ssed in his studies, and it was best so; so Luigi Dini said,
and Bruno let it be. The boy did not ask to return. His letters were
very brief and not very coherent, and he forget to send messages to old
Teresina or to Palma. But there was no fear for him.

The sacristan's friends under whose roof he was wrote once in a quarter,
and spoke well of him always, and said that the professors did the same,
and that a gentler lad or one more wedded to his work they never knew.
And so Bruno kept his soul in patience, and said, "Do not trouble him;
when he wishes he will come--or if he want anything. Let him be."

To those who have traversed far seas and many lands, and who can bridge
untravelled countries by the aid of experience and of understanding,
such partings have pain, but a pain lessened by the certain knowledge of
their span and purpose. By the light of remembrance or of imagination
they can follow that which leaves them.

But Bruno had no such solace.

To him all that was indefinite was evil; all that was unfamiliar was
horrible. It is the error of ignorance at all times.

* * *

He played for himself, for the air, for the clouds, for the trees, for
the sheep, for the kids, for the waters, for the stones; played as Pan
did, and Orpheus and Apollo.

His music came from heaven and went back to it. What did it matter who
heard it on earth?

A lily would listen to him as never a man could do; and a daffodil would
dance with delight as never woman could;--or he thought so at least,
which was the same thing. And he could keep the sheep all round him,
charmed and still, high above on the hillside, with the sad pines
sighing.

What did he want with people to hear? He would play for them; but he did
not care. If they felt it wrongly, or felt it not at all, he would stop,
and run away.

"If they are deaf I will be dumb," he said. "The dogs and the sheep and
the birds are never deaf--nor the hills--nor the flowers. It is only
people that are deaf. I suppose they are always hearing their own steps
and voices and wheels and windlasses and the cries of the children and
the hiss of the frying-pans. I suppose that is why. Well, let them be
deaf. Rusignuola and I do not want them."

So he said to Palma under the south wall, watching a butterfly, that
folded was like an illuminated shield of black and gold, and with its
wings spread was like a scarlet pomegranate blossom flying. Palma had
asked him why he