I connected the picture of the guardian of dried plants sketched for me by Oddo with the picture of that sad soul wandering round the sundial which had pointed out the hour of blessedness for her in vain. And I thought: “If only I had power to fashion for thee a beautiful fate, as the artist fashions the obedient wax, O thou who earnest towards me out of a barren garden where a funereal vow had imprisoned thee Massimilla, thus should I complete thy ideal figure with death, with timely death I should complete thy perfection; for no other hour awaits thee in which thou canst hope to find any value, now that thou hast once penetrated into that part of life, beyond which none can go who intend to return. Guided by that divine memory, I would have thee return to the place where in dreams I gathered crown-like anemones, to strew them on thy head; and there I would have thee fall again into the harmonious attitude that once I praised, close to the marble sundial. And the moment the point of the shadow reached the tip of thy ring-finger should be the moment of thy death. Then beneath the stony gaze of the crouching caryatid I should myself dig the grave for thy frail remains; and I should lay thee out as the gentle ladies laid out Beatrice in Dante’s vision, and should spread their veil over thy head. But I should not set a cross over thy grave, nor any other pious symbol; rather I should call upon the youngest of the sons of the Graces, a native of Palestine, like thy celestial Spouse; I should call upon Meleager of Gadara, the hyacinth-garlanded, the sweet flute-player, the poet who sings the early death of maidens; and he should carve an epitaph worthy of thy gentle grace. Oh Earth, universal Mother, all hail to thee; be gentle to this maiden, who weighs so lightly upon thee.”
Thus it pleased me to adorn the sentiment with which she inspired me, and turn her sadness into poetry.
“Has the narcissus bulb in the herbarium sprouted for the third time?” I asked her suddenly one day, as we were boating on the Saurgo near the dead city.
She was quite disturbed, and looked at me with startled eyes.
“How do you know?”
I smiled and repeated—
“But has it sprouted?”
“No, not again!” she replied, looking down.
We were alone in a little skiff, which I was paddling myself with one oar. Violante, Anatolia, and Oddo were in other boats rowed by the boatmen. The river here was so wide and sluggish that it was almost like a pond, and a dense flock of water-lilies covered it. The great white flowers, shaped like roses, floated among their shining leaves, diffusing a moist fragrance, which seemed to have the property of slaking thirst.
It was here that Simonetto’s botanising had come to an end that fatal autumn. I imagined the figure of the young botanist leaning over the water exploring its slimy depths at the season when the water-lilies are nearly over. His hortus siccus, no doubt, contained lifeless specimens of all that aquatic flora which surrounded the ruins.