[THIRTIETH JUBILEE.]
Tivoli.—Quarrel.—Isola Bella.—Nursery of Childhood. —Love.—Departure.
116. CYCLE.
Albano alighted again at the Prince Lauria's, who had hitherto swum in such a flood-tide of new incidents, that he had hardly been conscious of the absence, and was disposed to wonder at the return. Meanwhile the German war against France had been settled upon. This news he brought to his grandson, full of the joyful expectation what great scenes such a struggle must unfold. Even Albano was for a long time carried away with him by this high stream, before he thought that this intelligence would work otherwise and more dishearteningly on his sister than on him. But the heroic fire, into which he talked himself with the political Lauria, preluded to him easy victory over a sister's affection.
He was going to announce his arrival to his two friends, when he heard from the Prince that they had both, as he had heard from the Princess Altieri, with whom they resided, already gone to Tivoli. How happily he departed, guessing the friendly design of this episode journey, out of Rome, radiant as it was with love and spring, and looked quite as gayly towards the future, where his life opened so bloomingly before him, as toward Tivoli, where he hoped to press two hearts to one.
He found, when he arrived in the town of Tivoli, that the ardent maidens had already stolen away to the cascade. As a man in the Vale of Tempe, or before the Lake of Geneva, passes along only in a careless dream over the shore by the watery images of the heavens and the earth, because the blooming originals round about seize and kindle him,—even so the rocks of the thickly peopled landscape, and the round Temple of Vesta, and the vales dissolving into one another, from the Roman gate to the temple,—this shining procession glided by only as dream- and water-images before a heart, in which a living loved one bloomed, and crowded out a world with a world's fulness.
He roved around amidst the swarm of prospects, without finding the fairest, when a short, pale-yellow, richly dressed man eyed him with a shrivelled up face, and with a silken arm pointed unasked the way to the falls, saying if he were looking after the ladies, he would find them at the great cascade.
Albano said nothing, went onward, saw two, and recognized Linda by her tall form. At length the three friends saw, found, embraced each other, and the magnificent water-storm breathed into the delight. Linda spake tender words of love, and felt as if she were dumb, for the beautiful tempest of streams tore the tender syllables to pieces like butterflies. They had not heard each other, and stood before each other, pining for their sounds, encompassed with five thunders, with weeping eyes, full of love and joy. Holy spot, where already so many thousand hearts have sacredly burned and blissfully wept, and been constrained to say, Life is great! Serenely and steadily sparkles the city overhead in the sunshine down over the watery crater; proudly does the rent Temple of Vesta, garlanded with almond-blossoms, look down from its rock upon the whirlpools which undermine it; and opposite to it the tempestuous Anio preludes at once all that earth and heaven have of greatness,—the rainbow, the eternal lightning and thunder, rain, cloud, and earthquake.
They gave each other signs to go, and to seek the more quiet vale. How sounded to them therein the words, brother, sister, Linda, like new human tones in Paradise! Here, before ascending the hill full of new waterfalls, lightnings, and colors, they sought to report to each other their journeys and their news. Julienne made the happy report that her brother, the Prince, gave again hope of recovery, since he had, with waking eyes, as he insisted, seen his dead father, who had promised him a longer life. The fair Linda bloomed in the Paradise like a veiled goddess who had long been seeking and at last found her beloved on the earth. She took his hand often, and pressed it against her eyes and lips, and whispered, hardly audibly, when he spoke to her or Julienne, "Dear! friendly man!" As to the scenery she was silent, for she never spoke of any till she had once come out of it.