of love stupid. She scorns it. It is the love of the world, says the
priest; and here is the Hotel de Flandre and the wedding dance-music."

"What?" exclaimed Noemi. "Was there really a wedding dance?"

Carlino shrugged his shoulders and clenched his fists, gasping with
impatience. After a deep sigh he continued:

"The girl asks, 'But is there a heavenly love?' It was then I told you
to stop under the trees of Saint-Sauveur, and you, instead, stopped at
the entrance to the square. It makes no difference; the cathedral was in
sight, and that is enough. The priest answers: 'Yes, there is a heavenly
love,' The majesty of the ancient cathedral, of the night, of the
silence, inspires him. He speaks, I cannot now repeat his discourse,
it is rather confused in my mind; but at any rate the essence of it is
this, that even heavenly love has its birth, but never reaches maturity
on earth. The old man almost allows himself to be led into making a
confession. With, bursting heart and burning tongue he does confess
to not having felt any inclination towards individuals nor indeed any
inclination which could cause him shame, but an intellectual and moral
aspiration to unite himself with some incorporeal feminine spirit, that
should belong completely to his incorporeal being, at the same time
remaining sufficiently distant from it, to admit of the intervention of
love between the two."

"Gracious!" murmured Noemi. Carlino was so excited, that he did not hear
her.

"The old man," said he, "seems to perceive in this union a human trinity
similar to the Divine Trinity, and therefore finds it just, finds it a