Levius fit patientia
Quidquid corrigere est nefas.

As the words occurred to him he thought how much better equipped he was
for the bitter trial, since had he not the certain hope of another life,
and of meeting his beloved in the spaces of endless felicity? Surely
then he should be able to bear his sorrow with as great a fortitude as
the pagan poets, who looked forward to nothing but the dust; to whom the
fabled dim country beyond the Styx was a cheerless dream, and to whom a
living dog upon the earth was more worthy of envy than the King of all
Elysium. He must learn of the ancients.

The magic of the lemon-coloured dawn had vanished now before the swift
daylight. Many bells were ringing in the city, and the first signs of
life were stirring in the streets. He searched for a little book,
and read of the consolation which Cicero gave to Laelius in the _De
Amicitia_. But he had not read many lines before he closed the book. His
wound was too fresh for the balm of reason and philosophy.

"Later," he thought, "this will strengthen and help me, but not
to-day; to-day my wound must bleed and be allowed to bleed, for all the
philosophy in the world cannot lessen the fact that yesterday she was
and to-day she is not."

He felt a desire to escape from his room, which had been the chapel of
such holy prayers, the shrine where so many fervent tapers of hope had
burnt, where so sweet an incense of dream had risen. He left his room
and hurried down the narrow stone stairs into the street. As he left
the house he turned to his right and walked on till he reached Or San
Michele; there he turned to his right again and walked straight on till