heavens!
Why need I tell you all? Suffice! to say
That whatsoever boundless wealth like his,
And genius high, can compass, rare or fair,
Was brought before the guest.

TENNYSON:--Altered.

So I found Raphael and so I left him, successful and apparently happy.
Had I comprehended what the incident which I have just related meant to
him,--had I even suspected his misconception of the situation,--I might
have made him understand that neither at Cetinale nor at Porto d'Anzio
had Maria Dovizio sung the _Hymn to Apollo_, that in both places it was
Imperia who had chanted, Imperia who had responded to Chigi's caresses,
and so this woful misunderstanding might never have divided these young
lovers. Maria, far from being Chigi's guest at the moment of the
discovery of the _Apollo_, was in Urbino, awaiting in ever-increasing
wonder and dismay some word of affection from her betrothed. Failing to
receive it she came to Rome, but Raphael held himself aloof, pleading
the Pope's demands upon his time. He thought that she would understand
the cause of his neglect, and herself sunder the engagement, for he
would not shame her by any accusation.

One ineffaceable picture of my friend I carried with me into my exile,
for going to the Vatican to bid Raphael farewell, I was told that he was
in the Pope's villa of the Belvedere superintending the placing of the
_Apollo_, which had just arrived. The guards barred my entrance to the
loggia, and indeed I cared not to intrude, for I saw that the Pope was
there, gazing at the statue with a grim delight, as though he believed
that the god had descended to earth to expel as of old the barbarian
Gauls.

Raphael stood entranced, unmindful of the presence of Maria Dovizio, who
sat a little apart, heart-sick and bewildered, unable to grope her way
through the thick fog of misconception which had drifted between herself
and her beloved.

And over all the white form of _Apollo_ gleamed in heartless gladness,
untouched by any feeling for his votary's sins of ignorance for which he
would cry in vain repentance, "Had I but known, had I but known!"

It was impossible for me to tarry longer in Rome without employment, and
I bethought me of the monks of Oliveto, and how they had asked for a
series of paintings for their cloister. To this refuge, therefore, I
repaired, completing, in two years, thirty-one great frescoes for little
more than my sustenance. Yea; and for my belly's sa