J."
Albano found in this character a silent justification and satisfaction of all demands which at an earlier period, when Liana was still living, he had always felt compelled to make upon a loved being. He did not, however, perceive, in the innocence of his love, that this was the very being whom the longing after war and exploits that reigned in his letter could not please.
He visited now the subterranean city in its churchyard, near the Cestius' pyramid, as it were, of the volcano. Dian went through Herculaneum with him as an antiquarian lexicon, in order to unroll before him the whole domestic economy of the ancients, up to their very painting; but Albano was more moved than his friend by this picture of the past dwelling in the midst of the present,—by the still houses, and night-like streets, and by the frequent traces of flying despair. "Would not all these people, then, have been dead now, after all, if it had not been for Vesuvius?" asked Dian, gayly, in this gay region. "I ask you, rather," he continued, "whether an architect who comes out of this chamber or city of art can take any longer much pleasure in sketching in your Germany, after seeing these ruins of the earth, the petty, pitiful ones for your princely gardens?" They saw in a dark vestibule one of those earthern masks which they used to put into graves, with lamps like eyes behind. Then Albano looked at him staringly, and said, "Are we not gleaming earth-masks on graves?" "Fie! what an odious idea!" said Dian.
Yet a long time, out there in the living sunshine, did gloomy forms follow him. Near the shining Portici stood Vesuvius, like a funeral pile, and on it the death-angel. He thought of Hamilton's prediction, that the lovely Ischia would one day perish over the mine of an earthquake. Even Linda's letter troubled him, with the bare imagination of the possibility of losing her.
In Naples he examined a few more curiosities; then on the next morning he embarked for the Eden of the waves.
115. CYCLE.
And when they saw and embraced each other again, they were even more enraptured and devoted to each other than any happy heart could have foreseen. Linda sat still and soft, looked upon the fair youth, and let him and his sister tell their stories, the latter often interrupting herself to kiss both. He spoke with great joy about Linda's letter. Men always make more out of what is written than women. Linda spoke indifferently: "Ah, well, once written and read, let it be forgotten. In yours, too, there is occasionally a northern faux brillant." "The Countess," said Julienne, "never praises any one to the face, but herself." Linda bore the joke with characteristic good-nature. Albano, often pleasing and often offending her when he was not conscious of it, forgave love ever so easily. Friendship finds it harder to get forgiveness from offended vanity.
"Yes, indeed!" cried Julienne, suddenly starting under the veil of mirthfulness for a serious discourse; "thy project of emigrating to France is a faux brillant. Canst thou then believe that they will allow a princess-sister of Hohenfliess to sign a pass to her brother for a democratic campaign? Never! And nobody at all will do it who loves thee!" Albano smiled, but at last grew serious. Linda was silent, and cast down her eyes. "Can you show me," said he, softly, as half in earnest and half in jest, "a purer field of spurs on the whole map?" "A poorer field of spurge!"[[103]] said she, playing on the words. "Hardly, I should think!" Now she began to shadow forth, with aristocratic, feminine, and princely colors at once, with tri-colored paints, all the flames, smoke-clouds, and waves with which the Monte Nuovo of the Revolution had come up from the ground, and added, "Better an idle count than that!" He grew red. Always had this womanly fettering of man's energy, this affectionate fastening of one down to flowers, this unrighteous forging over of the love-ring into a galley-ring, been to him a crying and odious thing. "In a world which is only a fair-week and mask-ball, not to be able to maintain even the freedom of fair and masquerade, is tough," Schoppe had once said; and he had never forgotten it, because it came right out of his own soul back into it again. "Sister, either thou art not my brother, or I am not thy sister," said he, "else we should understand each other more easily." Linda's hand quivered in his, and her eye rose slowly towards him, and quickly sank again. Julienne seemed to be touched with the reproach cast upon her sex. Albano thought of the time when he had crushed a heart of wax with one of iron, and said, more brightly and coldly, "Julienne, I should be very willing not to say no to thee, if thou wouldst not take the absence of a negative for an affirmative." He could, it occurred to him, easily hide his contradiction behind the future, since in fact no war was as yet decided upon in Europe; but he did not deem that honorable and dignified enough. "Do not torment!" said Linda to her. "Certainly," said Julienne, with quickness, "I can, indeed, only think of this and that; what do I know?" and looked very serious. "Two days longer," she added, and sought to escape from the serious mood, "can we spend like gods, yes, like goddesses, upon the island,—although, at all events, I should answer for a god, only not for a goddess; that requires a taller person. I am only a foil to the Countess out of infinite good-nature." For Julienne's stature lost by the neighborhood of the majestic Linda.
The war of the loving beings had, however, not concluded with a peace, and therefore remained an armistice. As Vesuvius throws glowing stones, so does man throw his objections up in himself, alternately flinging them aloft and swallowing them again, till at last a more lucky direction sends them out over the brink.
In Albano, as may well be supposed, the question was working, what Linda's silence in the little war imported respecting and against the great one; but he did not propose it. Conscious of the unchangeableness of his purpose, he was milder toward his sister, whom he, as he believed, should surely one day exceedingly wound by it. Thus had he become soft by the cold and warm alternation of life, as a precious stone, by rapid heating and cooling, is transformed into medicine.