"Yes, Veltro, I pardon you. You are not bad and I believe you will not let it occur again, when I tell you that I have suffered greatly." He slowly mounted, as to a certain joy, half shutting his eyes under the prolonged caresses of desire, counting the steps, trembling at the approach of the last and thirty-third. A sudden alarm arrested his customary transport as he reached the battlements: he advanced hesitatingly, with gestures of astonishment and deception. "Yet it is she, it is really she, and I do not recognize her." "Set your mind at rest, my lord, there is nothing the matter, quite the contrary. They have put on her summer robe, that's all. The Novella changes her attire each season. And then there was a holiday, as well. Ah! if I had known! But how beautiful she is! She is beautiful as a queen." Yes, she was beautiful. But Guido paused a moment before admitting this transmutation in which he had not at all participated. He sadly regarded the new Woman, sadly and with reproachful eyes: "Are there seasons for my love? Are there days, are there hours? I loved the sky-colored robe which you had put on for our first meeting? Why then have you doffed it? Was it intended for me, at least? Did you wish to surprise me with a richer vesture that would more nobly become your serene beauty? Ah! queen, this too comely cloak does not bring my heart nearer to your heart, nor your lips to my lips; then, to what avail? You were blue like the sky and the sea, blue like the dream, blue like love--why this bleeding purple? In what stream of blood have you dipped your grace? Had I not offered you the torrent of my veins? Queen, you have betrayed me! You still smile at me, but your smile is cruel, you scoff, you scorn! An unfriendly day was that one in which, far from my tears, you permitted barbarous hands to profane the limbs I adore! It was I who should have divested you, it was I who should have covered you, divine and nude, in the sacred cloak of my effusions! Ah! you make me weep, Novella! What! you too weep, dear Passion, so you do yet love me? Oh! weep not! Pardon, pardon, I am the wicked one, I am the inclement one, and, moreover, I was mad. It is conceivable: I thought I had lost you. But no, it is not so? You are mine, more than ever, only mine! Let me be truly happy! No? Heed me, I love you! Not yet? It is true, I did doubt you; it is necessary to suffer, I wish to suffer." CHAPTER XIII CHRISTUS PATIENS "Elle ne jugeait pas, ayant d'autres pensées." Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, _Isis_. "In this so lightly tilled field, where the corn has been so hurriedly sown," Entragues told himself, "I reap nothing but problems, tares, weeds, ridiculous rank grasses! For three days I have had only the worry of a mathematician intent upon insoluble _x's_." SERIES OF _X's_. _xa._--It was poison. _xb._--History of the portrait chamber. _xc._--S. M. to S. M. _xa_