Yet another feeling overpowered him, a new feeling. The father had become afraid of the son.
Book VI
THE FUGITIVE TSAREVITCH
CHAPTER I
The Tsarevitch and Afrossinia were boating one summer moonlight night, on the Gulf of Naples.
The very soul of Alexis was thrilled by the harmony around him; harmony in the tremor of the moon’s golden train which fell upon the water, a blazing path reaching from Posilippo across to the very brink of the horizon; harmony in the murmur of the sea, and the light breeze which carried, together with the salt freshness of the sea air, sweet perfume from the shores of Sorrento, clad in lemon and orange groves; harmony in the silvery azure outlines of Mount Vesuvius, wrapped in luminous mist, emitting a white smoke and, from time to time, flaring up like dying embers on an altar consecrated to the gods; the gods who had died, who had risen again, and again had expired.
“Dearest one, see how lovely this is,” whispered the Tsarevitch.