“If I were your husband, Massimilla,” I added, to soothe her little trembling soul, “I would give you a house where the light should enter through slabs of honey-coloured alabaster, or through windows painted with legends; you should be served by ladies-in-waiting and mutes shod with felt and dressed in quiet colours, who would pass by you like great night-moths; and some of the rooms should have crystal walls looking over immense pools of water, hidden from sight by curtains which your hand could easily draw back whenever you felt the desire of a dream voyage with open eyes over an ocean valley full of strange rich forms of life; and round the house I would make you a garden of trees which should strew flowers and weep spices, and it should be peopled with gentle, graceful animals, such as gazelles, doves, swans, peacocks. And there in harmony with everything around you, you should live for me alone. And every day, after satisfying my desire of rulership over men by some worthy act, I would come and breathe the rarefied air of your silent love, I would come and live by your side the pure life of my thoughts. And sometimes I would inspire you with a vehement fever; and sometimes I would make you weep inexplicable tears; and sometimes I would make you die and come to life again, so that I might appear more than man in your eyes.”
Was she in the meantime preparing herself for departure, or was she lingering, impatiently expecting that which for her henceforth was not to be?
As I walked up the alley of old box-trees where Violante had first appeared to me under the great archway, she came to meet me almost at the same place, smiling a new smile.
“You look like an angel bringing good tidings to-day,” I said. “The whole spirit of April is in you.”
She gave me her hand, which I took and held for a moment in my own.
“What have you got to tell me?” I asked, for I read in her eyes the presence of something new which transfigured her.
My look embarrassed her; and once more her colour rose, seeming almost violent in contrast to her pallor.
“Nothing,” she said.
“And yet,” I said, “your whole figure seems to express annunciation. You shall tell me about it without speaking, if you will allow me to walk beside you for a little. I have never felt your harmony so perfect, Massimilla, as just now.”
She certainly thought I was speaking to her of love, she was so confused. And there shone from her whole figure such a bright spirit of gentleness, that I thought once more of those gentle ladies assembled in the imagination of young Dante; from whose lips from time to time fell words mingled with sighs, as falls “water mingled with beautiful snow.” And because I loved her in a superhuman way, some of those ancient words came back to my memory: “To what purpose dost thou love thus? Tell us, for certain it is that the purpose of such love must be quite new.”