he had guided God speed,
sees the wet grass untrodden except of his own feet. I am as the last
hour of the day, whose chimes are a perfect number; whom the next
followeth not, nor light ensueth from him; but in the same darkness
is the old order begun afresh. Men say, 'This is not God nor man; he
is not as we are, neither above us: let him sit beneath us, for we
are many.' Where I write Peace, in that spot is the drawing of
swords, and there men's footprints are red. When I would sow, another
harvest is ripe. Nay, it is much worse with me than thus much. Am I
not as a cloth drawn before the light, that the looker may not be
blinded; but which sheweth thereby the grain of its own coarseness;
so that the light seems defiled, and men say, 'We will not walk by
it.' Wherefore through me they shall be doubly accursed, seeing that
through me they reject the light. May one be a devil and not know
it?"

As Chiaro was in these thoughts, the fever encroached slowly on his
veins, till he could sit no longer, and would have risen; but
suddenly he found awe within him, and held his head bowed, without
stirring. The warmth of the air was not shaken; but there seemed a
pulse in the light, and a living freshness, like rain. The silence
was a painful music, that made the blood ache in his temples; and he
lifted his face and his deep eyes.

A woman was present in his room, clad to the hands and feet with a
green and grey raiment, fashioned to that time. It seemed that the
first thoughts he had ever known were given him as at first from her
eyes, and he knew her hair to be the golden veil through which he
beheld his dreams. Though her hands were joined, her face was not
lifted, but set forward; and though the gaze was austere, yet her
mouth was supreme in gentleness. And as he looked, Chiaro's spirit
appeared abashed of its own intimate presence, and his lips shook
with the thrill of tears; it seemed such a bitter while till the
spirit might be indeed alone.

She did not move closer towards him, but he felt her to be as much
with him as his breath. He was like one who, scaling a great
steepness, hears his own voice echoed in some place much higher than
he can see, and the name of which is not known to him. As the woman
stood, her speech was with Chiaro: not, as it were, from her mouth or
in his ears; but distinctly between them.

"I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee. See me, and
know me as I am. Thou sayest that fame