mmonplace Florence in full day, and he tried to repeat a prayer,
but wonderfully could remember none, and only his ears buzzed with the
words of all the love-songs he had ever heard, and he entreated, "Leave
me in peace." And as he spoke he stretched out his hands in supplication
to the quickened image.

Now it is to be said that it seemed to Dante as if a kind of pale flame
appeared to blaze all about the living image, and to spread from him in
fine and delicate rays till it seemed to play on Dante's body and burn
through the armor of the flesh and lurk about his naked heart. And the
agony of that burning was beyond words, yet there was a kind of joy in
it that was beyond thought.

And the God that was Love cried out again: "You pray in vain for peace
who shall ever be peaceless from this time forth. For the unavoidable
hour is at hand when you shall know my power. Farewell awhile." As the
figure spoke those last words it seemed slowly to stiffen into stone
again, and the beautiful, vital coloring faded away, and the pale,
leaping flames vanished, and Dante found himself sitting and staring at
the painted image above the lisping water that he had looked at unmoved
a thousand times, as he passed it going to and fro on his way through
the city.

Dante rubbed his forehead and wondered. "I have been dreaming," he
murmured, "and the love-tale in the book colored my thoughts."

Now, though all this vision, or whatever you may please to call it,
seemed brief enough, it took longer than the telling, for Messer Dante
told me that the next thing he knew was that he heard my voice calling
to him. Wherefore, the most will probably say that Messer Dante had
fallen asleep in the heat of the day and dreamed a dream, but I do not
think so. Now, Guido and I and Monna Vittoria had gone on our ways to
the Signory, thinking to witness the crowning of the lady Beatrice of
the Portinari, but we had not travelled very far when we heard the noise
of many people mixed with the sound of music, and we knew that the
procession was coming our way and that the ceremony at the Signory was
over and done with. Then it seemed a shame to me that my friend should
lose all the pleasure, and I said I would go back for him, and Messer
Guido came with me because Monna Vittoria had found other friends and
stayed in speech with them. And when Guido and I came back to the place
where we had left Dante, I found him, as I say, seated upon the stone
seat. His