The warmth of the air was not shaken; but there seemed a
pulse in the light, and a living freshness, like rain. The silence
was a painful music, that made the blood ache in his temples; and he
lifted his face and his deep eyes.
A woman was present in his room, clad to the hands and feet with a
green and grey raiment, fashioned to that time. It seemed that the
first thoughts he had ever known were given him as at first from her
eyes, and he knew her hair to be the golden veil through which he
beheld his dreams. Though her hands were joined, her face was not
lifted, but set forward; and though the gaze was austere, yet her
mouth was supreme in gentleness. And as he looked, Chiaro's spirit
appeared abashed of its own intimate presence, and his lips shook
with the thrill of tears; it seemed such a bitter while till the
spirit might be indeed alone.
She did not move closer towards him, but he felt her to be as much
with him as his breath. He was like one who, scaling a great
steepness, hears his own voice echoed in some place much higher than
he can see, and the name of which is not known to him. As the woman
stood, her speech was with Chiaro: not, as it were, from her mouth or
in his ears; but distinctly between them.
"I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee. See me, and
know me as I am.
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