in short he became in a manner so worn away upon the stone, that he was at last as thin as the edge of a penknife; and this marble was a millstone which crushed his life, a slab porphyry upon which the colours of his days were ground and mixed, a tinder-box which set fire to the brimstone match of his soul, a loadstone which attracted him, and lastly a rolling-stone which could never rest.
At length his brother Jennariello, seeing him so pale and half-dead, said to him, "My brother, what has happened to you, that you carry grief lodged in your eyes, and despair sitting under the pale banner of your face[1]? What has befallen you? Speak—open your heart to your brother: the smell of charcoal shut up in a chamber poisons people—powder pent up in a mountain blows it into the air; open your lips therefore, and tell me what is the matter with you; at all events be assured that I would lay down a thousand lives if I could to help you."
Then Milluccio, mingling words and sighs, thanked him for his love, saying that he had no doubt of his affection, but that there was no remedy for his ill, since it sprung from a stone, where he had sown desires without hope of fruit,—a stone from which he did not expect a mushroom of content,—a stone of Sisyphus,
- ↑ An allusion to the Roman army.
