He asked her for her opinion about the two temples. "Here Sophocles, there Shakespeare; but I comprehend and appreciate Sophocles more easily," she replied, and looked with new eyes into his new countenance. For the supernatural illumination through the zenith of Heaven--not through a hazy horizon--transfigured in her eyes the beautiful and excited countenance of the youth, and she took for granted that the saintly halo of the dome must also exalt her form. When he answered her: "Very good! But in Shakespeare Sophocles also is contained; not, however, Shakespeare in Sophocles; and on Peter's Church stands Angelo's rotunda!" Just then the lofty cloud all at once, as by the blow of a hand out of the ether, broke in two, and the ravished sun, like the eye of a Venus, floating through her ancient heavens,--for she once stood even here,--looked mildly in from the upper deep; then a holy radiance filled the temple, and burned on the porphyry of the pavement, and Albano looked around him in an ecstasy of wonder and delight, and said, with low voice: "How transfigured at this moment is everything in this sacred place! Raphael's spirit comes forth from his grave in this noontide hour, and everything which its reflection touches brightens into godlike splendor!" The Princess looked upon him tenderly, and he lightly laid his hand upon hers, and said, as one vanquished, "Sophocles!" On the next moonlit evening Gaspard bespoke torches, in order that the Colosseum with its giant-circle might, the first time, stand in fire before them. The Knight would fain have gone around alone with his son dimly through the dim work, like two spirits of the olden time, but the Princess forced herself upon him, from a too lively wish to share with the noble youth his moments,--and perhaps, in fact, to have her heart and his own common property. Women do not sufficiently comprehend that an idea, when it fills and elevates man's mind, shuts it up against love, and crowds out persons, whereas with woman all ideas easily become human beings.