"But our friend goes too. O, if thou at this hour of death's juggleries art contemplating the pale Prince, with the images of youth on his breast, and thinking of the gray friend who secretly bewails him in Tartarus, then will thy heart dissolve, and in soft, warm flames run round through thy bosom, and softly say: 'I will love, and then die, and then love--O Almighty, show me the soul which longs and languishes like mine!' "If thou say'st that, if thou art thus, then come to my heart: I am as thou. Grasp my hand, and hold it till it withers. I have seen thy form to-day, and on it the marks of life's wounds: hasten to me; I will bleed and struggle at thy side. I have long and early sought and loved thee. Like two streams will we mingle and grow, and bear our burdens, and dry up together. Like silver in the furnace, we will run together with glowing light, and all slags shall lie cast out around the pure shimmering metal. Laugh not, then, any longer so grimly, to think what _ignes-fatui_ men are; like _ignes-fatui we_ burn and fly away in the rainy storm of time. And then, when time is gone by, we find each other again, and it will be again in the spring. "ALBANO DE CESARA." 48. CYCLE. How gloriously,--before all the beating veins of the inner man, like those of the outer in old age, have stiffened into gristle, and all the vessels have become inflexible and earthy, and the moral pulse, like the physical, hardly makes sixty strokes in a minute, and before the shy old fool, at every emotion, reserves a piece of his nature which he keeps cold and dry, and which is to wait for another occasion, as sprinkled raspberry leaves always remain dry on the rough side,--how gloriously, I say, before this period of espionage, does a youth, especially an Albano, step along his path, how freely, boldly, and exultingly! and seeks with equal confidence the friend and the foe, and closes with him, to fight either for him or against him! Let this excuse Albano's fiery letter! The next day he received from Roquairol this answer:-- "I am as thou. On ascension-evening I will seek thee among the masks. "CHARLES."