428 THE PROSCRIBED. 



snow. It was a light within the light. His wings fluttered and shed 

 dazzlings and undulations in the spheres by which he passed, as the 

 eye of God passes through the worlds. In fine, I saw the archangel 

 in his glory! The bloom of eternal beauty which decorates the an- 

 gels of the Spirit shone in him. He had in one hand a green palm, 

 and in the other a flaming sword — the palm to give to the pardoned 

 sinner, the sword to make hell entire recoil by a single wave of it. 

 He was smiling, but sadly. At his approach we felt the perfumes of 

 heaven, which fell like a dew. In all the region where he was the 

 air took the colour of an opal, and trembled with the undulations 

 caused by the angel. He arrived, looked at the shade, and said to 

 it, " To-morrow." Then he turned towards heaven with a graceful 

 motion, extended his wings, surmounted the spheres as a vessel 

 divides the waves, which in an instant scarcely leaves to the exiles 

 abandoned on a desert shore a sight of its white sails glistening in 

 the sun beams. The shade gave a frightful cry, to which all the 

 damned replied from the circle the most profoundly plunged in the 

 immensity of the worlds of suffering until the one the most peaceful, 

 on the surface of which we were. It was a horrible concert. The 

 most poignant of all anguishes had made an appeal to all the others. 

 The clamour was increased by the roaring of a sea of fire, which 

 served as a bass to the terrible harmony of innumerable millions of 

 suffering shades. Then all at once it took its flight through the 

 cite dolente and descended from its place into the lowermost pit of 

 hell, remounted suddenly, returned, replunged again into the infi- 

 nity of circles, over-ran them in every direction, like to a vulture who, 

 put for the first time into confinement, exhausts itself in useless and 

 superfluous efforts. The shade had the right to wander thus. It 

 might traverse the infernal zones, glacial, fetid, burning,without parti- 

 cipating in their sufferings. It glided into this immensity as a ray 

 of the sun penetrates into the bosom of obscurity. "God has not in- 

 flicted this punishment upon him," said the master to me ; " but not 

 one of those souls whose tortui-es you have successively considered 

 would change his suffering for the hope under which this one 

 groans." At this moment the shade returned near us, led back by 

 an invisible power which condemned him to wither on the extreme 

 edge of hell. My divine guide, observing the curiosity which had 

 taken possession of me, touched .with his palm-branch the unhappy 

 wretch, occupied perhaps in measuring the age of pain which was to 

 be endured between that moment and the ever-fugitive to-morrow. 

 The shade shuddered and cast upon us a glance full of all the tears 

 that he had already shed. 



— " You wish to know my misfortune," said he, in a tone of sad- 

 ness. " Oh ! I love to relate it. I am here. Theresa is on high ! 

 This is the whole. On earth, we were happy, we were always 

 united. When I saw fojcthe first time my dear Theresa Donati, she 

 was but ten years of age. Then we loved each other without know- 

 ing what love was. Our lives formed but one life. I turned pale at 

 her paleness. I was happy from her joy. Together, we gave our- 

 selves up to the charm of thinking and feeling, and one by the other 

 we learned the secret of love. We were married at Cremona, and 



