Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/fourphaseslovet00heysgoog 2. This volume includes the following short-stories: a. Eye-Blindness and Soul-Blindness.; b. Marion; c. La Rabbiata; and d. "By the Banks of the Tiber." FOUR PHASES OF LOVE BY PAUL HEYSE. * * * TRANSLATED By E. H. KINGSLEY. LONDON: G. ROUTLEDGE & CO. FARRINGDON STREET; NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. 1857. EYE-BLINDNESS AND SOUL-BLINDNESS. * * * CHAPTER I. At the open window, which looked out into the little flower-garden, stood the blind daughter of the village sacristan, refreshing herself in the cool breeze that swept across her hot cheeks; her delicate, half-developed form trembled, her cold little hands lay folded in each other upon the window-sill. The sun had already set, and the night-flowers were beginning to scent the air. Further within the room sat a blind boy on a stool, at the old spinet, playing wild melodies. He might have been about fifteen years old--only, perhaps, a year older than the girl. Whoever had heard and seen him, now throwing up his large eyes, and now turning his head towards the window, would never have suspected his privation--so much energy, and even impetuosity, lay in his every movement. Suddenly he broke off in the midst of a religious hymn, which he seemed to have altered wildly after his own fancy. "You sighed!" he said, turning his face towards her. "I! No, Clement--why should I sigh? I only shrank together as the wind blew in so strongly!" "But you _did_ sigh. Do you think that I did not hear it as I played?--and I feel even here how you are trembling." "Yes; it has grown so cold." "You cannot deceive me. If you were cold you would not stand at the open window. But I know why you sigh and tremble!--because the doctor is coming to-morrow, and will prick our eyes with needles--that is what makes you so afraid; and yet he said how soon it would all be over, and that it would only be like the prick of a pin. And _you_, who used to be so brave and patient, that my mother always mentioned you as an example when I was little and cried when anything hurt me, though you were only a girl--have you now lost all your courage? Do you never think of the happiness we have to look forward to?"