On his way down-stairs Prospero came upon the padrona di casa.  
She stood at the door of the first floor, which he had supposed untenanted, the windows on the street being always dark. She looked pleased, anxious, and full of business.
 
"Just step in for a moment, signorino," she said, "and tell me what it seems to you."
 
The young man followed her. The windows of the apartment were wide open—most likely to let in the heat, for to lean forth beyond the chill boundary of the stone walls was like dipping into a warm bath. The long, old, neatly darned lace curtains waved gently in the April air. The stone floors had been sprinkled; a[105] pleasant freshness arose from them. Everything had an air of having just been gone over with a damp dust-cloth; everything that could be furbished shone to the utmost of its capacity.
 
The little woman led Prospero into the large sala, from which, through several open doors, one got glimpses of other airy chambers. The great height of the ceiling—increased to illusion by the cunning of the fresco, which professed to open into the sky itself, and show a flight of rosy cupids tumbling among the clouds—had the effect of dwarfing the furniture, even the gigantic vases under their shining bells. The seats were placed about in social groups; in the embrasure of the balcony window stood a small table supporting a coral-colored coffee service, lately placed between two low chairs, with a view to spreading about suggestions of cosiness—the joys of intimate life.
 
"I see that you are expecting a tenant," said Prospero.
 
"So it is indeed; a great lady—a foreigner," replied the padrona, under her[106] breath. "Just see, signorino, what you make of this name." While she felt in her pocket she went on: "It is Dottor Segati sends her to me. Oh, he has sent me families before when there was a patient among them; and this apartment has always given satisfaction; that I can say with my hand upon my conscience. There—can you read it? I can tell the letters, but I can't make the sound. One ought to have another tongue on purpose for these foreign names."
 
Prospero studied a second, then pronounced, clearly, "Gr?fin Paula von Schattenort."
 
"Gr?fin means Countess," said the landlady. "The doctor told me that she is a Countess; but whether Danish or Swedish or Hollandish I don't remember. For me all those countries are the same. Schattenort, you call it? What would that be in Italian?"
 
Prospero laughed. "It stays as it is, dear lady. Is this Countess young, do you know?" he went on, looking again at the name on[107] the paper he still held. "Is she coming here for her health?"
 
"I don't know anything beyond the fact that the doctor engages the rooms for her, and I can rely upon him. Oh, he has sent me families before, you know, who have always been perfectly satisfied with me, and I with them. You can see yourself that the quarters are such that even a Countess might find herself well in them—"
 
"Yes, truly," replied Prospero, agreeably. "She would be hard to please if she were not content. Well, if you allow me now, I go. Have you perhaps a commission of any sort for me? I shall do myself a pleasure in serving you."
 
"Too good—much too good. If you would just say the name over—"
 
"Von Schattenort."
 
"What it is to have a memory! What a thing is education! Not but that also I can make myself understood in the French tongue. Schattenort—Schattenort. I should not like to scomparire, you will understand, at the very first meeting. But if I forget, I will[108] simply say Signora Contessa. Only one likes to be able to tell friends whom one has got in the house."
 
Prospero, late already, was hurrying down the stairs, his music under his arm; at the foot he was forced to stop. He took off his hat, and leaned against the wall to let the ladies pass.
 
The gray-haired gentleman talking unpractised French he knew to be Dottor Segati. He fixed upon Paula von Schattenort without a second's hesitation; of the two ladies, only the one in the hat and feather could, in his conception of possibility, be she. He was half-conscious as she passed him on her upward way of a faint pang of disappointment. The name had suggested to his imagination something tall and frail, delicate yet imposing, exceedingly, luminously blond, with eyes of a corn-flower blue. The magic of the name was defeated.
 
He bethought him how late he would be, and without turning his head for a second look, or giving another thought to the arrivals, slipped past the two maids, who stood[109] in the doorway talking in a language unknown to him, while the Countess's man handed them bundles from the carriages drawn up to the door.
 
