Ah, that week in Florence! What a dream of delight! 'Twas pure
gold to Herminia. How could it well be otherwise? It seemed to
her afterwards like the last flicker of joy in a doomed life,
before its light went out and left her forever in utter darkness.
To be sure, a week is a terribly cramped and hurried time in which
to view Florence, the beloved city, whose ineffable glories need at
least one whole winter adequately to grasp them. But failing a
winter, a week with the gods made Herminia happy. She carried away
but a confused phantasmagoria, it is true, of the soaring tower of
the Palazzo Vecchio, pointing straight with its slender shaft to
heaven; of the swelling dome and huge ribs of the cathedral, seen
vast from the terrace in front of San Miniato; of the endless
Madonnas and the deathless saints niched in golden tabernacles at
the Uffizi and the Pitti; of the tender grace of Fra Angelico at
San Marco; of the infinite wealth and astounding variety of
Donatello's marble in the spacious courts of the cool Bargello.
But her window at the hotel looked straight as it could look down
the humming Calzaioli to the pierced and encrusted front of
Giotto's campanile, with the cupola of San Lorenzo in the middle
distance, and the facade of Fiesole standing out deep-blue against
the dull red glare of evening in the background.
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