Thanks to my skill in seamanship, we can be alone on our excursions.  A week ago, on a sultry day, Laura expressed a wish to go out in the boat.  Like a Hecate, she exults in heat.  A gentle breeze drove us a long distance from the shore, and then the wind fell.  The lateen sail hung motionless from the mast.  The rays of the sun, reflected from the glassy surface of the water, increased the heat, although it was late in the afternoon.  Laura threw herself on the Indian matting, and resting her head against the cushions, remained motionless, all in a red glow, from the sun filtering through the awning.  A strange laziness had taken possession of me, and at the same time the sight of this woman with her Greek form that showed through the clinging drapery sent a thrill of admiration through my veins.  Her eyes were veiled, the lips slightly parted; her whole presence expressed powerlessness, and seemed to say, “I am weak.”

We came back late to the villa, and the return will remain for a long time in my memory.  After a sunset in which sky and earth seemed to be wedded in a splendor without limit and without division, there came a night of such beauty as I had never seen on the Riviera.  From the vast deep rose the immense red orb of the moon, which filled the air with a mellow light, and at the same time made a broad, luminous path on the sea, on which we glided towards the shore.  There was a gentle swell on the water, like a heaving sigh.  From the little harbor the voices of the Ligurian fishermen, singing a chorus, came up to us.  A light breeze from the shore wafted towards us the scent of orange-blossoms.  Although not prone to let myself be carried away by my sensations, I was under the spell of this unutterable sweetness that floated over land and sea, and clung like dew to soul and body.

From time to time my eyes rested upon the Helen-like woman whose white draperies glistened in the moonlight, and I fancied myself living in ancient Greece, and that we were floating somewhere, maybe towards the sacred olive groves where the Eleusinian mysteries were enacted.  Our rapture did not seem any more a rapture of the senses, but a cult, a mystic alliance with that night, that spring, and all nature.

15 April.

The time fixed for our departure has arrived, but we do not depart.  My Hecate does not fear the sun, Mr. Davis likes it, and as far as I am concerned, whether here or in Switzerland is a matter of indifference.

A strange thought has taken hold of me; I almost shrink from it, but nevertheless will confess:  It seems to me that a Christian soul, though the spring of faith be dried up therein, cannot live altogether on the mere beauty of form.  This means more sorrow in store for me; if the thought proves true the whole basis of my life falls to the ground.  We are beings of a different culture.  Our souls are full of Gothic arches, pinnacles, twisted traceries we cannot shake off, and of which Greek minds knew nothing.