modes of fantastic mistake. But here is Guido's very Beatrice; she that
slept in the dungeon, and awoke, betimes, to ascend the scaffold, And
now that you have done it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling
is, that gives this picture such a mysterious force? For my part, though
deeply sensible of its influence, I cannot seize it."

"Nor can I, in words," replied her friend. "But while I was painting
her, I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze.
She knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought
to be solitary forever, both for the world's sake and her own; and this
is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves,
even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet
her glance, and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her;
neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her
case better than we do. She is a fallen angel,--fallen, and yet sinless;
and it is only this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that
keeps her down upon earth, and brings her within our view even while it
sets her beyond our reach."

"You deem her sinless?" asked Miriam; "that is not so plain to me. If
I can pretend to see at all into that dim region, whence she gazes so
strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice's own conscience does not acquit her
of something evil, and never to be forgiven!"

"Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as sin would," said
Hilda.

"Then," inquired Miriam, "do you think that there was no sin in the deed
for which she suffered?"