y.

Passing an open door, I saw her. She was sitting, doing nothing, in a
room whose faded tapestries were gray as spiders' webs, and she was
beautiful as only one woman is here and there in a generation. She
looked at me, and I thought she smiled.

I went out with my brain on fire and my sight dim. I saw only that
smile--that sudden, momentary smile whose fellow had brought death to
little Phoebus. And I felt she had known me again, though she had seen
me but once, in my spangled coat of velvet and silver, and now I had my
legs bare to the knee, and was clad in a rough blue shirt and woollen
jacket, like any other country-fellow upon Tiber's side.

As I was going out the serving-wench plucked my sleeve and whispered to
me, "Come back a moment: she wishes to see you."

My heart leaped, then stood still. I turned back into the house, and
with trembling knees went into that chamber where the dusky tapestry
mouldered on the walls. She looked at me, sitting idly there herself in
the bare, melancholy room--a woman with the face of our Titian's Venus.

"Did the child die?" she asked.

I stammered something, I knew not what.

"Why did you tremble that day?" she said, with the flicker of a smile
about her lovely mouth: "you look strong--and bold."

How the words had courage and madness enough to leap to my lips I know
not, but I do know I said to her, "You looked at me."

She frowned a moment: then she laughed. No doubt she had known it
before. "Your nerves were not of iron, then, as they should be," she
said carelessly. "Well! the people wanted to see something die. They
always do: you must know that. Bring more fish for my husband to-morrow.
Now go."

I trembled from head to foot. I had said this bold and insolent thing to
her face, and she still bade me return!

No doubt had I been a man well born I should have fallen at her feet and
sworn a midsummer madness: I should have been emboldened to any coarse
avowal, to any passionate effrontery. But I was only a stroller--a poor
ignorant soul, half Hercules, half fool. I trembled and was mute.

When the air blew about me once more I felt as if I had been
drunk--drunk on that sweet yeasty wine of a new vintage which makes the
brain light and foolish. She had bade me return!

That day my mother ate alone at home. When night fell it found me by the
Lagherello. I set my nets: I slept in a shepherd's hut. I had forgotten
Phoebus: I only saw her face. What was she like?