"Beneath Aricia's trees,
Those trees in whose dim shadow
A ghastly priest doth reign,
The priest who slew the slayer,
And must himself be slain."
[VI]
(He flies beneath him, outstretched like a swimmer; his vast-spreading wings, wholly concealing him, seem like one huge cloud.)
Anthony. "Whither do I go? But a little while ago I beheld in a glimpse the form of the Accurst. Nay!—'tis a cloud that upbears me! Perhaps I am dead, and am ascending to God....
"How freely I respire. The immaculate air seems to vivify my soul. No sense of weight!—no more suffering.
"Far below me the lightning breaks,—the horizon broadens, widens,—the rivers cross each other. That blond-bright spot is the desert; that pool of water the ocean!
"And other oceans appear!—vast regions of which I knew nothing! There are the countries of the blacks, which seem to smoke like brasiers!—then is the zone of snows always made dim by fog! Would I might behold those mountains where the sun, each evening, sinks to rest!"
The Devil. "The sun never sinks to rest; the sun never rests!"