ong the slopes of the hills, was wondrously embellished by the
tenderness of recollection and the regrets of separation, and she was
tricked out with all the pretty fancies that, springing from the loins
as I said, presently send their fragrant fire coursing through all the
body's soul, transfusing it with languishing ardours and pains that are
a delicious pleasure.

"For I would have you know, my Giovanni, that looking at her calmly and
coldly, the girl was not greatly different from all the rest of the
country wenches that, in the plains of Umbria and the Roman Marches, go
afield to milk the cattle. She had dark eyes, slow and sullen, a
sunburnt face, a big mouth, the bosom heavy, the belly tanned and the
forepart of the legs, from the knee, shaggy with hair. Her laugh was
ready and rude, in a general way; but in act with a lover, her face grew
dark and transfigured as if with wonder at the presence of a god. 'Twas
this had attached me to her, and I have many a time pondered since on
the nature of this attachment, for I am learned and curious to search
out the reasons of things.

"And I discovered the force that drew me toward this girl Monna Libetta,
maid-servant at the inn of Castro, was the same that governs the stars
in heaven and that there is one force and one only in the world, which
is Love. And it is likewise Hate, as is shown by the case of this same
Monna Libetta, who was fiercely fondled, and just as fiercely beaten.

"And I mind me how a groom in the Pope's stables, who was her chief
lover, struck her so savagely one night in the hay-loft where he was
bedding with her, that he left her lying there for dead. And he rushed
crying through the streets that the vampires had strangled the girl.
These be subjects a man must needs ponder if he would gain some notion
of true physics and natural philosophy."

Thus spoke the Subtle Doctor. And the holy man Giovanni sitting up on
his bedding of dung, answered:

"Nay! Doctor, is this language meet to address to a man that is to be
hanged in a very short while? Hearing you, I am filled with doubt
whether your words are the words of a good man and a great Theologian,
or if they do not rather come from an evil dream sent by the Angel of
Darkness."

But the Subtle Doctor made answer:

"Who talks of being hanged? I tell you, Giovanni, I am come hither, at
the earliest peep of day, to set you free and help you to fly. See! I
have donned a gaoler's habit; the prison