d bare against the level fields; or some little long-forgotten
city once a stronghold of war and a palace for princes, now a little
hushed and lonely place, with weed-grown ramparts and gates rusted on
their hinges, and tapestry weavers throwing the shuttle in its deserted
and dismantled ways.

But chiefly it was always the green, fruitful, weary, endless plain
trodden by the bullocks and the goats, and silent, strangely silent, as
though fearful still of its tremendous past.

* * *

The long bright day draws to a close. The west is in a blaze of gold,
against which the ilex and the acacia are black as funeral plumes. The
innumerable scents of fruits and flowers and spices, and tropical seeds,
and sweet essences, that fill the streets at every step from shops and
stalls, and monks' pharmacies, are fanned out in a thousand delicious
odours on the cooling air. The wind has risen, blowing softly from
mountain and from sea across the plains through the pines of Pisa,
across to the oak-forests of green Casentino.

Whilst the sun still glows in the intense amber of his own dying glory,
away in the tender violet hues of the east the young moon rises.

Rosy clouds drift against the azure of the zenith, and are reflected as
in a mirror in the shallow river waters.

A little white cloud of doves flies homeward against the sky.

All the bells chime for the Ave Maria.

The evening falls.

Wonderful hues, creamy, and golden, and purple, and soft as the colours
of a dove's throat, spread themselves slowly over the sky; the bell
tower rises like a shaft of porcelain clear against the intense azure;
amongst the tall canes by the river the fire-flies sparkle; the shores
are mirrored in the stream with every line and curve, and roof and
cupola, drawn in sharp deep shadow; every lamp glows again thrice its
size in the glass of the current, and the arches of the bridges meet
their own image there; the boats glide down the water that is now white
under the moon, now amber under the lights, now black under the walls,
for ever changing; night draws on, then closes quite.

But it is night as radiant as day, and ethereal as day can never be; on
the hills the cypresses still stand out against the faint gold that
lingers in the west; there is the odour of carnations and of acacias
everywhere.

Noiseless footsteps come and go.

People pass softly in shadow, like a dream.

* * *

You know how