He felt a profound pity for her.

Sorniani had himself witnessed various incidents in Merighi’s love-making. He had often seen him on Sunday at the door of Sant’ Antonio Vecchio, waiting patiently while she knelt before the altar, saying her prayers; he had watched him gazing with all his soul at that fair head shining in the twilight of the church.

“Two adorations,” thought Brentani, deeply moved. He found it easy to understand the tenderness which held Merighi spellbound on the threshold of the church.

“What a fool!” wound up Sorniani.

The result of Sorniani’s communication was to make his own adventure seem more important in Brentani’s eyes. He awaited Thursday, when he was to see her again, in a state of feverish impatience, and his impatience made him communicative.

His most intimate friend, a sculptor named Balli, was told about his meeting with Angiolina the very next day. “Why shouldn’t I amuse myself as well as everyone else, when it costs me so little?” Emilio inquired of him.

Balli listened to his story with an expression of utter amazement. He had been a friend of Brentani for more than ten years, and this was the first time he had ever seen him excited about a woman. He at once saw the danger which threatened his friend, and took a grave view of this adventure.

Emilio protested. “What danger can I possibly run, at my age and with my experience?” He was fond of talking about his experience. What he was pleased to call so was something he had absorbed from books: a considerable mistrust of his fellow-men and a great contempt for them.

Balli had turned forty-odd years to better account, and his experience enabled him to judge that of his friend. He was less cultivated, but he had always exercised a sort of paternal authority over him, which Emilio accepted only too gladly; for although his lot was rather drab and perfectly ordinary, and though his life was entirely devoid of unforeseen happenings, he did not feel safe without a few hints as to its conduct.

Stefano Balli was a tall, powerfully built man, with one of those smooth, bronzed faces which never seem to grow old, and youthful blue eyes. His beard was neatly trimmed, his appearance correct and his expression somewhat unbending. The only sign of age about him was that his chestnut hair was turning slightly gray.

When animated by curiosity or pity his piercing look became almost tender; but if his antagonism was aroused, even during the most trivial discussion, he could assume an expression of great severity.

Fortune had not favored him either. Various juries, when rejecting his designs, had praised certain details, but no work of his had found a place on any of the numerous piazzas in Italy. Yet he had never allowed himself to be depressed by his want of success. He was satisfied with the praise of a few individual artists, convinced that his very originality must prevent him from having a wider and more popular appeal, and he had continued to pursue an ideal of spontaneity, a certain willful ruggedness, a simplicity, or, as he preferred to say, perspicacity of idea from which he thought his artistic “ego” must emerge purified of all that was not original either in form or idea. He would not admit that one could be discouraged by the success or failure of one’s work, but it is doubtful whether he would really have escaped discouragement if his enormous personal success had not brought him a certain solace which he was at pains to hide, and always denied, but which certainly went a considerable way towards keeping his handsome figure erect and confident. The attraction which all women felt for him did more than satisfy his vanity, although ambition being the prime instinct of his being, he was not capable of falling in love. He tasted success, or something very like it, in the love of women; loving the artist, they loved also his art, though it would have seemed to have in it so little that could appeal to them. So that his conviction of his own genius, added to the love and admiration which others felt for him, made it possible for him to continue to play the part of a superior being. In matters of art his judgment was severe and uncompromising; in society he made no effort to create a favorable impression. He was, on the whole, not at all popular with men and never sought their company unless he knew that they already had a certain admiration for him.

About ten years before, Emilio Brentani, then quite a young man, had been at his feet. Balli had recognized in him an egoist less fortunate than himself and had taken a fancy to him. At first he only sought his company because he felt himself to be an object of admiration. As time went on, Brentani’s society became so familiar that he could no longer do without it. Their friendship bore witness to Balli’s influence at every point. It became, like all the rare friendships of the sculptor, more intimate than Emilio, from motives of prudence, might perhaps have desired. Their intellectual relations were confined to the representative arts, and here they were in complete agreement, because Balli’s absorbing idea reigned therein supreme, namely, the necessity of discovering afresh for ourselves the simplicity or naïveté of which the so-called classicists had robbed the arts. Agreement was easy: Balli taught and the other had nothing to do but learn. Never a word passed between them of Emilio’s complicated literary theories, because Balli loathed everything that he could not understand, and Emilio was influenced by him even to the point of walking, speaking, and gesticulating like him. Balli, who was a man in the true sense of the word, submitted to no outside influence, and in Brentani’s company had almost the sense of being with one of the many women who were entirely dominated by him.

“Yes,” he said, after listening carefully to every detail of Emilio’s story.