The dried-up bed of the Knight's life had been richly inundated again by the agitations of his heart. Even because, in well days, he held himself together, like mountains, with ice and moss, so in sick days, it seemed, did a real, internal commotion more easily restore his old energy and repose. He armed and equipped himself for travelling, which best built up and built upon his capricious body. The Princess put off her departure from day to day, merely in the firm and ardent expectation that Albano would impart to her, to take with her on her way, the fairest concluding word of her whole life. In Albano this blooming land awakened longings for--Spain, and Naples, he hoped, would appease them. Spring was already dawning upon Rome, and rising in Naples; the nightingale and man sang all night long, and the almond-trees were everywhere in bloom. But it seemed as if the three travellers were waiting for each other. Could the Princess hurry away from the heart upon which her being bloomed and took root,--she, like a torn-up rosemary twig, whose roots, at the same time with those of a germinating wheat-grain, take a double hold of the earth? Albano, too, would not hasten the hour which cast him into remote corners of the earth, far away at once from his father and his friend,--them into an after-winter, him into an early and latter spring,--and least of all just now. His spirit had appeased itself, and become reconciled with itself, by the resolution of war. His Portici was gloriously built up on the buried Herculaneum of his past. A letter from Pestitz decided matters. The mortally sick Prince wrote to the Princess, and begged to see her again; the letter was like a fire, bursting the common ground and scattering all that stand thereupon; the three confederates formed the purpose to set off on one and the same day,--on one morning,--so that one dawn might shed its gold into three travelling-carriages at once. Yet one thing the Princess desired on the evening previous to the departure, namely, Albano's company to the dome of St. Peter's in the morning; she wished to take Rome once more into her parting soul, when the dawn in its redness and splendor gilded the city. Albano, too, was glad to drink the must of a fiery hour, which might clear itself up into an eternal wine for the whole of life; for he knew not that the lively Princess,--made still more lively by Italy,--after waiting so long and impatiently for the fairest word from his lips, at last ventured indignantly upon a parting hour, in which it must escape from him. Early before sunrise, when, in Rome, many more go to bed than get up, he waited upon her; only her faithful Haltermann accompanied them. She still glowed with her night-long vigils, and seemed very much moved. Rome still slept; occasionally they were met by coaches and families, which were just finishing their night. The sky stood cool and blue over the dawning morn, the fresh son of the fair night.