though he had suspected much of what he now saw, as a possibility, it
was a phase too new and startling not to trouble him greatly. It will
readily be conceived that if Gianluca had always been the weak and
dejected and despairing individual from whom Taquisara parted that
morning, there could never have been much friendship between the two.
But Gianluca, not in love, had been a very different person. With an
extremely delicate organization and a very sensitive nature, he was
naturally of a gay and sunny temper. The two had done voluntary military
service in the same regiment during more than a year, and their rank,
together with the fact that they were both from the south, had in the
first place drawn them together. Before long they had become firm
friends. In his normal condition Gianluca, though never strong, was
brave, frank, and cheerful. Taquisara thought him at times poetic and
visionary, but liked the impossible loftiness of his young ideals,
because Taquisara himself was naturally attracted by all that looked
impossible. Amongst a number of rather gay and thoughtless young men,
who jested at everything, Gianluca adhered to his faith openly, and no
one thought of laughing at him. He must have possessed something of that
wonderful simplicity, together with much of the extraordinary tact,
which helped some of the early saints to be what they were--the saints
who were beloved rather than those who were persecuted. Not, indeed,
that his conduct was always saintly, by any means, nor his life without
reproach. But in an existence which ruins many young men forever he
preserved an absolutely unaffected admiration for everything good and
high and true, and had the rare power of asserting the fact, now and
then, without being offensive to others. Taquisara had no desire to
imitate him, but was nevertheless very strongly attracted by him, and if
Gianluca had ever needed a defender, the Sicilian would have silenced
his enemies at the risk of his own life. Gianluca, however, was
universally liked, and had never been in need of any such old-fashioned