t us go and see the girl in her triumph." She addressed herself
directly to Guido, but she had an after-glance for me as well.

Guido turned toward his new-made friend. "Will you come with us, Messer
Dante?" he asked.

But Dante denied him. "Not I, by your leave," he replied. "I find folly
enough here in my book without tramping the highways to face it in its
pageant."

Now I felt a little vexed at his churlishness, for Madonna Vittoria was
a lovely lady, and very pleasant company, and one worth obliging. So I
spoke to the others, saying, "Well, well, let us not starve because
Dante has no appetite." And therewith I caught a hand of Guido and a
hand of Vittoria, and made to lead them from the place. And they both
responded well enough to my summons.

But Monna Vittoria checked me a little and paused, and spoke again to
Dante. "Farewell, Messer Dante," she said, sweetly. "Will you come visit
me one of these days?"

But Dante, who had poked that hooked nose of his now in his book again,
shook his head and made her no very civil answer. "Madonna," he said, "I
have little money and less lust. God be with you."

So, lapped in that mood, we left him, and went our ways toward the
Signory, and our Dante was soon out of sight, and, if truth be told, out
of mind.

IV

THE WORDS OF THE IMAGE

Now I proceed to tell under all caution what happened to our Dante,
sitting there alone in the shady angle of that sunny place, after we had
left him to go to the Signory. For, indeed, I did not see it, although I
heard it from his lips, that had the gift, even then, to make the
strangest things seem as real as, say, the door of a house. The tale was
so told, in such twists of thought and turns of phrase, that it might,
if you chose, be taken as an allegory or the vision of a dream; but, for
my own part, I prefer to believe that it came about just as I shall set
it down, for the world is merrier for a spice of the marvellous in its
composition, and, for myself, I could believe anything of that same
painted image.

It seems, then, that when Dante was left alone he turned to his book
again, and set himself very resolutely to reading of the loves of
Lancelot and Guinevere, in the hope, most like, to still that stirring
of the spirit occasioned by our talk. And when the fall of our footsteps
and the babble of our voices could be heard no more, he confessed that
at first he felt grateful for the silence and the peace. But of a