And now Morano spoke to Rodriguez.  He thought towards him, and Rodriguez was aware of his thinking:  it is thus that spirits communicate.

“Master,” he said, “when it was all spring in Spain, years ago when I was thin and young, twenty years gone at least; and the butterflies were come, and song was everywhere; there came a maid bare-footed over a stream, walking through flowers, and all to pluck the anemones.”  How fair she seemed even now, how bright that far spring day.  Morano told Rodriguez not with his blundering lips:  they were closed and resting deeply millions of miles away:  he told him as spirits tell.  And in that clear communication Rodriguez saw all that shone in Morano’s memory, the grace of the young girl’s ankles, the thrill of Spring, the anemones larger and brighter than anemones ever were, the hawks still in clear sky; earth happy and heaven blue, and the dreams of youth between.  You would not have said, had you seen Morano’s coarse fat body, asleep in a chair in the Professor’s room, that his spirit treasured such delicate, nymph-like, pastoral memories as now shone clear to Rodriguez.  No words the blunt man had ever been able to utter had ever hinted that he sometimes thought like a dream of pictures by Watteau.  And now in that awful space before the power of the terrible Sun, spirit communed with spirit, and Rodriguez saw the beauty of that far day, framed all about the beauty of one young girl, just as it had been for years in Morano’s memory.  How shall I tell with words what spirit sang wordless to spirit?  We poets may compete with each other in words; but when spirits give up the purest gold of their store, that has shone far down the road of their earthly journey, cheering tired hearts and guiding mortal feet, our words shall barely interpret.

Love, coming long ago over flowers in Spain, found Morano; words did not tell the story, words cannot tell it; as a lake reflects a cloud in the blue of heaven, so Rodriguez understood and felt and knew this memory out of the days of Morano’s youth.  “And so, master,” said Morano, “I sinned, and would indeed repent, and yet even now at this last dread hour I cannot abjure that day; and this is indeed Hell, as the good father said.”

Rodriguez tried to comfort Morano with such knowledge as he had of astronomy, if knowledge it could be called.  Indeed, if he had known anything he would have perplexed Morano more, and his little pieces of ignorance were well adapted for comfort.  But Morano had given up hope, having long been taught to expect this very fire:  his spirit was no wiser than it had been on Earth, it was merely freed of the imperfections of the five senses and so had observation and expression beyond those of any artist the world has known.  This was the natural result of being freed of the body; but he was not suddenly wiser; and so, as he moved towards this boundless flame, he expected every moment to see Satan charge out to meet him:  and having no hope for the future he turned to the past and fondled the memory of that one spring day.  His was a backsliding, unrepentant spirit.