the which I do
not blame myself, and that I found myself for the moment regarding
Messer Simone dei Bardi as a kind of hero, for the which I severely
blame myself even now, after all this lapse of years.

When Messer Simone found that he had got the company, so to speak, in
the hollow of his hands, he was silent for a little while, looking about
him sharply, as if he were making sure of the courage and enthusiasm of
his fellow-citizens, and seeking to find in the press of flushed and
eager faces any countenance that seemed unwilling to answer to his call.
All about him the elders of the city were gathered giving and taking
counsel, giving, I think for the most part, more readily than taking,
and hurriedly revolving in their minds what were best to do for the city
in the crisis that Messer Simone had made plain to them. While these
deliberations went on, we that had been dancing danced no longer, nor
had desire to dance, and though some talked among themselves, the main
kept silence, for the most part waiting upon events. By this time, my
wits having grown cooler and my old distrust of Messer Simone being
resuscitated, I scrutinized him closely as he stood there in his steel
coats, the centre figure of the assembly.

As I looked at Messer Simone where he stood there, girt with strength in
every line of his body, in every curl of his crisp hair and short beard,
in the watchful ferocity of his eyes, he seemed to me a kind of symbol
of what man may be who is unlifted by any inspiration of divinity or
tincture of letters from the common herd. In him brute strength, brutish
desires, brutal passions were presented, so it seemed to my fancy, as a
kind of warning to others of what man may be that is content to be
merely man, with no higher thought in him than the gratification of his
instincts and his impulses. I have heard tell in travellers' tales of
strange lands, beneath fiercer suns than ours, where naked savages
disport themselves with the lawless assurance of wild beasts, and it
seemed to me--being always given to speculation--that Messer Simone, if
he found himself in such a company, would never be at a loss, but would
straightway be admitted to their ruffian fellowship. I think, indeed, he
would be better suited for such companionship than for citizenship of
the fair, the wise, the gifted, the civilized queen-city of Florence.
But even as such savages are reported to have, in place of a higher
wit, such natural craft a