As when from water, or from the mirror, the ray leaps to the opposite quarter, and, mounting up in like manner to that in which it descends, at equal distance departs as much from the falling of the stone,[1] as experiment and art show; so it seemed to me that I was struck by light reflected there in front of me, from which my sight was swift to fly. “What is that, sweet Father, from which I cannot screen my sight so that it avails me,” said I, “and which seems to be moving toward us?” “Marvel not if the family of Heaven still dazzle thee,” he replied to me; “it is a messenger that comes to invite men to ascend. Soon will it be that to see these things will not be grievous to thee, but will be delight to thee as great as nature fitted thee to feel.” [1] I.e., the perpendicular, at the point of incidence. When we had reached the blessed Angel, with a glad voice he said, “Enter ye here to a stairway far less steep than the others.” We were mounting, already departed thence, and “Beati misericordes”[1] had been sung behind us, and “Rejoice thou that overcomest.”[2] My Master and I, we two alone, were going on upward, and I was thinking to win profit as we went from his words; and I addressed me to him, thus enquiring, “What did the spirit from Romagna mean, mentioning exclusion and companionship?”[3] Wherefore he to me, “Of his own greatest fault he knows the harm, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if he reprove it, in order that there may be less lamenting on account of it. Because your desires are directed there, where, through companionship, a share is lessened, envy moves the bellows for your sighs. But if the love of the highest sphere[4] had turned your desire on high, that fear would not be in your breast; for the more there are who there say ‘ours,’ so much the more of good doth each possess, and the more of charity burns in that cloister.”[5] “I am more hungering to be contented,” said I, “than if I had at first been silent, and more of doubt I assemble in my mind. How can it be that a good distributed makes more possessors richer with itself, than if by few it is possessed?”[6] And he to me, “Because thou fastenest thy mind only on earthly things, from true light thou gatherest darkness. That infinite and ineffable Good which is on high, runs to love even as the sunbeam comes to a lucid body. As much of itself it gives as it finds of ardor; so that how far soever charity extends, beyond it doth the eternal bounty increase. And the more the people who are intent on high the more there are for loving well, and the more love is there, and like a mirror one reflects to the other. And if my discourse appease not thy hunger, thou shalt see Beatrice, and she will fully take from thee this and every other longing. Strive only that soon may be extinct, as two already are, the five wounds that are closed up by being painful.”[7] [1] “Blessed are the merciful.”