w that her
faith in Dante's Amor, his lord of terrible aspect, made his coming
possible. The men and women who go about proclaiming that there is no
such person because they have never seen him were born blind. Like
those prosy souls who call the poets mad, they mistake impotence for
common sense.

Besides, the first step always costs so dear, and now that he was gone
and she could think of him calmly she knew that she was afraid of
Filippo Tor di Rocca. He was cruel. Then among the forces arrayed
against him there was the desire of that she called her soul to
mortify her flesh, to beckon, to lead by stony ways to the heights of
sacrifice. She could not be sure where that first step would lead her,
she could not be sure of herself or gauge the depths to which she
might fall.

"Oh, God!" she said aloud. "Help me! Don't let things be too
difficult."

The hours of darkness were long, but the grey glimmering dawn came at
last with a pattering of rain against the uncurtained window. Olive
rose as soon as it was light, and before eight she had eaten the crust
of bread she had saved for her breakfast and was gone out. On her way
down the stairs she met her landlady and spoke to her.

"If anyone comes to see me will you tell them that I have gone out,
and that I do not know when I shall come in again. And if anything is
said about my going away you can say that I have changed my mind and
that I shall not leave Florence."

She would not cross the river for fear of meeting Filippo in any of
the more-frequented streets on the other side, so she went down the
Via della Porta Romana and out by the gates into the open country
beyond. She walked for a long time along muddy roads between the high
walls of vineyards and olive orchards. She had an umbrella, but her
skirts were draggled and splashed with mire and the water came through
the worn soles of her thin shoes. She had nothing to eat and no money
to buy food. There were some coppers in her purse, but she had
forgotten to bring that. It was windy, and as she was toiling up the
steep hill to Bellosguardo her umbrella blew inside out. She threw it
down by the side of the road and went on, rather glad to be rid of it
and to feel the rain on her face. She had two hands now to hold her
skirt and that was better. Soon after noon she knocked at the door of
a gardener's cottage and asked for something to eat; she was given a
yellow lump of _polenta_ and a handful of roast chestnuts