"After some time, we came to a long land swallowing up the north, as it were the foot of a single mountain; it was already the lovely Ischia, and I went on shore intoxicated with bliss, and then, for the first time, I thought of the promise that I should there find a sister."
110. CYCLE.
With emotion, with a sort of festive solemnity, Albano trod the cool island. It was to him as if the breezes were always wafting to him the words, "The place of rest." Agata begged them both to stay with her parents, whose house lay on the shore, not far from the suburb-town.[[95]] As they went over the bridge, which connects the green rock wound round with houses to the shore and the city, she pointed out to them joyfully in the east the individual house. As they went along so slowly, and the high, round rock and the row of houses stood mirrored in the water; and upon the flat roofs the beautiful women who were trimming the festal lamps for evening spoke busily over to each other, and greeted and questioned the returning Agata; and all faces were so glad, all forms so comely, and the very poorest in silk; and the lively boys pulled down little chestnut-tops; and the old father of the isle, the tall Epomeo, stood before them all clad in vine-foliage and spring-flowers, out of whose sweet green only scattered, white pleasure-houses of happy mountain-dwellers peeped forth;—then was it to Albano as if the heavy pack of life had fallen off from his shoulders into the water, and the erect bosom drank in from afar the cool ether flowing in from Elysium. Across the sea lay the former stormy world, with its hot coasts.
Agata led the two into the home of her parents, on the eastern declivity of Epomeo; and immediately, amidst the loud, exulting welcome, cried out, quite as loudly: "Here are two fine gentlemen, who wish to come home with me." The father said, directly: "Welcome, your excellencies! You shall, with pleasure, keep the chambers, though many bathing-guests will come by and by. You will find nowhere better quarters. I was formerly only a turner in the Fayence manufactory, but have been for these eight years a vine-dresser, and can afford to do a favor. When was there ever a better December and March[[96]] than this year? Your commands, excellencies!" Suddenly Agata wept; her mother had announced to her the interment of her youngest sister, for which solemnity, according to the fashion of the island, an eve of joy was appointed to-day, because they loved to congratulate each other upon the eternal, bliss-insuring ratification of a child's innocence by death. The old man would fain have gone at once right into narrations, when Dian begged his Albano, after so long a commotion of souls and bodies, to go to sleep till sunset, when he would wake him. Agata showed him the way to his cool chamber, and he went up.
Here, before the cooling sea-zephyr, the going to sleep was itself the slumber, and the echoing dream itself the sleep. His dream was an incessant song, which sang itself,—"The morning is a rose, the day a tulip, night is a lily, and evening is another morning."
He dreamed himself at last down into a long sleep. Late, in the dark, like an Adam in renovated youth, he opened his eyes in Paradise, but he knew not where he was. He heard distant, sweet music; unknown flower-scents swam through the air. He looked out; the dark heaven was strewed with golden stars, as with fiery blossoms; on the earth, on the sea, hovered hosts of lights; and in the depths of distance hung a clear flame steadily in the midst of heaven. A dream, of which the scene was unknown, confounded still the actual stage with one that had vanished; and Albano went through the silent, unpeopled house, dreaming on, out into the open air, as into an island of spirits.
Here nightingales, first of all, with their melody drew him into the world. He found the name Ischia again, and saw now that the castle on the rock and the long street of roofs in the shore-town stood full of burning lamps. He went up to the place whence the music proceeded, which was illuminated and surrounded with people, and found a chapel standing all in fires of joy. Before a Madonna and her child, in a niche, a night-music was playing, amidst the loquacious rustling of joy and devotion. Here he found again his hosts, who had all quite forgotten him in the jubilee; and Dian said, "I would have awaked you soon; the night and the pleasures last a great while yet."
"Do hear and see yonder the divine Vesuvius, who joins in celebrating the festival in such right good earnest," cried Dian, who plunged as deeply into the waves of joy as any Ischian. Albano looked over toward the flame, flickering high in the starry heaven, and, like a god, having the great thunder beneath it, and he saw how the night had made the promontory of Misenum loom up like a cloud beside the volcano. Beside them burned thousands of lamps on the royal palace of the neighboring island Procida.
While he looked out over the sea, whose coasts were sunk into the night, and which lay stretching away like a second night, immeasurable and gloomy, he saw now and then a dissolving splendor sweep over it, which flowed on ever broader and brighter. A distant torch also showed itself in the air, whose flashing drew long, fiery furrows through the glimmering waves. There drew near a bark, with its sail taken in, because the wind blew off shore. Female forms appeared on board, among which, one of royal stature, along whose red, silken dress the torch-glare streamed down, held her eyes fixed upon Vesuvius. As they sailed nearer, and the bright sea blazed up on either side under the dashing oars, it seemed as if a goddess were coming, around whom the sea swims with enraptured flames, and who knows it not. All stepped out on shore at some distance, where by appointment, as it seemed, servants had been waiting to make everything easy. A smaller person, provided with a double opera-glass, took a short farewell of the tall one, and went away with a considerable retinue. The red-dressed one drew a white veil over her face, and went, accompanied by two virgins, gravely and like a princess, to the spot where Albano and the music were.
Albano stood near to her; two great black eyes, filled with fire and resting upon life with inward earnestness, streamed through the veil, which betrayed the proud, straight forehead and nose. In the whole appearance there was to him something familiar and yet great; she stood before him as a Fairy Queen, who had long ago with a heavenly countenance bent down over his cradle and looked in with smiles and blessings, and whom the spirit now recognizes again with its old love. He thought perhaps of a name, which spirits had named to him, but that presence seemed here not possible. She fixed her eye with complacency and attention on the play of two virgins, who, neatly clad in silk, with gold-edged silken aprons, danced gracefully, with modestly drooping heads and downcast eyes, to the tambourine of a third; the two other virgins, whom the stranger had brought with her, and Agata, sang sweetly with Italian half-voice[[97]] to the graceful joy. "It is all done in fact," said an old man to the strange lady, "to the honor of the Holy Virgin and St. Nicholas." She nodded slowly a serious yes.