l the passion of an old
Roman for the city of Romulus, Florentine very often loved Florentine as
day loves night, eld youth, health sickness, poverty riches, or any
other pair of opposites you please. But I was never much of a
politician, I thank my stars, and though a good enough Guelph to pass
muster in a crowd, and a good enough Red to cry "Haro!" upon the Yellows
if need were, I bothered my head very little about such brawls so long
as there were songs to sing, vintages to sip, and pretty girls to kiss.

In Messer Dante I found one of my own age, or, perhaps, a little less
that was in those days scarcely more pricked by the itch political than
I myself was, and for a while he and I had been jolly companions in the
merry pleasant ways of youth. But of late days this Dante, that was ever
a wayward fellow, had suddenly turned away from sports and joys, and
devoted himself with an unwholesome fervor to study, and seemed, as it
were, lost to me in the Humanities. Which is why I had made a tryst with
him that day to upbraid him and bring him to a better sense, and so I
could not go with Messer Guido as he was good enough to wish.

Guido looked at me with a sudden interest. "You are much his friend, are
you not?" he questioned.

Now I had for long been mightily taken with Messer Dante, and, indeed,
for a while I seemed to see the world as he saw it, and to speak as he
would have spoken. I am of that mood now, after all these years--at
least, in a measure. But just then I was in a reaction and vexed, and I
voiced my vexation swiftly. "Why, I thought so once. But I wash my hands
of him. We were as one in the playthings of youth. Now he dances no more
to my piping. He will not laugh when my wit tickles him. He is no
longer for drinking or kissing, for dicing or fighting. He has a cold
fit of wisdom come upon him, and rests ever with Messer Brunetto, the
high dry-as-dust, reading of Virgilius, Tullius, and other ancients, as
if learning were better than living. I have made a tryst with him here
to upbraid him; but I doubt he will keep it."

"I know little of him," Guido said, thoughtfully. "I should like to know
more, to know much."

Now, it was a great compliment to any youth in our city that Messer
Guido should desire his acquaintance, yet I feared in this case he had
made a rash choice.

"Lord," I said, "he is hard to know. Yet, laugh if you will, but I think
there are great things in him."

Messer Guido did not lau