bloomed yesterday, the Countess Fiammetta or any little sempstress in
Urbania might have given them me. What if the rose has fallen to dust?
If only I could hold Medea in my arms as I held it in my fingers, kiss
her lips as I kissed its petals, should I not be satisfied if she too
were to fall to dust the next moment, if I were to fall to dust myself?

_Dec. 22nd, Eleven at night.--_

I have seen her once more!--almost spoken to her. I have been promised
her love! Ah, Spiridion! you were right when you felt that you were not
made for any earthly _amori_. At the usual hour I betook myself
this evening to San Giovanni Decollato. A bright winter night; the high
houses and belfries standing out against a deep blue heaven luminous,
shimmering like steel with myriads of stars; the moon has not yet
risen. There was no light in the windows; but, after a little effort,
the door opened and I entered the church, the altar, as usual,
brilliantly illuminated. It struck me suddenly that all this crowd of
men and women standing all round, these priests chanting and moving
about the altar, were dead--that they did not exist for any man save
me. I touched, as if by accident, the hand of my neighbor; it was cold,
like wet clay. He turned round, but did not seem to see me: his face
was ashy, and his eyes staring, fixed, like those of a blind man or a
corpse. I felt as if I must rush out. But at that moment my eye fell
upon Her, standing as usual by the altar steps, wrapped in a black
mantle, in the full blaze of the lights. She turned round; the light
fell straight upon her face, the face with the delicate features, the
eyelids and lips a little tight, the alabaster skin faintly tinged with
pale pink. Our eyes met.

I pushed my way across the nave towards where she stood by the altar