She could say with Thoreau, "I moments live who lived but years." We
had both been invited to a large reception, on a certain evening, in
one of the old palaces on the Arno. There were music and dancing, and
there were lively groups of ladies and gentlemen strolling from room
to room, contrasting somewhat strangely in their gayety with the
solemn pictures hanging on the walls, and a sense of shadowy presence
which seems to haunt those dusky interiors. An odd discrepancy between
the modern company and the surroundings, a weird mingling of the past
and the present, made any apparition appear possible, and left room
only for a faint thrill of surprise when a voice by my side said,
"There is Mrs. Stowe."
In a moment she approached and I was presented to her, and after a
brief pause she passed on. All this was natural enough, but a wave of
intense disappointment swept over me. Why had I found no words to
express or even indicate the feeling that had choked me? Was the fault
mine? Oh, yes, I said to myself, for I could not conceive it to be
otherwise, and I looked upon my opportunity, the gift of the gods, as
utterly and forever wasted. I was depressed and sorrowing over the
vanishing of a presence I might perhaps never meet again, and no
glamour of light, or music or pictures or friendly voices could recall
any pleasure to my heart. Meanwhile, the unconscious object of all
this disturbance was strolling quietly along, leaning on the arm of a
friend, hardly ever speaking, followed by a group of traveling
companions, and entirely absorbed in the gay scene around her.
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