” she replied, without smiling, as she leant over the fence again.
Thus from an idle word was born a great shadow.