Jeanne was radiant with joy. Now she understood;
she had been a fool to believe it possible, even for a single moment,
that in twelve hours Piero the peasant had become Piero the monk. She
longed to return at once to the garden at Santa Scolastica; but how
could she manage it? what pretext could she invent? She pressed forward,
anxious to be done with the Sacro Speco as soon as possible. Noemi
proposed resting a few minutes in the shade of the evergreen oaks,
which, there on the path of those souls agitated by Divine Love,
themselves seem twisted by an inward ascetic fury, by a frantic effort
to tear themselves from the earth, and to dart their arms into the sky.
Jeanne refused impatiently. The colour had returned to her face, and the
light to her eyes. She started rapidly up the narrow stair where the
short walk comes to an end, and in spite of the protests of Noemi (who
could not understand the cause of this change) would not stop to take
breath at the head of the stairs where, suddenly, the dark, deep
spectacle of the valley reveals itself.
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