The _Innocente_ has many passages in its pages of perfect beauty like this episode of the _Novena_; its defects are due to its author's incapacity to perceive where the ludicrous damages the pathetic and destroys the terrible. The writer's artistic instinct moved him to create a situation unique, and full of the keenest interest, abounding in opportunity for the analysis of temptations and emotions; and of such analysis he is a master, if too prolix in his expositions of it. But a want of the perception which warns us off the line of demarcation dividing the dramatic from the grotesque, has allowed him to pass this line, and merge the dramatic in a flood of trivial and commonplace minutiæ. Nor is it natural that, loathing this new-born bastard as Tullio Hermil does, he should accompany his brother to invite an old peasant to be its sponsor. The beauty and simplicity of this passage are great, but they cannot reconcile us to the improbability of such an errand. 'As we drew near the place where Giovanni de Scordio dwelt, my brother saw in the field the tall figure of the old man. '"Look! There he is. He is sowing. We bring our invitation in a solemn hour." 'We approached. I trembled within myself as though I were about to commit a profanation. I did indeed profane a thing in itself sacred and beautiful. I went to solicit the spiritual paternity of a venerable life for an adulterous creature. '"Look at his height," exclaimed Frederigo, pointing to the sower. "He is no taller than other men, and yet he looks a giant." 'We paused under a tree, and watched the labourer from a distance. Giovanni had not perceived us. 'He came straightway towards us up the field with measured slowness. He wore a woollen cap, black and green, with two wings which covered his ears in the ancient fashion. A white sack hung by a leathern strap from throat to waist, the sack being full of grain. With his left hand he held the sack open, with the right he took the grain and scattered it. His gesture was large, easy, sweeping, moderated to a serene rhythm. The corn, flying from his hand, shone in the sun like gold dust, falling with regularity upon the wet furrows. He advanced slowly, his feet sinking in the moist soil, his head sometimes lifted to the holiness of the light; all his attitude was simple, noble, grand. * * * * * 'We entered the glebe. '"Good health, Giovanni," said Frederigo, going up to the old man. "Be your seed blessed. Be blessed your bread of the future." '"Good health to you," I repeated. 'The peasant left off work; he uncovered his head. '"Cover yourself, Giovanni, or we also must stand with bare heads in the sun," said my brother. 'The old man put on his cap, confused, almost shy, smiling. 'He asked humbly, "Why so much honour?"