“The morning is fine, count,” he remarked, as the attendant handed him a cup of coffee; “it is a charming day for rambling, and I will show you over the grounds.”
“I shall go with pleasure,” answered he, and then continued his description of Mecca, and the grave of the Prophet.
“Of what are you speaking?” asked my husband.
“My travels in Arabia,” said the count, “I have been there within the last three years. Since we parted at Naples, I travelled through the East.”
“Ah!” said Rinaldo, “I did not know that; how desolate those countries of the Levant are now: what a contrast they present when we recall the olden time.”
“Desolate enough, and the means of travelling miserable, and stopping places filthy.
“All life, all commerce, all enterprise seems progressing onward to the North of Europe, leaving the East, and even us, far behind; we are on the decline, never probably to be revived again.
“Thus it is with every thing on earth, every thing has its beginning, its zenith, and its fall. But do not let us involve madame in a didactic controversy, we will continue our philosophies when alone, my friend,” said he, bowing to me, as I accepted his escort to my salon, when my husband and himself departed for their walk.
As I crossed the corridor to my bed chamber for my tapestry, to amuse myself during the morning, I again met some of those shrouded forms which seemed to haunt, like ghosts, the castle. One of them, pushing partially back the cowl he wore, disclosed to my view a remarkably sunburnt, repulsive physiognomy, whose harsh dark features appeared to me the index to a harsh dark soul.
“God save thee, lady, but I wish to see the master, Monsieur de Serval,—is he at home?”