hor. "It is not progressing at all." He
was making no headway, but was, in fact, floundering hopelessly in
the shallows of a desperate situation. Two personages had stuck in
the author's throat, and could move neither up nor down; one fat and
good-natured, the other thin and sarcastic, like Mademoiselle d'Arxel.
He felt like a certain unfortunate Tuscan peasant, who had lately
swallowed a fig with a bee upon it, and had died in consequence. The
"bee" understood that he really wanted to talk of his book; she stung
him again and again to such a degree that he actually did talk about it.
His story was founded on a curious case of spiritual infection. The hero
was a French priest, an octogenarian, pious, pure, and learned. French?
Why French? Simply because the character must be possessed of a certain
tinge of poetic fancy, a certain elasticity of sentiment, and according
to Carlino, not one Italian priest in a thousand was likely to possess
these exalted attributes. It happened one day that this priest received
the confession of a man of great intellect whose faith was assailed
by terrible doubts. His confession over, the penitent went his way
completely reassured, leaving the confessor shaken in his own faith.
Here would follow a long and minute analysis of the different phases
through which the old man's conscience passed. He lived in daily
expectation of death with a feeling of dismay akin to that of the
schoolboy who waits his turn for examination in the ante-room, conscious
only of his empty head. The priest comes to Bruges. At this point the
hostile critic exclaimed:

"To Bruges? Why?"

"Because," answered Carlino, "I send him wherever I wish. Because at
Bruges there is the silence of the ante-chamber of Eternity, and that
_carillon_ (which honestly is beginning to exasperate me) may pass for
the voices of summoning angels. Finally, because at Bruges there is a
dark young lady slight, tall, and whom we may also call intelligent,
although she speaks Italian badly, and does not understand music."

Noemi pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose.

"What nonsense," she said.

Carlino continued, saying he did not yet know how, but in some way or
another the brunette would become the penitent of the old priest. Noemi
protested, laughing. How? The girl could not be herself. A heretic go to
Confession? Carlino shrugged his shoulders, One Comedy of Errors more
or less, what did it matter? Protestantism and Roman Catholicism