Blanden inquired why Pauline had returned to the town.
He learned that she had been obliged to sell her estate, and also that she had sought consolation amongst her friends; in the country solitude she had been verging on despair.
The storm, meanwhile, had somewhat abated; Blanden relinquished his visit to the singer, and hastened to his house, so as to be able to indulge in those thoughts and emotions which besieged him after the occurrence in the churchyard. He was in a mood in which life no longer seemed worth living; the ruin of youth and beauty filled him with deep melancholy, and the connection between human destinies, by means of which a load of guilt suddenly struck an innocent person, occasioned painful reflections. To him it appeared enviable thus to be buried beneath the snow, to repose in wintry earth.
But if he would not cast himself amongst the dead, he must extinguish the candles in the sable-draped mourning chamber of his soul, beside the sarcophagus of past love, and step forth once more into the day of life.
On the following afternoon he visited Giulia--he found her alone; her obsequious friend left the room. The Signora looked pale and sad; the colouring of her features, which can only be designated by the Italian word morbidezza, looked almost sickly. Her eyes, however, shone joyously as Blanden entered, but when he would have folded her in his arms she stepped back in decided refusal.
"The lady of the Lago Maggiore and Signora Bollini are not the same persons. The former appeared in a dream, which the intoxicated rapture of the south begets, the latter appears in the sober north, so well-known that the newspapers speak of her. Here, in this world of citizens, one dreams no more! That we are acquainted with the same secret only gives us the right of friendship, and in token of it I offer you my hand."
She uttered it all deliberately, but yet in a cordial tone.
"Indeed," replied Blanden, whom the Signora had completely won by these words, "it is folly to wish to bind ourselves to a past that is divided from us by the flood of time. With time we too have changed, and often that has become utterly strange to us which formerly had such irresistible dominion over us. I honour your sentiments, Signora! The claim upon love must always be conquered anew, at least grant me the hope that we may succeed."
"I cannot but fear that without the magic of the south, the prize would not reward the trouble undertaken in earnest. What am I to you here, where my name can be read at every street corner?"
"The magic of art, Signora, can everywhere produce an Isola bella with its peep into enchanting distance."