Blanden followed in eager haste, but he found himself amid a confusion of barks that formed an inextricably entangled clew. Intoxicated sons of the muses increased the confusion, they took pleasure in the cries of terror of the girls whose boats began to rock dreadfully, and would have liked to enact the rape of the Sabines upon the water. Blanden cursed the interruption; at last he succeeded in freeing his boat; the Principessa's bark had gained a great advantage, but he might hope to encounter it again on its return journey.
This hope disappointed him! When he had rowed along the extent of the last gardens beside the castle lake, he met the empty boat guided by a boatman.
The party must have landed at some private garden, several of which enframed the lake at this part; the surly old man on being hailed, replied "that he knew nothing." The traces of the mysterious beauty were lost to him again.
"But not for ever," he vowed to himself!
She had thrown the nosegay into the water; should all memory of the happiness of love be buried with it?
But, no! He was filled with a new hope in life; the castle lake had suddenly been transformed, as if by fairy's art, into the enchanted Italian one. Vine clad hill terraces rose on its level shores, distant lofty ice peaks cast avalanches upon the Alpine passes, and in the shade of the pines lay the villa upon whose windows the moonlight played, telling of happiness to come.
CHAPTER VII.
["NORMA."]
The theatre bills, announced "Norma;" the character bearing that name was to be performed by an Italian singer. What was more probable than that on this evening the Principessa of Lago Maggiore should visit the theatre?
At the hour of opening the doors, Blanden appeared in the vestibule of the playhouse, which turns its melancholy monotonous-looking side to the Königsgarten, and resembles a military store building or laboratory for a Chief of the Ordnance, rather than a temple of art. Blanden watched all comers with painful anxiety; he greeted Professor Reising with his sisters-in-law, who appeared in most striking toilets, in ball costume, which was useless extravagance in the dark apartments of this temple of the muses, grudgingly illuminated by the chandelier.