Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/238

 the generosity of admiration. The tears rose to his eyes, as they had done more than once in the past six months, and a question, low but poignant, broke from his lips, ending in nothing. 'How could he—how could he?' It may be explained that 'he' was a reference to Paul Muniment; for Hyacinth had dreamed of the religion of friendship.

Three weeks after this he found himself in Venice, whence he addressed to the Princess Casamassima a letter of which I reproduce the principal passages.

'This is probably the last time I shall write to you before I return to London. Of course you have been in this place, and you will easily understand why here, especially here, the spirit should move me. Dear Princess, what an enchanted city, what ineffable impressions, what a revelation of the exquisite! I have a room in a little campo opposite to a small old church, which has cracked marble slabs let into the front; and in the cracks grow little wild delicate flowers, of which I don't know the name. Over the door of the church hangs an old battered leather curtain, polished and tawny, as thick as a mattress, and with buttons in it, like a sofa; and it flops to and fro, laboriously, as women and girls, with shawls on their heads and their feet in little wooden shoes which have nothing but toes, pass in and out. In the middle of the campo is a fountain, which looks still older than the church; it has a primitive, barbaric air, and I have an idea it was put there by the first settlers—those who came to Venice from the mainland, from Aquileia. Observe how much historical information I have already absorbed; it won't surprise you, however, for you never wondered at anything after you discovered I