On a fresh, blue morning Albano stood, before the resurrection of the
sun in heaven, on the high, bloom-encircled pyramid of terraces, where
he had once, on awaking, seen his dear father flee without farewell;
and he gazed with emotion down into the vacant, broad lake, and around
on the summits of the glaciers, which already bloomed in the reflection
of Aurora riding down from on high,--and no one was with him but the
past. He looked upon himself and into his breast, and thought: "What
a long, heavy time has already passed through this bosom since that
day! A whole world has become a dream within me! And the heart still
beats fresh and sound within thee!" All at once he saw, in the light
morning-smoke of the lake, a skiff rowing along. Slowly, lazily it
waded, for he saw it from a great distance. At last it glided, it flew;
the sail bloomed up in the morning-blaze, and the green waves became a
wild-fire, playing around it, as formerly in Ischia, on that evening,
around Linda's skiff.
Linda it was, and his sister. They looked up, and motioned a greeting.
He cried, in hasty joy, "Dian! Dian!" and ran down the long flight of
steps, all astonished and enraptured at the wide-spread splendor,
because, on account of the glad apparition, he had not seen the sun
rise, for it was he who was strewing before the loved one the fair
flames, like morning flowers along the path of the waters.
"Is it you again, ye divine ones? O speak, weep for joy, that I am
blest and have you once more. Come ye then again with your real old
love?" Thus he went on speaking in eloquent ecstasy, born of his
long-dreaming expectation. Linda looked with secret angelic pleasure,
with lovely reflection into the high-playing flames of his love; and
his sister enjoyed in a sweet emotion of sympathy the beautiful
mildness on both their countenances, which, in union with energy, is as
enchanting as moonlight on a mountain. Descriptions of travels were
begun by both parties, but ended by neither; arrangements for the day
and plannings out of the island were projected, but none chosen.
Julienne held up before his heart his own word and her stipulation,
that at evening he must pursue his journey, as a slight cooling against
the fire of joy that burned therein; sadly he looked up to the
friendly, serene morning sun, as if it were not mounting higher, but
already going downward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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