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Now, it came to pass—and it was the greatest marvel of all—that Bianca, by her reproving and reforming Balsàbo, had her own heart turned to goodness, and gave herself up to good works and study and prayer; and unto her studies Balsàbo, curiously interested, gave great aid. Then she learned marvellously deep secrets of magic and spirits, but nothing evil; and it came to pass that in her books she found that there were beings born of the elements, creatures appointed to live a thousand years or more, and then pass away into air or fire, and exist no longer. Furthermore, she discovered that such wandering spirits sometimes took up their abode in human bodies, and that, being neither good nor bad, they were always wild and strange, given up of all things to quaint tricks and strange devices, as ready unto one thing as another.

And it came to her mind, as she noted how Balsàbo knew all languages, and spoke of things which took place ages before as if he had lived in them, and of men long dead as if he had known them, that he who was her father aforetime was ignorant of all this as he was of gentleness or kindness or good nature, all which Balsàbo carried to a fault, not caring to take the pains to injure his worst enemy or to do a good turn to his best friend, unless it amused him, in which case he would kill the one with as little sorrow as if he were a fly, and give the other a castle or a thousand crowns, and think no more of it than if he had fed a hawk or a hound. And all such good deeds he played off in some droll fashion, like tricks, as if thinking that sport, and nothing else, was the end and aim of all benevolence. However, as regarded Bianca and her brothers and sisters, he seemed to have other ideas, and to her he appeared to be as another being, in love and awe obeying her as a child and striving to understand her lessons.