soul and shape my future, do not mistake the sentiment that, that--"
she faltered an instant, and went on with downcast eyes,--"that has
fascinated my thoughts to thee. Do not think that I could nourish a love
unsought and unreturned. It is not love that I feel for thee, stranger.
Why should I? Thou hast never spoken to me but to admonish,--and now, to
wound!" Again she paused, again her voice faltered; the tears trembled
on her eyelids; she brushed them away and resumed. "No, not love,--if
that be love which I have heard and read of, and sought to simulate
on the stage,--but a more solemn, fearful, and, it seems to me, almost
preternatural attraction, which makes me associate thee, waking or
dreaming, with images that at once charm and awe. Thinkest thou, if it
were love, that I could speak to thee thus; that," she raised her looks
suddenly to his, "mine eyes could thus search and confront thine own?
Stranger, I ask but at times to see, to hear thee! Stranger, talk not to
me of others. Forewarn, rebuke, bruise my heart, reject the not unworthy
gratitude it offers thee, if thou wilt, but come not always to me as
an omen of grief and trouble. Sometimes have I seen thee in my dreams
surrounded by shapes of glory and light; thy looks radiant with a
celestial joy which they wear not now. Stranger, thou hast saved me, and
I thank and bless thee! Is that also a homage thou wouldst reject?"
With these words, she crossed her arms meekly on her bosom, and inclined
lowlily before him. Nor did her humility seem unwomanly or abject, nor
that of mistress to lover, of slave to master, but rather of a child to
its guardian, of a neophyte of the old religion to her priest. Zanoni's
brow was melancholy and thoughtful. He looked at her with a strange
expression of kindness, of sorrow, yet of tender affection, in his eyes;
but his lips were stern, and his voice cold, as he replied,--

"Do you know what you ask, Viola? Do you guess the danger to
yourself--perhaps to both of us--which you court? Do you know that my
life, separated from the turbulent herd of men, is one worship of the
Beautiful, from which I seek to banish what the Beautiful inspires in
most? As a calamity, I shun what to man seems the fairest fate,--the
love of the daughters of earth. At present I can warn and save thee from
many evils; if I saw more of thee, would the power still be mine?
You understand me not. What I am about to add, it will be easier to
comprehend. I bid