'He showed us two or three little sketches he had made, and then began
again describing the wonders of Vicomile with that warmth with which he
always speaks of beautiful things and that enthusiasm for art which is
one of his most potent attractions.
'"I promised the Canonico to come back to-morrow. We will all go, will
we not, Francesca? Donna Maria ought to see Vicomile!"
'Oh, my name on his lips! If it were possible, I could reproduce the
very movements of his lips in uttering each syllable of those two
words--Donna Maria----But what I never could express is my own emotion
on hearing it; could never explain the unknown, undreamed-of sensation
awakened in me by the presence of this man.
'We sat there till dinner-time. Contrary to her usual habit, Francesca
seemed a little pensive and out of spirits. There were moments when
heavy silence fell upon us. But between him and me there then occurred
one of those _silent colloquies_ in which the soul exhales the Ineffable
and hears the murmur of its thoughts. He said things to me then that
made me sink back against the cushions of my chair faint with
rapture--things that his lips will never repeat to me, that my ears will
never hear.
'In front of us, the cypresses, tipped with fire by the setting sun,
stood up tall and motionless like votive candles. The sea was the colour
of aloe leaves, dashed here and there with liquid turquoise; there was
an indescribable delicacy of varying pallor--a diffusion of angelic
light, in which each sail looked like an angel's wing upon the waters.
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