anyone, as my host asserts, and when the
south-west wind is blowing the room is just scattered by the spray of
the spent waves. On all sides are folding doors, or windows quite as
large as doors, so that from two sides and the front you command a
prospect of three seas as it were; while at the back, as he shows me,
one can see through the inner court to the woods or the distant hills.
Just then the young mistress of the place comes to greet me, bidden by
my host her father, and in a moment I see the nobility of this life,
full of pure and honourable things, together with a certain simplicity
and sweetness. Seeing my admiration, my host speaks of his daughter, of
her love for him, of her delight in his speeches,--for he is of
authority in the city,--of how on such occasions she will sit screened
from the audience by a curtain, drinking in what people say to his
credit. He smiles as he tells me this, adding she has a sharp wit, is
wonderfully economical, and loves him well; and indeed she is worthy of
him, and doubtless, as he says, of her grandfather. Then my proud old
centurion leads me down the alleys of his garden full of figs and
mulberries, with roses and a few violets, till in the perfect stillness
of this retreat we come to the seashore, and there lies the white city
of Luna glistening in the sun. As I take my leave, reluctantly, for, I
would stay longer, my hostess is so sweet, my host so charming, I catch
sight of the name of the villa cut into the rosy marble of the gates:
"Ad Vigilias Albas" I read, and then and then ... Why, what is this? I
must have fallen asleep in that old theatre among the debris and the
fine grass. Ad Vigilias Albas--"White Nights," nights not of quite blank
forgetfulness, certainly. But it is with the ancestors of Marius I seem
to have been talking in the old city of Luna, that in his day had
already passed away.[14]

It was sunset when I found myself at the door of the Inn in Sarzana.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Even the name is uncertain. In the Duomo here, in Cappella di S.
Tommaso, you may find his mother's grave, on which she is called
Andreola dei Calandrini. His uncle, however, is called J.P.
Parentucelli. In two Bulls of Felix V he is called Thomas de
Calandrinis; cf. Mansi, xxxi. 190.

[12] Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Scrip._, III. ii. 107.

[13] Sed deverticulo fuimus fortasse loquaces:
Carmine propositum jam repetamus iter.
Advehimur celeri candentia moenia lapsu:
Nomin