Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/234

220, mass of heathenism which heavily overlies its benign beginnings. Accordingly, the Wandering Jew again occurred to me as having been a witness of all this wonderful development and envelopment, and as having lived to experience so strange a state of things, that Christ himself, when he shall come a second time to gather in his harvest, will be in danger of being crucified a second time. The legend "Venio iterum crucifigi" was to serve me as the material of this catastrophe.

Dreams of this kind floated before me; for, out of impatience to get onward, I used to sleep in my clothes. And I know of nothing more beautiful than to wake before dawn, and, between sleeping and waking, to seat one's self in one's car, and travel on to meet the day.

Oct. 28, 1786.

I will not fail you this last evening. It is not yet eight o'clock, and all are already in bed: so I can for a good "last time" think over what is gone by, and revel in the anticipation of what is so shortly to come. This has been throughout a bright and glorious day,—the morning very cold, the day clear and warm, the evening somewhat windy, but very beautiful.

It was very late when we set off from Terni; and we reached Narni before day, and so I did not see the bridge. Valleys and lowlands; now near, now distant prospects; a rich country, but all of limestone, and not a trace of any other formation.

Otricoli is built on an alluvial gravel-hill thrown up by one of the ancient inundations. It is built of lava brought from the other side of the river.

As soon as one is over the bridge, one finds one's self in a volcanic region, either of real lava, or of the native rock changed by the heat and by fusion. You ascend a mountain, which you might set down at once