Had she had a garland of narcissus on her
brows and at her side a great nine-stringed lyre with bas-reliefs of
Apollo and a greyhound, she might have been taken for a pupil of the
school of Mytilene, or a Lesbian musician in repose as imagined by a
Pre-Raphaelite.
'You send me up a madrigal,' she answered in the same playful tone, but
drawing back a little from view.
'Very well, I will go and write one in your honour on the marble
balustrade of the lowest terrace. Come down and read it when you are
ready.'
Andrea proceeded slowly to descend the steps leading to the lower level.
In that September morning his soul seemed to dilate with every breath he
drew. A certain sanctity seemed to pervade the air; the sea shone with a
splendour of its own, as if the sources of magic rays lay in its depths;
the whole landscape was steeped in sunshine.
He stood still from time to time. The thought that Donna Maria was
perhaps watching him from the loggia disturbed him curiously, made his
heart beat fast and flutter timidly, as if he were a boy in love for
the first time. It was unspeakable bliss merely to breathe the same warm
and limpid air that she did. An immense wave of tenderness flooded his
heart and communicated itself to the trees, the rocks, the sea, as if to
beings who were his friends and confidants. He was filled with a desire
to worship humbly and purely; to bend his knee and clasp his hands and
offer up to some one this vague mute adoration which he would have been
at a loss to explain.
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