Nine years later, again in May, he records another occasion when he met Beatrice, this time dressed in white and accompanied by two ladies, "and passing along the street she turned her eyes toward the place where I stood, very timid, and through her ineffable courtesy she gently saluted me, so that it seemed to me that I experienced all the depths of bliss. The hour was precisely the ninth of that day, and inasmuch as it was the first time that her words reached my ears, such sweetness came upon me that, intoxicated, as it were, with joy, I left the people and went to my solitary chamber, and began to muse upon this most courteous lady." This love, accompanied as it was with violent alternations of joy and sorrow, produced a strong effect on Dante; his health suffered, his nerves were shattered, and he became frail and weak. Yet he refused to tell her name, although he confessed that love was the cause of his sufferings: "And when they asked me by means of whom love brought me to this wretched state, I looked at them with a smile, but said nothing." In order, however, to put people on the wrong track, he pretended to love another lady, and so successful was this subterfuge, that even Beatrice herself believed it, so that one day, meeting Dante, she refused to salute him, an act which filled him with deepest affliction: "Now after my happiness was denied me, there came upon me so much grief that leaving all people I went my way to a solitary place to bathe the earth with bitterest tears; and when I was somewhat relieved by this weeping, I entered my chamber where I could lament without being heard. And there I began to call on my lady for mercy, and saying: 'Love, help thy faithful one,' I fell asleep in tears like a little, beaten child." As we have already said, there is little action in this book, only a few meetings in the street, in church, or at funerals; even the death of Beatrice's father is spoken of vaguely and allusively. The importance of all lies in the psychological analysis of feelings and thoughts of the poet. The descriptions of Beatrice are vague and her figure is wrapped in an atmosphere of "vaporous twilight." Her beauty is not presented to us by means of word-painting, but rather by its effect on all who behold her. This is illustrated in the following sonnet, which is justly considered the most beautiful not only of Dante's poetry but of all Italian literature: