Laura Spencer Portor

“ He recognized in a dark blotch against her waist the oleander flowers. He was not conscious of how long he remained there; once he reached out and just touched with reverent fingers the hem of her dress that lay white on the stone of the steps below her. She did not stir. She was asleep as Italy all about her was asleep. He had a sense, suddenly, of vastness. He and she and Italy—under the stars together!
Then at last he felt his way softly down the steps, blinded a little by his feeling, as a man finds his way, after a great moment, out of a church. ”

“ It cannot be otherwise. I stood for a little while, that night you slept, within a sanctuary. We are two souls meant and destined for each other—we who wasted in silences and unimportant comment the most perfect hours, and slept, like the guards of Peter, when the Angel of Deliverance came and opened the prison gates all about us. Well, they are open again now, thank God! It is spring in Italy, and you and I are here. And Italy is mine and you are mine—and it cannot be—it cannot be otherwise. ”

“ And my beautiful Italy shows you only what you want to see, and no more. The soul of a land is like the soul of a person; it is shy, terribly shy, easily mistaken. You have never thought of that?"
He did not answer. Perhaps he had; he did not know. There was a spell about her that robbed him of the wish to argue or defend himself. He had a mad thought that he would like to go down on his knees to her, or put his head on her lap and give himself up completely to the comfort and protection of her loveliness. ”

“ It seemed good to be at her feet. Some enchantment, some spell of her loveliness was all about him and ran in his veins.
"I have you to thank for showing me Italy and all this loveliness." He glanced over the dim valley below them. "It's infinitely better than sightseeing."
He took his red guide from his pocket. It was a fat, comfortable looking book, bound about with a broad elastic. He turned it over whimsically.
She put out her hand and took it from him.
"Ah, your red guidebooks! your fearful red guidebooks! Some day—shall I prophesy?—you will have no need of them ever, ever again. ”

“ He had been in Italy only a month, and in Assisi for the first time, whereas Italy was rather her adopted country, and Assisi was like home to her. She returned to it, sometimes in the summer as now, but always in the spring and in the fall—"at the two perfect moments," she had told him, "when the grape is in bloom, and later when it is gathered."
"What a night!" she said, looking up at the vast, starlit dome. "What a night! I left my poor old uncle asleep. Isn't it strange that to the old sleep is better than to watch the stars pass over the Umbrian Valley?" ”

“ Because, as she had apprehended, the most of us are only sightseers, after all, seeing in one another's lives only what we desire to see, or have been taught by the guidebooks of our miserable conventions to expect. Here was a woman incomparable, and he and she had spent marvelous hours together, but had spent them stupidly, unfruitfully, as tourists spend time in seeing strange cities; knowing no more of each other's inner aspirations and dreads and delights than those little chanting Englishwomen knew of Assisi. ”

“ What the travelers see is only the outward semblance. They see merely what they want to see or expect to see, or have been told to see. They have no insight into the real Italy, into the real soul of her. They are sightseers merely; that is all."
He remembered whimsically how his delightfully reserved and conventional mother had made out a list for him of things he really must see in Italy.
The terrace was empty now. The painstaking little Englishwomen had gone indoors to bed, probably, so as to rise the earlier for to-morrow's sightseeing.
Maxwell found himself possessed by a strange unrest. ”

“ She ran her fingers softly among the leaves of the vine that clung to the wall beside her. "Feel how cool! Ah, my Italy!"
The voice of one of the little English ladies could be heard now, tentative, a little deprecating:
"I'm not sure, really. The authorities seem to differ, but my book says the crypt is considered more interesting."
His companion turned to him.
"Hear them!" she said. "Hear them talking of Assisi! As if, with all their seeking, they could ever catch so much as a glimpse of it!"
"And you?" Maxwell said. "What does Assisi mean to you?" ”

“ Instead, he remained as he was, with his easy dignity and reserve and his easy, impeccable manner, that manner which his mother had with so many tendings cultivated, in his boyhood years, training him toward homage to herself and all women, as a young grapevine is lifted from running at will in the rank field to a prepared arbor placed thus or so, beneath which, in times to come, women shall walk graciously protected, or shall pause to pluck offered pleasure or to break refreshment on the lips delicately, in passing. ”

“ These are manners that men are taught to respect. They stand for certain things in women. You expect them of us, if we belong to a certain class; are prepared to find them, and admire them more than frankness, quite the way those little English ladies were prepared to like the crypt better than the nave, because their guidebooks say they should. ”

“ He found a strange shadowy comfort in the distinct discomfort of poking about on four successive rainy, bleak days among musty, second-hand book shops, trying to find a book Fra Felice had one day wished he might own. ”

“ Her uncle, the old signor, was dead. I was with her on the terrace; we read much often. She took great her joy to see the people gathering of the grapes. Then I must be sent to Padua and Pisa and Venice for the church of St. Francis. My brother, Giovanni Batista, was in my place beside her. When my return the signora was gone. The brother Giovanni Batista and the old woman say both she died without pain.
Maxwell got up sharply, dazed as by a sudden blow. It was some moments before he could read on:
She slept one night and waked up with God. ”