He tells the words of Beatrice with the same feeling
with which he would have repeated them, had they fallen on his mortal
ear. His grief and shame are real, and there is no element of feigning
in them. That in truth he had seemed to himself to listen to and to
behold what he tells, it is scarcely possible to doubt. Beatrice says,--
"Some while at heart my presence kept him sound;
My girlish eyes to his observance lending,
I led him with me on the right way bound.
When of my second age the steps ascending,
I bore my life into another sphere,
Then stole he from me, after others bending.
When I arose from flesh to spirit clear,
When beauty, worthiness, upon me grew,
I was to him less pleasing and less dear."[P]
[Footnote P: Purgatory, c. xxx. vv. 118-126.--CAYLEY'S Translation.]
But although Beatrice only gives utterance to the self-reproaches of
Dante, we have seen already how fully he had atoned for this first and
transient unfaithfulness of his heart. The remainder of the "Vita Nuova"
shows how little she had lost of her power over him, how reverently he
honored her memory, how constant was his love of her whom he should see
never again with his earthly eyes.
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