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Did I ever mention to you a certain little Sister Giuliana, who professed only two years ago? a funny rose and white little creature presiding over the infirmary, as prosaic a little saint as ever kissed a crucifix or scoured a saucepan. Well, Sister Giuliana has disappeared, and the same day has disappeared also a sailor-boy from the port. August 20, 1884.
All at once our position seemed to me strangely similar to that of the ill-starred lovers of Rimini. But the next moment I was sane again. She had withdrawn her hand, and had taken the volume to restore it to its shelf. Ah, no! At Rimini there had been two fools. Here there was but one. Let me make an end of him by persuading him of his folly. Yet Giuliana did nothing to assist me in that task.
So I read on to the story's cruel end, and when it was done I sat quite still, myself a little moved by the tragedy of it, whilst Giuliana continued to lean against my chair. I was moved, too, in another way; curiously and unaccountably; and I could scarcely have defined what it was that moved me. I sought to break the spell of it, and turned the pages.
And my thoughts were chiefly of that hermit somewhere above me in these hills, and of the blessedness of such a life, remote from the world that man had made so evil. And then, with thinking of the world, came thoughts of Giuliana. Two nights ago I had held her in my arms. Two nights ago! And already it seemed a century remote as remote as all the rest of that life of which it seemed a part.
Behind him was Cavalcanti with Bianca leaning upon his arm just as I had seen her that day when she came with him to Monte Orsaro, save that now there was a look as of fear in the blue depths of her eyes. A little on one side there was a group composed of three of the Duke's gentlemen with Giuliana and another of the ladies, and Giuliana was watching us with half-veiled eyes.
Of this I am persuaded, as you shall be when you have read on. The yearnings with which she filled my soul were very different from those inspired by the memory of Giuliana. That other sinful longing, she entirely effaced at last, thereby achieving something that had been impossible to prayers and fasting, to scourge and cilice.
It would appear that maddened with rage at the loss of his prey, that ravening wolf had looked about to discover who might have betrayed his purpose and procured that intervention. He bethought him of Giuliana. Had not Cosimo seen her in intimate talk with me on the morning of my arrest, and would he not have reported it to his master?
It is the spirit of Rome you come upon in S. Lorenzo, the old Rome of the Basilicas, that were but half Christian after all, and, still in ruin, seem to remember the Gods. A church has stood where S. Lorenzo stands certainly since pagan times, for at the beginning of the fourth century, one Giuliana, who had three daughters but no son, vowed a church to St.
From Monna Giuliana the young painter heard the curious story of my having been vowed prenatally to the cloister by my mother, learnt her name and mine, and the hope that was entertained that I should walk in the ways of St. Augustine after whom I had been christened. It happened that he was about to paint a picture of St.
But I have asked no questions of them. I know how false can be the tongues of courtly folk. I ask it now of you. What is or was this Madonna Giuliana to you?" "She was," I answered bitterly, "and God pity me that I must say it to you she was to me what Circe was to the followers of Ulysses."
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