ominated by a woman, by a woman
who had come into his life, seized it, made it a thing of glory, broken
it. He described to me the dominion of this woman. He told me how she
had transformed him. Till he met her he had been passionate but free,
his own master through many experiences, many intrigues. He was very
frank, Domini. He did not attempt to hide from me that his life had been
evil. It had been a life devoted to the acquiring of experience, of all
possible experience, mental and bodily. I gathered that he had shrunk
from nothing, avoided nothing. His nature had prompted him to rush upon
everything, to grasp at everything. At first I was horrified at what he
told me. I showed it. I remember the second evening after his arrival
we were sitting together in a little arbour at the foot of the vineyard
that sloped up to the cemetery. It was half an hour before the last
service in the chapel. The air was cool with breath from the distant
sea. An intense calm, a heavenly calm, I think, filled the garden,
floated away to the cypresses beside the graves, along the avenue where
stood the Fourteen Stations of the Cross. And he told me, began to tell
me something of his life.

"'You thought to find happiness in such an existence?' I exclaimed,
almost with incredulity I believe.

"He looked at me with his shining eyes.

"'Why not, Father? Do you think I was a madman to do so?'

"'Surely.'

"'Why? Is there not happiness in knowledge?'

"'Knowledge of evil?'

"'Knowledge of all things that exist in life. I have never sought
for evil specially; I have sought for everything. I wished to bring
everything under my observation, everything connected with human life.'

"'But human life,' I said more quietly, 'passes away from this world. It
is a shadow in a world of shadows.'

"'You say that,' he answered abruptly. 'I wonder if you feel it--feel it
as you feel my hand on yours.'

"He laid his hand on mine. It was hot and dry as if with fever. Its
touch affected me painfully.

"'Is that hand the hand of a shadow?' he said. 'Is this body that
can enjoy and suffer, that can be in heaven or in hell--here--here--a
shadow?'

"'Within a week it might be less than a shadow.'

"'And what of that? This is now, this is now. Do you mean what you say?
Do you truly feel that you are a shadow--that this garden is but a world
of shadows? I feel that I, that you, are terrific realities, that this
garden is of immense significance. Look