Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/241

Rh he was a poet, like his friend Dante, like that supercilious young tomb-walker Guido Cavalcanti. A poet he undoubtedly became; and if his feet were cold his heart was on fire.

What happened was this, so far as I am informed. At the north angle of the church of San Giovanni fuori Civitas there is a narrow lane, so dark that at very noon no sunlight comes in but upon blue bars of dust slant-wise overhead. This lay upon Cino's daily beat from his lodgings to the Podestà; and here it was that he met Selvaggia Vergiolesi.

She was one of three young girls walking hand in hand up the alley on their way from early mass, the tallest where all were tall, and, as it seemed to him when he dreamed of it, astonishingly beautiful. Though they were very young, they were ladies of rank; their heads were high and crowned, their gowns of figured brocade; they had chains round their necks, and each a jewel on her forehead; by chains also swung their little mass-books in silver covers. Cino knew them well enough by sight. Their names were Selvaggia di Filippo Vergiolesi, Guglielmotta Aspramonte, Nicoletta della Torre. So at least he had always believed; but now, but now! A beam of gold dust shot down upon the central head. This was Aglaia, fairest of the three Graces; and the other two were Euphrosyne and Thaleia, her handmaids. Thus it struck Cino, heart and head, at this sublime moment of his drab-coloured life.