The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes — John Shaqi
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
General
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
German literature -- 19th century -- Translations into English; German literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English
Then Albano stretched out his arm into the air, as if he were giving
an embrace and flowing away as in the arms of a stream, and exclaimed,
"O ye mighty shades, ye, who once strove and lived here, ye are
looking down from Heaven, but scornfully, not sadly, for your great
fatherland has died and gone after you! Ah, had I, on the
insignificant earth, full of old eternity which you have made great,
only done one action worthy of you! Then were it sweet to me and
legitimate to open my heart by a wound, and to mix earthly blood with
the hallowed soil, and, out of the world of graves, to hasten away to
you, eternal and immortal ones! But I am not worthy of it!"
At this moment there came suddenly along up the _Via Sacra_ a tall
man, deeply enveloped in a mantle, who drew near the fountain without
looking round, threw down his hat, and held a coal-black, curly,
almost perpendicular, hindhead under the stream of water. But hardly
had he, turning upward, caught a glimpse of the profile of Albano,
absorbed in his fancies, when he started up, all dripping, stared at
the count, fell into an amazement, threw his arms high into the air,
and said, "_Amico_!" Albano looked at him. The stranger said,
"Albano!" "My Dian!" cried Albano; they clasped each other
passionately and wept for love.
Dian could not comprehend it at all; he said in Italian: "But it
surely cannot be you; you look old." He thought he was speaking German
all the time, till he heard Albano answer in Italian. Both gave and
received only questions. Albano found the architect merely browner,
but there was the lightning of the eyes and every faculty in its old
glory. With three words he related to him the journey, and who the
company were. "How does Rome strike you?" asked Dian, pleasantly. "As
life does," replied Albano, very seriously, "it makes me too soft and
too hard." "I recognize here absolutely nothing at all," he continued;
"do those columns belong to the magnificent temple of Peace?" "No,"
said Dian, "to the temple of Concord; of the other there stands yonder
nothing but the vault." "Where is Saturn's temple?" asked Albano.
"Buried in St. Adrian's church," said Dian, and added hastily: "Close
by stand the ten columns of Antonine's temple; over beyond there the
baths of Titus; behind us the Palatine hill; and so on. Now tell
me--!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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