I was pondering for an answer, when he went on: “It is better so; love as you might, that southern nature with all its passion, is not the material to build domestic happiness upon; nor is your northern habit—whatever you may think at your time of life, the one to cherish always those passionate sympathies which are bred by this atmosphere, and their scenes.”
One moment my thought ran to my little parlor, and to that fairy figure, and to that sweet angel face; and then, like lightning it traversed oceans, and fed upon the old ideal of home, and brought images to my eye of lost—dead ones, who seemed to be stirring on heavenly wings, in that soft Roman atmosphere, with greeting, and with beckoning.
—“I will go with you,” said I.
The father shrugged his shoulders, when I told him I was going to the mountains, and wanted a guide. His wife said it would be cold upon the hills, for the winter was not ended. Enrica said it would be warm in the valleys, for the spring was coming. The old man drummed with his fingers on the table, and shrugged his shoulders again, but said nothing.
My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare said it would be hard walking. Enrica asked papa, if there would be any danger. And again the old man shrugged his shoulders. Again I asked him, if he knew a man who would serve us as a guide among the Appenines; and finding me determined, he shrugged his shoulders, and said he would find one the next day.
As I passed out at evening, on my way to the Piazzo near the Monte Citorio, where stand the carriages that go out to Tivoli, Enrica glided up to me, and whispered—“Ah, mi dispiace tanto—tanto, Signor!”
THE APPENINES
I shook her hand, and in an hour afterward was passing, with my friend, by the Trajan forum, toward the deep shadow of San Maggiore, which lay in our way to the mountains. At sunset we were wandering over the ruin of Adrian’s villa, which lies upon the first step of the Appenines. Behind us, the vesper bells of Tivoli were sounding, and their echoes floating sweetly under the broken arches; before us, stretching all the way to the horizon, lay the broad Campagna; while in the middle of its great waves, turned violet-colored by the hues of twilight, rose the grouped towers of the Eternal City; and lording it among them all, like a giant, stood the black dome of St. Peter’s.