All these occupations and thorns were to Albano right good, sharp earthquake-conductors, since in his bosom already more subterranean storm-matter circulated than is needed to burst the thin wall of a man's chest. Now he began to get on deeper and deeper into the wild thunder-months of life. The longing to see Don Zesara caught new warmth from the Roman history, which lifted up on high before him Caesar's colossal image, and wrote under it, "Zesara." The veiled Linden-city was carried over by his fancy and set upon seven hills, and exalted to a Rome. A post-horn rang through his innermost being, like a Swiss Ranz des Vaches, which builds out into the ether all summits of our wishes in long and shining mountain-chains; and it blew for him the signal of a tent-striking, and all cities of the earth lay with open gates and with broad highways round about him. And when, at this period, on a cool, clear summer morning, he marched along metrically by the side of a regiment on its way to Pestitz, so long as he could hear the sound of the drums and fifes, then did his soul celebrate a Handel's Alexander's Feast; the past became audible,--the rattling of the triumphal cars, the movement of the Spartan bands and their flutes, and the clear trumpet of Fame,--and, as if at the sound of the last trumpets, his soul arose among none but glorified dead on the unbolted earth, and, with them, still marched onward. When History leads a noble youth to the plains of Marathon, and up to the Capitol, he would fain have at his side a friend,--a comrade,--a brother-in-arms, but no more than this,--no sister-in-arms; for a heroine injures a hero greatly. Into the energetic youth friendship enters earlier than love: the former appears, like the lark, in the early spring of life, and goes not away till late autumn; the latter comes and flees, like the quail, with the warm season. Albano already heard this lark warbling, invisible, in the air: he found a friend, not in Blumenbühl, not in the Linden-city, not in any place, but in his own bosom; and the name of that friend was--Roquairol.