What he had always feared was coming to pass.
When the Romans could no longer vanquish their foes on the field of battle, they destroyed them with their women.
The gardens which Eckhardt traversed resembled the fabled treasure-house of Aladdin. Every tree glistened with sparkling clusters of red, blue and green lights, every flowerbed was bordered with lines and circles of iridescent globes, and the fountains tossed up spiral columns of amber, rose and amethyst spray against the transparent azure of the summer skies, in which a lustrous golden moon shone full.
But a madness seemed suddenly to have seized the revellers.
No one knew whither Crescentius had gone.
No one knew who was a dancer, a flute-player, a noble.
Satyrs and fauns fell to chasing nymphs with shouting. Everywhere laughter and shouts were heard, whispers and panting breaths. Darkness covered certain parts of the groves. Truly it was a long time, since anything similar had been seen in Rome.
Roused and intoxicated by the contamination, the fever had at last seized Otto. Rushing into the forest, he ran with the others. New flocks of nymphs swarmed round him every moment. Seeing at last a band of maidens led by one arrayed as Diana, he sprang to it, intending to scrutinize the goddess more closely. They encircled him in a mad whirl, and, evidently bent upon making him follow, rushed away the next moment like a herd of deer. But he stood rooted to the spot with wildly beating heart.
A great yearning, such as he had never felt before, seized him at that moment and the love for Stephania rushed to his heart as a tremendous tidal wave. Never had she seemed to him so pure, so dear, so beloved, as in that forest of frenzied madness. A moment before he had himself wished to drink of that cup, which drowned past and present; now he was seized with repugnance and remorse. He felt stifled in this unholy air; his eyes sought the stars, glimmering through the interstices of the interwoven branches.
A shadow fell across his path.