that in that case it was useless to drag them about Bruges at such
an hour, he poetically compared his preparatory study, his almost
photographic notes, to the garlic which is useful in the kitchen, but
is not brought to table, and he continued to talk of the swans and the
moon.

"You compared the living purity with the dead purity. The old priest
utters this exquisite sentiment, that perhaps the living whiteness of
the girl's soul irradiates his thoughts, bleached, like his hair, by
approaching death, while he now feels in his soul the dawn of a warm
purity. Then he murmurs to himself almost involuntarily: 'Abishag.' The
girl asks: 'Who is Abishag?' because she is ignorant like you two, who
do not know Abishag, my first love. The priest does not answer, but
proceeds with the girl down the Rue des Laines. She asks again who may
be Abishag, and still the old man is silent. Then appears that horrible
black shadow, which comes and goes and at last vanishes at the sound of
the twenty-four bells."

"That is not correct," murmured Noemi. Carlino was on the point of
saying, "Stupid!"

"The priest," he continued, "likens the black shadow to an evil spirit,
which comes and goes round pure spirits (you do not understand the
connection, but there is a connection), eager to enter into them, to
dwell in them, he, with others worse than himself. Then--and here I have
not yet found the connection, but I shall find it--they are led to talk
of love. You have crossed the Grande Place. To-night there was no music,
but usually there is, and we will suppose that many amorous glances are
exchanged, as is everywhere the case. The old tower and the old priest
show a certain indulgence; the maiden, on the contrary, finds this phase