So far his leaf upon Mola. But a wonderful circumstance seemed this very night to take him at his word in respect to the last assurance contained in his letter. In the yard of the inn were assembled many boatmen and others; all were contending violently about an opinion, and the most were continually saying: "To-day, to be sure, is Ascension Day, and he, too, has wrought miracles." "Ascension?" thought Albano, and remembered his birthday, which often fell on this festival. Dian came up and related, laughing, how the people were expecting down below the ascension of a monk, who had promised it this night, and many believed him for this reason, because he had already done a wonderful work, namely, given a dead man his speech for two hours, before all Mola. They both were agreed to witness the work. The multitude swelled,—the promised man came not, who was to lead them to the place of ascension,—all became angry rather than incredulous. At length late at night a mask appeared and gave, with a motion of the hand, a sign to follow it. All streamed after, even Albano and his friend. The pure moon shone fresh out of blue skies, the wide garden of the country slept in its blossoms, but all breathed fragrance, the slumbering and the waking flowers.
The mask led the crowd to the ruins of Cicero's house, or tower, and pointed upward. Overhead, on the wall, stood a trembling man. Albano found his face more and more familiar. At last the man said: "I am a father of death: may the Father of life be merciful to me. How it goes with me I know not. There stands one among you," he added at once in a strange, namely, in the Spanish language, "to whom I appeared one Good Friday on Isola Bella, and announced the death of his sister; let him journey on to Ischia, there will he find his sister."
Albano could not hear these words without excitement and indignation. The form of the Father of Death upon that island he saw now right clearly upon these ruins; and his promise to appear to him on a Good Friday came again to his mind. He tried now to work his way up to the ruins, so as to attack the monk. An inhabitant of Mola cried, when he heard the strange language: "The monk is talking with the Devil." The ascensionist said nothing to the contrary,—he trembled more violently,—but the people sought for him who had said it, and cried, "It is he with the mask, for he is no more to be found." At last the monk, quaking, begged they would be still when he vanished, and pray for him, and never seek his body. Albano was now close behind his back, unseen by Dian. Just then, high in the dark blue, came a flock of quails flying slowly along. The monk swiftly and staggeringly flung himself up, scattered the birds, cried out in the dark distance, "Pray!" and vanished away into the broad air.
The people cried and shouted with exultation, and part prayed; many believed now the Devil was in the play. Among the spectators lay a man with his face to the earth, and continually cried, "God have mercy on me!" But no man brought him to an explanation. Dian, privately a little superstitious, said his understanding was at a stand-still here. But Albano explained how a complot of ghosts had been long twitching and drawing at his life's curtain, but some day he should yet certainly thrust his hand successfully through the curtain, and he was firmly resolved immediately to cross over from Naples to Ischia, to see his sister. "Verily," he added, "in this mother country of wonder, fantasy, and everything great, one as easily believes in fair, enriching miracles of fate, as one does in the north in dreadful robbing miracles of spirits."
Dian was also for the earliest visit to the island of Ischia; "Because otherwise," he added, "when Albano had delivered his letters in Naples, and had been drawn in to the Ricevimenti,[[94]] or on Posilippo and Vesuvius, then there would be no getting away."
On the day following they departed from Mola. The lovely sea played hide-and-seek with them on their way, and only the golden sky never veiled itself. Naples' goblet of joy already intoxicated one from afar with its fragrance and spirit. Albano cast inspired looks at Campania Felice, at the Colosseum in Capua, and at the broad garden, full of gardens, and even at the rough Appian Way, which its old name made softer.
But he sighed for the island of Ischia, that Arcadia of the ocean, and that wonderful place where he was to find a sister. It was not in their power earlier than in the early part of Saturday night—if indeed waking and glancing life can be called night, particularly an Italian Saturday night—to reach Aversa. Albano insisted upon their continuing on in the night toward Naples. Dian was still reluctant. By chance there stood in the post-house a beautiful girl, who might be about fourteen years old, very much troubled at having missed the coach, and determined this very night to go on to Naples, in order to reach Ischia, where her parents were, early enough on the holy Sabbath. "She had come," she said, "from Santa Agata; her name was only Agata, and not Santa." "Probably her old joke," said Dian, but he was now—with his love of hovering about every fair form—himself quite in a mood for the night-ride, that so they might carry the black-eyed one along with them, who looked joyously and brightly into the fire of strange eyes. She accepted the invitation cheerfully, and prattled familiarly, like a naturalist, about Epomeo and Vesuvius, and predicted for them innumerable pleasures on the island, and altogether showed an intelligence and thoughtfulness far above her years. At last they all flew along under the bright stars out into the lovely night.
109. CYCLE
Albano goes on in the description of his journey thus:—
"A night of unrivalled serenity! The stars alone of themselves illuminated the earth, and the milky-way was silvery. A single avenue, intertwined with vine-blossoms, led to the magnificent city. Everywhere one heard people, now near, talking, now distant, singing. Out of dark chestnut woods, on moonlit hills, the nightingales called to one another. A poor, sleeping maiden, whom we had taken with us, heard the melodies even down into her dream, and sang after them; and then, when she awoke herself therewith, looked round confusedly and with a sweet smile, with the whole melody and dream still in her breast. On a slender, light two-wheeled carriage, a wagoner, standing on the pole and singing, rolled merrily along by. Women were already bearing in the cool of the hour great baskets full of flowers into the city; in the distance, as we passed along, whole Paradises of flower-cups sent their fragrance; and the heart and the bosom drank in at once the love-draught of the sweet air. The moon had gone up bright as a sun in the high heaven, and the horizon was gilded with stars; and in the whole cloudless sky stood the dusky cloud-column of Vesuvius, alone, in the east.