Paula, on entering the apartment, let her little gloved hands drop at her sides, and looking around with wide, quick eyes, gave a long sigh of pleasure.
 
"Here I can breathe—here I can breathe indeed!" she said to her companion, in their Northern tongue; then turning to the doctor, she assured him in French that she found it charming, as she had found everything in Italy—that she thanked him for his goodness. The doctor and the landlady both watched her with a half smile and slightly raised eyebrows as she walked quickly through the rooms, exclaiming at every window with delight at sight of the fawn-colored, warm-looking river flowing below and flashing back the sunshine, and the low hills clothed in their early green.
 
Her companion followed her with an unusual solemn dignity of manner, intended to counterbalance Paula's unaccustomed vi[110]vacity, and give the people of the house, if possible, an adequate impression of the two as a whole.
 
"Oh, look—look, Cousin Veronika!" exclaimed the younger woman from the balcony, over the parapet of which she had been leaning venturously far—"look at that dear old bridge; it is the Jeweller's Bridge; I recognize it. N'est-ce pas, cher docteur? Oh, what a sky! But have you any patients at all in this city, doctor? Is it possible to be ill here? Do persons die? Of what? I will never believe it!"
 
"My dear lady," said the gray doctor, his kindly face lighting as if with the reflection of her childish excitement, "will you be advised by me? Will you sit down on this commodious divan and rest a little, while you take what the signora has brought for you—this little glass of our white vin santo? It will do you good. You must be tired, very tired."
 
"Oh no! no, doctor! It is like magic. I do not understand it. I feel like another. I shall not be tired here, ever. You must[111] come and see me every day indeed, but not as a doctor—as my good, good friend. Tell me, is it still standing, the house where Dante lived? Have you a book—I mean, could you advise me a book—in which there is everything of the story about him and Beatrice? It must be sweet to think of when one is in their city."
 
"I will do myself the pleasure of sending you the Vita Nova," he said; then, solicitously, "but accommodate yourself, my dearest lady, and drink this—"
 
"Vita Nova? Does that mean new life? New life!" she said, as if to herself, suddenly half stretching her arms up in the air and smiling in indeterminate happiness at the ceiling, whereon the shining river cast a restless, quivering brightness. "Yes, send it me; I want to read it. I will drink this to please you, signor, but not that I am tired. Here is to New Life!"
 
She touched her glass to the doctor's and Veronika's, and emptied it at an eager draught. Veronika watched her in surprised displeasure, sipping her own wine staidly and[112] decorously. It warmed her very heart to see Paula merry, only she thought it unbecoming to behave in the presence of strangers as if one were a person of no importance.
 
Her good-humor returned as soon as the doctor and the padrona had excused themselves. When they were alone she seized Paula unceremoniously by the wrists and forced her back into an arm-chair; then lifted her feet, and with much decision placed them upon a footstool. "Now you don't stir," she said, shaking her finger in Paula's face.
 
"But, cousin, it is so different," pleaded Paula. "I feel no more as I do at home, than this mild, heavenly air is like our joyless atmosphere. Are your eyes open, Cousin Veronika? Do you perceive the things about you—or is it all a dream of my own? It seemed to me as we drove from the station that we had arrived in an enchanted place."
 
"It's just a city," murmured Veronika.
 
"Those sombre palaces we passed, how they make the spring-time in the sky above[113] them more lightsome, more warm! And those flowers banked up for sale against that black stone wall, could you see what they were? They seemed to me all new sorts—marvellous. Have you noticed how happy every one looks in Italy, even the beggars sitting in the sun? And what beautiful faces one sees—"
 
She stopped and mused, gazing ahead in silence for a few moments; then went on aloud: "Yes—beautiful faces, like pictures. Did you see the young man whom we met on the stairs? Not? Veronika, for what have you eyes? The light just there was a little dim, but I saw him perfectly. I passed him slowly on purpose—he leaned against the wall to let us go by him. He had wavy hair, longer than is usual, falling over his forehead, and soft brown eyes like an animal's. I am sure one sees such eyes only in Italy, half asleep, yet deeply intelligent, that when you look in them you think a thousand things—"
 
"You certainly took in a great deal at a glance," said Veronika.
 
