o far as I am informed. At the north angle of
the church of San Giovanni fuori Civitas there is a narrow lane, so dark
that at very noon no sunlight comes in but upon blue bars of dust
slant-wise overhead. This lay upon Cino's daily beat from his lodgings
to the Podesta;[1] and here it was that he met Selvaggia Vergiolesi.

She was one of three young girls walking hand in hand up the alley on
their way from early mass, the tallest where all were tall, and, as it
seemed to him when he dreamed of it, astonishingly beautiful. Though
they were very young, they were ladies of rank; their heads were high
and crowned, their gowns of figured brocade; they had chains round their
necks, and each a jewel on her forehead; by chains also swung their
little mass-books in silver covers. Cino knew them well enough by sight.
Their names were Selvaggia di Filippo Vergiolesi, Guglielmotta
Aspramonte, Nicoletta della Torre. So at least he had always believed;
but now, but now! A beam of gold dust shot down upon the central head.
This was Aglaia, fairest of the three Graces; and the other two were
Euphrosyne and Thaleia, her handmaids. Thus it struck Cino, heart and
head, at this sublime moment of his drab-coloured life.

Selvaggia's hair was brown, gold-shot of its own virtue. In and out of
it was threaded a fine gold chain; behind, it was of course plaited in a
long twist, plaited and bound up in cloth of gold till it looked as hard
as a bull's tail. Her dress was all of formal brocade, green and white,
to her feet. It was cut square at the neck; and from that square her
throat, dazzlingly white, shot up as stiff as a stalk which should find
in her face its delicate flower. She was not very rosy, save about the
lips; her eyes were grey, inclined to be green, the lashes black. As for
her shape, sumptuous as her dress was, stiff and straight and severe, I
ask you to believe that she had grace to fill it with life, to move at
ease in it, to press it into soft and rounded lines. Her linked
companions also were beauties of their day--that sleek and sleepy
Nicoletta, that ruddy Guglielmotta; but they seemed to cower in their
rigid clothes, and they were as nothing to Cino.

The lane was so narrow that only three could pass abreast; it was
abreast these three were coming, as Cino saw. On a sudden his heart
began to knock at his ribs; that was when the light fell aslant upon the
maid. He could no more have taken his eyes off Selvaggia than he co