To Cranbrook the daily companionship with these kind-hearted,
primitive people had been a most refreshing experience. As he wrote to
a friend at home, he had shaken off the unwholesome dust which had
accumulated upon his soul, and had for the first time in his life
breathed the undiluted air of healthful human intercourse. Annunciata
was to him a living poem, a simple and stately epic, whose
continuation from day to day filled his life with sonorous echoes.
She was a modern Nausicaa, with the same child-like grandeur and
unconscious dignity as her Homeric prototype. It was not until to-day
that he had become aware of the distance which separated him from her.
They had visited together the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, where
a crude tableau of the Nativity of Christ is exhibited during
Christmas week. Her devoutness in the presence of the jewelled doll,
representing the infant Saviour, had made a painful impression upon
him, and when, with the evident intention of compelling his reverence,
she had told him of the miracles performed by the "Bambino," he had
only responded with an incredulous smile. She had sent him a long,
reproachful glance; then, as the tears rose to her eyes, she had
hurried away and he had not dared to follow her.
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