[114]
 
"Oh, I could tell you much else," laughed Paula; "beside that he wore a pink in his button-hole and carried a roll of music."
 
"Veronika," she said, after a pause, jumping up from her chair and walking about excitedly as before, "we must be very happy here. We must begin at once. Think how much time we have lost—all our years up to this day. Now we must really enjoy ourselves, live—love!" she added, recklessly, with light in her eyes.
 
Veronika, kneeling over an open satchel, paused in her task to look over her spectacles with a vaguely shocked air, as if something immoral had been said.
 
"This seems like the opening chapter in a lovely story-book that becomes more interesting with every page," said Paula, dropping on her knees and crushing her cheek to Veronika's gray hair, with an expansiveness that took this lady aback. "I have the happiest presentiments! Ah, Veronika, there was once a woman who said that happiness is to be young, beloved, and in Italy!"
 
"Unless you keep quiet and rest," said[115] Veronika, "you will be ill, and that is as far as you will get—"
 
Paula stared a second in wonder at Veronika's impatience; then she reflected that her cousin was old and could not understand. "Poor Veronika!" she thought, with a sympathetic shake of the head, "she can never have but Italy!"
 
Like a good child, she went back to her chair, but before settling down in it she pushed it to the balcony window; then she sat with her eyes fixed upon San Miniato.
 
Dr. Segati came the next day, early. He found Paula pale and infinitely tired, but wearing a contented face. She sat in the balcony window, closed to-day, with a cushion behind her shoulders; flowers stood in the water near her—a delight to the eyes, wonderful wind-flowers, white and pink, purple, scarlet, pale violet. She rose to meet the doctor, and gave him the childish smile that had won his heart to her the day before.
 
She pointed to the book she held. "It came last night. I thank you. I am trying[116] to read it, you see. But I do not know enough. I can make only just a little sense here and there, where it resembles French. Oh, I like it all the same—very much. The title is beautiful—Vita Nova!"
 
"Tell her she must not read, doctor," said Veronika. "It is bad for her. She has been tiring herself over the book."
 
The doctor listened politely, an intelligent eye fixed on Veronika's, and made no objection to what she said. She had always after that half an idea that he understood her.
 
"I had the cook sent in," said Paula, with a brightening face. "The native cook whom the padrona was so good as to engage for me. I asked her about some passages. She could read them easily—how I envied her!—but she could not make them clear to me, though she seemed to do her best."
 
The doctor laughed amusedly, and took a seat beside her. "What an eager little lady! Certainly that is the way to learn. But why this hurry? The great object first is to become robust. Oh, this air will do it! I have no fear. And how did you sleep?"
 
[117]
 
Paula blushed as if caught in fault. "I don't know why it should be I lay awake so much. My old doctor at home (I bless him for his inspiration of sending me here!) has written you about me, I suppose. I dare say you know I cough sometimes in the night. Doctor," she asked, abruptly, "who lives above us?"
 
He looked interrogatively at the ceiling, and shook his head.
 
"Oh, I am so sorry you do not happen to know. It is a great musician, and I feel much gratitude towards him. I was becoming nervous with lying awake—I was on the point of calling my poor cousin—when some one began playing on the piano in the room above me. Sweetly, very sweetly. I could hear it just distinctly enough. It was a joy. I lay awake, but it soothed me more than sleep."
 
"I seem to remember that there is a music-master living in the house," said the doctor. "I will beg the padrona to speak to him. He should not play in the night."
 
"Not at all," exclaimed Paula, with a[118] warmth he could not expect. "Please, I want him to play. I shall be grieved if you say anything to prevent him. It does not keep me awake. If I were sleepy I could not hear it."
 
