Before an hour Albano was travelling with his Dian out of the illuminated Rome. The blue heavens, floating down, undulated on the heights and on the dome of St. Peter's, and long shadows, begemmed with pearls of dew, still slept on the flowers; but the blessed morn had flown far back out of the hard day. They met before the gate a circular crowd, who stood around the beautiful form of one murdered, and who repeated, with a pleased expression, over the prostrate body, instead of casting the word with indignation in the teeth of the murderer, "_Quanto e' bello!_"[88] And Albano thought how often they had exclaimed behind his back, "_Quanto e' bello!_" TWENTY-EIGHTH JUBILEE. Letter From Pestitz.--Mola.--The Heavenly Ascension of a Monk.--Naples.--Ischia.--The New Gift of the Gods. 108. CYCLE. A little light in our apartment can screen us against the blinding effect of the whole heaven-broad lightning-glare; so it needs in us only a single, constantly shining idea and tendency, that the rapid alternation of flame and light in the outer world may not dizzy us. Had not Albano had an end in view which could be seen far-off,--had he not kept before his eye an obelisk in his life-path,--how long would the last scene, with its pangs cutting through each other, have confounded him! Now he was like the kindled olive--and laurel-leaves around him, whose flames grow green as they are themselves. Dian, who drove away the pains of others, because he, being easily movable, soon grew from a spectator to a sharer of them, made Albano and himself gay by his ardent interest in every beautiful form, every ruin, every little joy. He had the rare and beautiful gift of being cheerful upon journeys, of plucking every flower, but no thistle; whereas the majority jog along with the night-cap under the hat; from station to station, gaping as they go on, and in grumbling war with every face, they travel through whole paradises as if they were antechambers of hell. In the waste Pontine marshes, wherein only buffaloes thrive and men grow pale, Dian sought for all sorts of amusement, and even drew forth his letter-case, in order to get over the last fishing-water of the papal territory, out of the reach of Peter's fisherman successors, without falling into a deadly sleep. There he stumbled, with a modern Greek curse, upon a letter to Albano, which had been enclosed in one from Chariton, and which in Rome he had forgotten, in the hurry of departure, to hand over; but he soon laughed about it, and found it good that in this "Devil's-dale" one had something to read against sleep. It was the following from Rabette:--