Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/431

Rh child? Have I any right to guide it into the course in which I believe that her happiness lies? Am I clairvoyant with regard to the inner relationship of these two? One thing however I am certain of, and that is, that this state of unclearness and indecision must come to an end, that she must be candid with herself and with him, and this I ought to, and will, tell her when she is better. I know how well she receives every word of affectionate admonition.

October 21st.—Little Elsa still continued unwell on the morning after the day on which I wrote last. The Baroness ——— established herself in her room, with L'Histoire de ma Vie, by George Sand, and I, in order to dissipate my anxiety and impatience as regarded the position of affairs, took the train to Pompeii. I wished once more in perfect quietness to visit this grand memento mori, and to converse there with the dead and with my own thoughts. In an hour's time I was there.

I engaged at the entrance a cicerone, who seemed to me a rational, good sort of person, telling him that I wished to walk about the city according to my own fancy and required him therefore only to attend me at a distance. The day was glorious, and I was the sole visitor to Pompeii, and I went freely whithersoever I chose in the desolated city. Excited as my feelings were by the present disquiet of the actual life, my rambles through the ancient dwellings of the dead became doubly significant. I saw again the decorative private habitations, with those small rooms, those beautiful fresco paintings, often representing scenes of sensual pleasure, the flower-court with its