The doctor prolonged his visit far into the forenoon. At the first movement he made to go, Paula said, pleadingly: "Oh, not yet. I entertain myself so willingly with you!" And he stayed.
 
He was interested, in the woman as well as in the case. She was different from his other aristocratic patients. She was of a type new to him; without appearing to, he studied her face as she spoke, and from it, and from frequent allusions she dropped, he built up a theory of her past.
 
He divined that she was older than she looked. It was, he resolved, the childlike glance and smile, the voice as of shyness overcome, her artlessness, her continually outcropping ignorance of the world, her immature mind perhaps, that gave the impression of youthfulness one at first received from her. If one looked well, she[119] had even already a sad little beginning of faded appearance. Her face was a trifle broad, and the high cheek-bones were commencing slightly to accuse themselves, as they say in French. The charm of her countenance, to such as felt it, lay in her eyes: they were unsophisticated, hopeful, interested, idealizing eyes. Vanity, it must be pityingly related, had taught her nothing. Her blond hair, dull and fine and soft—a large treasure that would have made the boast of many another woman—was drawn away rigorously from her forehead, braided, and wound compactly against the back of her head, like a school-girl's.
 
He noticed with amused wonder how unpretending—nay, provincial, homely, for persons of rank and fortune—was the mise of the two women. Fashion by them was misconstrued, or else despised. He did not incline to the latter interpretation of their plainness; he rather laid to a touching innocence of the mode's dictates Mamsell Veronika's pelerine and the black lace tabs on the sides of her head; the antiquated cut[120] of Paula's deep violet gown, the little black silk mitts that covered her pale pretty hands to the point where her rings began. These were numerous rather than rich, and gave the impression of being heirlooms—things worn for a memory: brilliants mounted in darkening silver, enamels, carnelians; one showed a pale gleam of human hair.
 
Paula had never spoken so much about herself to any one as she did to the doctor. Her loquacity was an effect of her unreasoning instinct that in this new place everything was good to her, every influence favorable. She let herself go in a way that would have seemed out of her nature at home.
 
All she had ever read in the long, melancholy winter evenings at Schattenort, of poetry or romance, came back to her mind in essence, drawn to the surface by an inexplicable magic. Her conversation in this mental excitement teemed with allusions and modest flowers of speech that almost surprised herself, and gave her a strange delight. She felt as she were some one she had some time read of.
 
[121]
 
"Oh, we will make you well, quite well, soon," said the doctor, cheerily, on taking his leave. "But you must promise to be very good, very prudent."
 
He gave his directions with a light air, but as he turned from the door a shadow settled upon his kindly old face.
 
In his breast-pocket lay folded the letter his colleague, Paula's former doctor, had written him. The consciousness of what was said in it gave rise in his heart to a tender, grateful thought of his own children—grown-up daughters, fair and healthy, happily established in life.
 
Paula had hoped to go for a drive that day, but a light rain fell, and she could only watch the turbid stream outside through the glistening window-pane. She sat with her forehead leaning against it, her book in her lap. Now and then she opened this and let her eyes wander over the lines, without trying to understand, just for a pleasure she found in its being Italian too.
 
She had prevailed upon Veronika to go out for a walk, so that she might amuse[122] her with an account of what there was to see.
 
Towards evening the clouds broke. She saw the red reflection of the sunset on the river. Tempted, she opened the balcony door; a smell of damp stone came gratefully to her nostrils. She slipped out and leaned over the cool balusters, and looked up and down the empty gleaming street. The hills were as if washed with wine; the air was sparkling. She heard a footstep; she hoped it might be Veronika's. She looked. But it was not a woman. She recognized the young man who had been on the stairs when she arrived. He did not look up. She leaned over to see him disappear in the portone below. Then, swiftly, she came in-doors and stopped in the middle of the floor. She listened intently. In a few moments she thought to hear, faintly, faintly, footsteps in the room above. She clasped her hands silently, saying to herself with unaccountable excitement: "I knew it already. I knew it well.&qu............