Albano went out into the garden back of the house, into which the exposed mill-wheels threw their silver sparks, and which was as if swallowed up in the splendor and uproar of the open water. While he looked into the glimmering, flying whirlpools, the citrons which the corpse as well as the bride got hovered before his excited mind. Emotion is full of similes. Time was, thought he, when Liana should have journeyed to the citron-land, and into the low woods where the snow of blossoms and the gold of fruits play together between green and blue, and there she was to have gained health and refreshment; now she holds the citron in her cold, dead hand, and she is not quickened.
He looked round, and seemed to stand in a strange world. In the blue of heaven an invisible storm without clouds swept along like a spirit; long rows of hills shifted and sparkled with red fruits and red leaves; out of the gay trees glowing apples were flung; and the storm flew from summit to summit, and down upon the earth, and roared along down the whole course of the disturbed stream. One could fancy spirits played around the earth, or would appear upon it, so singularly seemed the bright welkin stirred and illuminated. By this time, Albano had come unconsciously into a dark, wooded wilderness; therein leaped, unseen, unheard, a pure, light fountain out of the earth upon the earth; the storm without was still, only the fountain was heard. "The holy one is near me," said his heart. "Is not the fountain her image? Is it not the very image of her eternal tears? Does she not press upward out of the earth, where she dwells?" All at once he saw in his hand, as if another's hand had laid it therein, the sketch of Linda's head which Liana, with dying hands, had made and presented; but his fancy powerfully impressed upon the picture the resemblance to the artist, so clearly did he see Liana's soft face upon the paper.
He went forth again into the shining world. "How poor I am!" he cried. "I see her upon the golden cloud which sails from the evening sun toward morning; I see her in the cool fountain of the vale, and on the moon, and on the flower. I see her everywhere; and she rests only on one spot. O, how poor!" And he looked up to heaven, and a single long cloud was floating therein, swiftly and far away.
102. CYCLE.
Thus did the days, with their cities and landscapes, fly by, and the world mirrored itself in Albano's life as in a poem. One faculty after another, the whole bowed harvest of his inner being, gradually rose up again green and dripping; but, at the same time, the thorn of grief also grew strong. While his eye and spirit were filling themselves with the world and all spoils of knowledge, the evil spectre of pain still kept his abode in the ruins, and came forth when the heart was alone, and seized it.
He touched Vienna, where he must needs be pleased to be introduced to several distinguished friends of Gaspard, who here, for the first time, disclosed to him that he belonged not to the Cavalleros del Turone, but was an Austrian Knight of the Fleece. "It is so singularly familiar to me here," said Albano; "whence can this arise?" "From some resemblance to another city," said Gaspard; "whoever travels much comes out of like cities into like." Every day his father grew more dear and intelligible to him, and yet no more confidential or intimate. After a warm day and familiar conversation with Gaspard, one stood, at the next succeeding interview, again in the very antechamber of his acquaintance; as in the case of hard-natured maidens, after every May-month's day the melted May-frost begins to fall anew. Age respects love, but, unlike youth, it respects little the signs of love. However, Albano maintained the pride of letting his father see him wholly and with all his differences, without hiding his summer from the face of winter.
From day to day Gaspard found letters to himself at the post-offices, particularly from Pestitz, as Albano saw externally by the post-marks, for not one was handed over to him. He desired more and more to overtake the Princess, who was now only one day's journey in advance of them. They saw already those giants of winter, the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, in their encampment; those sons of the gods stood, armed with avalanches and cataracts and winters, sentinels around the divine land where gods and men reciprocally imitated each other. How often did Albano, when the sun at evening glowingly blended with the snow-clad Alpine heights, gaze with a pang of sadness at those thrones, which he had once beheld quite otherwise, much more golden, so hopefully and trustingly, from Isola Bella! The heights of thy past life, said he to himself, are also white, and no Alpine horns any longer sound up there, among serene, sunny days, and thou art deep in the valley!
They passed, even now, the popular festival of a belated vintage. The Knight informed himself about everything with the curiosity of a wine-dealer, and with the science of a vine-dresser. So did he botanize universally upon the earth after every spear and sprig of knowledge. Albano wondered at this, since he had heretofore believed that Gaspard sought and strove after nothing but the Paris—and Hesperides-apples of art, because, in his station, he could have no occasion for any other fruits, or need their meat and their kernel, either to enjoy or to plant them.
They sank into the depths of the mountains of Tyrol. The heights stood already wrapped in the close, white bier-cloth of winter, and through the valleys the cold storm went to and fro, the only living thing. Albano's longing after the mild land of youth grew, between the storms and the Alps, higher and higher; and Rome's image, the nearer it approached him, assumed more colossal dimensions. Gaspard made the journey go on wings, in order to anticipate the rain-clouds of autumn.
In a dark travelling night they worked their passage, as it were, away through the mountains, like their companion, the river Adige, which tears up a giant rock, and heaves it into the mild plain, and softly speeds on its level way. The sun appeared,—and Italy.