'I cannot sleep,' he replied, 'because I am wondering who you can be.'
'I am a daughter of Luca Benincasa the dyer, and his wife Lapa,' she said.
'I know that,' he said, 'and I also know that you go about and preach in the streets. And I know that you have attired yourself in the dress of a nun, and have taken the vows of chastity. But yet I don't know who you are.'
She turned her head away a little. Then she said, whispering like one who confesses her first love:
'I am the Bride of Christ.'
He did not laugh. On the contrary, he felt quite a pang in his heart, as from jealousy.
'Oh, Christ!' he said, as if she had thrown herself away.
She heard that his tone was contemptuous, but she thought he meant that she had spoken too presumptuously.
'I do not understand it myself,' she said, 'but so it is.'
'Is it an imagination or a dream?' he said.