FullReads

“What a long road I have travelled since I have known you. Do you remember the grove of holm-oaks where I saw you the first time? For be sure, I recognize you.

“You it was visited me in my hermit’s cell and stood before me with woman’s eyes sparkling through a transparent veil, while your alluring mouth instructed me in the entanglements of Right and Wrong. Again it was you appeared in the meadows clad in a golden cope, like an Ambrose or an Augustine. Then I knew not the curse of thought; but you set me thinking. You put pride like a coal of fire on my lips; and I learned to speculate. But as yet, in the untrained freshness of my wit and raw youthfulness of mind, I felt no doubt. But again you came to me, and gave me uncertainty to feed on and doubt to drink like wine. So comes it, that this day I taste through you the entrancing illusion of things, and that the soul of woods and streams, of sky and earth, and living shapes, penetrates my breast.

“And lo! I am a miserable man, because I have followed after you, Prince of men!”

And Giovanni gazed at his companion, who stood there beautiful as day and night. And he said to him:

“Through you it is I suffer, and I love you. I love you because you are my misery and my pride, my joy and my sorrow, the splendour and the cruelty of things created, because you are desire and speculation, and because you have made me like unto yourself. For verily your promise in the Garden, in the dawn of this world’s days, was not vain, and I have tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, O Satan.”

Presently Giovanni resumed again.

“I know, I see, I feel, I will, I suffer. And I love you for all the ill you have done me. I love you, because you have undone me.”

And, leaning on the Archangel’s shoulder, the man wept bitterly.