In going away, he turned about several times to behold the windows of Corinne, and when he had lost sight of her habitation, he felt a sadness now new to him—that which springs from solitude. In the evening, he sought to dissipate his melancholy by joining a distinguished assembly in Rome; for to find a charm in reverie, we must in our happy as well as in our clouded moments, be at peace with ourselves.
The party he visited was soon insupportable to Lord Nelville, inasmuch as it made him feel more sensibly all the charms that Corinne could diffuse through society, by observing the void caused by her absence. He essayed to converse with some ladies, who answered him in that insipid phraseology which is established to avoid the true expression of our sentiments and opinions, if those who use it have anything of this sort to conceal. He approached several groups of gentlemen who seemed by their voice and gesture to be discoursing upon some important subject; he heard them discussing the most trivial topic in the most common manner. He then sat down to contemplate at his ease, that vivacity without motive and without aim which is found in most numerous assemblies; nevertheless, mediocrity in Italy is by no means disagreeable; it has little vanity, little jealousy, and much respect for superiority of mind; and if it fatigues with its dulness, it hardly ever offends by its pretensions.
It was in these very assemblies, however, that Oswald had found so much to interest him a few days before; the slight obstacle which the company opposed to his conversation with Corinne,—the speedy opportunity which she took to return to him as soon as she had been sufficiently polite to the rest of the circle,—the similarity of sentiment which existed between them in the observations which the company suggested,—the pleasure which Corinne took when discoursing in Oswald's presence, to address indirectly to him some reflection of which he alone comprehended the true meaning, had attached such recollections to every part of this very room, that Oswald had been deluded so far as to believe that there was something amusing in these assemblies themselves. "Ah!" said he, when departing, "it was here as every where else—she was the life of the scene; let me rather seek the most desert spot till she return. I shall feel her absence less bitterly when there is nothing about me bearing the resemblance of pleasure."
Book x.
HOLY WEEK.
Chapter i.
Oswald passed the following day in the gardens of some monasteries. He went first to that of the Carthusians, and stopped some time before he entered, to contemplate two Egyptian lions which are at a little distance from the gate. Those lions have a remarkable expression of strength and repose; there is something in their physiognomy belonging neither to the animal nor the man: they seem one of the forces of nature and enable us to form a conception how the gods of the Pagan theology might be represented under this emblem.