But out of the darkness there came suddenly a handful of filth heaved at the bolted 
doors, and then another and then a volley of stones. I stepped back, shielding Ursula, 
and watched as one passerby after another slunk forward and hurled his insults at the 
shop. Finally, I lay against the wall opposite, staring dully in the darkness, and I 
heard the deep-throated bell of the church ring the hour of eleven, which meant surely 
that all men must vacate the streets.
  Ursula only waited on me and said nothing, and she noted it quietly when I looked up 
and saw the last of Fra Filippo's lights go out.
  "It's my doing," I said. "I took his angels from him, and he fell into this folly, and 
for what did I do it, for what, that I might possess you as surely now as he possesses 
his nun?"
  "I don't know your meaning, Vittorio," she said. "What are nuns and priests to me? I 
have never said a word to wound you, never, but I say such words now. Don't stand here 
weeping over these mortals you loved. We are wedded now, and no convent vow or priestly 
anointment divides us. Let's go away from here, and when by light of lamps you want to 
show me the wonders of this painter, then bring me, bring me to see the angels of which 
you spoke rendered in pigment and oil."
  I was chastened by her firmness. I kissed her hand again. I told her I was sorry. I 
held her to my heart.
  How long I might have stood with her there, I don't know. Moments passed. I heard the 
sound of running water and distant footsteps, but nothing of consequence, nothing which 
mattered in the thick night of crowded Florence, with its four- and five-story palaces, 
with its old half-broken towers, and its churches, and its thousands upon thousands of 
sleeping souls. A light startled me. It fell down upon me in bright yellow seams. I saw 
the first, a thin line of brilliance. It cut across her figure, and then there came 
another, illuminating the alley-like street beyond us, and I realized that the lamps had 
been lighted within Fra Filippo's shop.
  I turned just as the bolts inside were made to slide back with a low, grating noise. 
The noise echoed up the dark walls. No light shone above, behind the barred windows.
  Suddenly the doors were opened and slapped back softly, soundlessly almost, against the 
wall, and I saw the deep rectangle of the interior, a wide shallow room filled with 
brilliant canvases all blazing above candles enough to light a Bishop's Mass.
  My breath left me. I clutched her tightly, my hand on the back of her head as I pointed.
  "There they are, both of them, the Annunciations!" I whispered. "Do you see the angels, 
the angels who kneel, there, and there, the angels who kneel before the Virgins!''
  "I see them," she said reverently. "Ah, they are more lovely even than I supposed." She 
shook my arm. "Don't cry, Vittorio, unless it's for beauty's sake, only for that."
  "Is that a command, Ursula?" I asked. My eyes were so clouded I could scarce see the 
poised flat kneeling figures of Ramiel and Setheus.
  But as I tried to clear my vision, as I tried to gather my wits and swallow the ache in 
my throat, the miracle I feared more than anything in this world, yet craved, yet 
hungered for - that miracle commenced. Out of the very fabric of the canvas, they 
appeared simultaneously, my silk-clad blond-haired angels, my haloed angels, to unravel 
from the tight weave itself. They turned, gazing at me first and then moving so that they 
were no longer flat profiles but full robust figures, and then they stepped out and onto 
the stones of the shop.
  I knew by Ursula's gasp that she had seen the same vivid series of miraculous gestures. 
Her hand went to her lips.
  Their faces bore no wrath, no sadness. They merely looked at me, and in their sweet 
soft looks was all the condemnation I have ever understood.
  "Punish me," I whispered. "Punish me by taking away my eyes that I can never see your 
beauty again."
  Very slowly, Ramiel shook his head to answer no. And Setheus followed with the same 
negation. They stood side by side in their bare feet, as always, their abundant garments 
too light for movement on the heavy air, as they merely continued to gaze.
  "What then?" I said. "What do I deserve from you? How is it that I can see you and see 
your glory even still?" I was a wreck of childish tears again, no matter how Ursula 
stared at me, no matter how she tried with her silent reproach to make the man of me. I 
couldn't stop myself. "What then? How can I see you still?"
  "You'll always see us," Ramiel said softly, tonelessly.
  "Every time you ever look at one of his paintings, you will see us," said Setheus, "or 
you will see our like."
  There was no judgment in it. There was merely the same lovely serenity and kindness 
that they had always bestowed on me.
  But it was not finished. I saw behind them, taking dark shape, my own guardians, that 
solemn ivory pair, draped in their robes of shadowy blue.
  How hard were their eyes, how knowing, how disdainful yet without the edge which men 
lend to such passions. How glacial and remote.
  My lips parted. A cry was there. A terrible cry. But I dared not rouse the night around 
me, the infinite night that moved out over the thousands of slanted red-tile rooftops, 
out over the hills and the country, out under the numberless stars.
  Suddenly the entire building began to move. It trembled, and the canvases, brilliant 
and shimmering in their bath of burning light, were glittering as if shaken by a tremor 
of the very earth itself.
  Mastema appeared suddenly before me, and the room was swept backward, broadened, 
deepened, and all those lesser angels were swept back from him as if by a soundless wind 
that cannot be defied.
  The flood of light ignited his immense gold wings as they spread out, crowding the very 
corners of the vastness and pushing it even to greater breadth, and the red of his helmet 
glared as if it were molten, and out of his sheath, he drew his sword.
  I backed up. I forced Ursula behind me. I pushed her back against the damp cold wall 
and imprisoned her there, behind me, as safe as I could make her on the face of the 
earth, with my arms stretched back to hold her so that she could not, must not, be taken 
away.
  "Ah," said Mastema, nodding, smiling. The sword was uplifted. "So even now you would go 
into Hell rather than see her die!"
  "I would!" I cried. "I have no choice."
  "Oh, yes, you have a choice."
  "No, not her, don't kill her. Kill me, and send me there, yes, but give her one more 
chance..."
  Ursula cried against my shoulders, her hands clinging to my hair, catching hold of it, 
as if by means of it she'd be safe.
  "Send me now," I said. "Go ahead, strike off my head and send me to my judgment before 
the Lord that I may beg for her! Please, Mastema, do it, but do not strike her. She does 
not know how to ask to be forgiven. Not yet!"
  Holding the sword aloft, he reached out and grabbed my collar and jerked me towards 
him. I felt her fly against me. He held me beneath his face, and glowered down at me with 
his beaming eyes. "And when will she learn, and when will you?"
  What could I say? What could I do?
  "I will teach you, Vittorio," said Mastema in a low, seething whisper. "I will teach