A prisoner from my boyhood upwards, I looked upon the world as a realm of light and joy, from which I was for ever debarred by those mysterious vows which the monks had induced me to profess before their meaning was understood. When from my iron grate I looked on the vale of the winding Isonza, blooming with foliage and verdure and bounded by the blue Carinthian hills, and listened to the rushing sound of the free bold river, how intense were my longings to follow its course to where it plunged headlong into the Gulf of Trieste; where for hours I have watched the scudding sails till my eyes and heart ached. O, hours of longing and of agony! To see nature spread before me in all her glory, yet be unable to taste her sweets: to be a prisoner without a crime. And love, or what the world calls love, I knew not what it was; though a secret spirit whispered within me: I longed to look on some fair face, and to hear a gentle voice reply to mine; but love’s magic, its mystery, and its madness, I was yet to learn. With a heart thus formed, and open to the assaults of that wicked little god—whom the ancients should have depicted as a giant—you may imagine my sensations on finding myself in the presence of Paula; whose face and form far outshone the famous Madonna of our chapel. A hot blush suffused my cheek: but the fair face of Paula revealed only the rosy tinge of health, and her brow the calm purity of perfect innocence. I was silent and awed in her presence: an Italian monk awed by a girl of seventeen! With evening I returned to the cloisters; and a chill sank upon my heart as their cold shadows fell over me. I was in my old dormitory, where the truckle-bed, the polished skull, the cross, and rough vaulted roof seemed yet the same: but I was changed. The recollection of Paula’s soft gazelle-like eyes and snowy breast never left me for a moment, and I passed a sleepless night. "O, that I were a soldier or a cavalier, for then Batello would respect, and his daughter might love me: but a priest—a priest—anathema! anathema! there is no hope for me: none! O, malediction! why did I ever behold thee, Paula?" Thus passed the night. Noon found me again in the arbour of Batello’s garden: the golden-haired and ruddy-cheeked Rosario was drawling over his task; but I neither heard nor beheld him. I saw only his sister, who, seated beneath the shadow of the luxuriant rose-trees, was immersed in the glowing pages of the warrior bard, Luigi Tansilla, the brave follower of Piero di Toledo.