nger than this, and
I was conscious again, and saw Dante, and I leaped from my hiding-place
and ran to where Dante stood alone in the square, with his hands against
his face. I called to him, as I came up, "Dante, are you drowned in a
wonder?" and at the sound of my voice Dante plucked the fingers from
his face and stared at me vacantly, as if he did not know me. This gaze
of ignorance lasted, it may be, for the better part of a minute.

Then Dante, seeming to recognize me, all of a sudden drew me toward him
and spoke as a man speaks that tells strange truths truly. "Friend," he
said, "you are well met, for you see me now as I am who will never see
me again as I was. I am become a man, for I love God's loveliest woman.
Enough of nobility in name; I mean to prove nobility in deed. Say to my
friends that Dante of the Alighieri, a Florentine, and a lover, devotes
himself for love's sake to the service of his city."

And when he had spoken he stood very still with his hands clasped before
him, and I, because it is my way to laugh at all things, laughed at him,
and cried out: "Holy Saint Plato, what a hot change of a cold heart!
Bring bell, book, and candle, for Jack Idle is dead and Adam Active is
his heir."

But Dante turned his face to me, and his eyes were shining very bright,
and he looked younger than his youth, and he spoke to me not as if he
were chiding my mirth, but as if he were telling me a piece of welcome
news, and he said, very gently, "Here beginneth the New Life."

VII

CONCERNING POETRY

Now you must know that after that whimsical encounter of wit between
Dante and Simone, which I have already narrated, Messer Dante seemed to
change his mood again, as he had changed his mood oft-time before.
Messer Brunetto Latini saw much less of his promising pupil, and a
certain old soldier that was great at sword-play much more, and there
was less in Dante's life of the ancient philosophies and more of the
modern chivalries. I presently found out that Messer Dante, having taken
much to heart that gibing defiance of Simone of the Bardi, had set
himself, with that stubborn resolution which characterized all his
purposes, to making himself a master of the sword. Of this, indeed, he
said nothing to me or other man, but Florence, for all that it is so
great and famous a city, is none so large that a man can easily hide his
business there from the eyes of those that have a mind to find out that
business. So I l