troubled at heart. I have tasted the milk and the honey. I have looked
on the servant-maid standing at the threshold and seen that she was
comely. And disquietude is in my soul and in my flesh.

"What a long road I have travelled since I have known you. Do you
remember the grove of holm-oaks where I saw you the first time? For be
sure, I recognize you.

"You it was visited me in my hermit's cell and stood before me with
woman's eyes sparkling through a transparent veil, while your alluring
mouth instructed me in the entanglements of Right and Wrong. Again it
was you appeared in the meadows clad in a golden cope, like an Ambrose
or an Augustine. Then I knew not the curse of thought; but you set me
thinking. You put pride like a coal of fire on my lips; and I learned to
speculate. But as yet, in the untrained freshness of my wit and raw
youthfulness of mind, I felt no doubt. But again you came to me, and
gave me uncertainty to feed on and doubt to drink like wine. So comes
it, that this day I taste through you the entrancing illusion of things,
and that the soul of woods and streams, of sky and earth, and living
shapes, penetrates my breast.

"And lo! I am a miserable man, because I have followed after you, Prince
of men!"

And Giovanni gazed at his companion, who stood there beautiful as day
and night. And he said to him:

"Through you it is I suffer, and I love you. I love you because you are
my misery and my pride, my joy and my sorrow, the splendour and the
cruelty of things created, because you are desire and speculation, and