'What a strange love!' Elena said once, recalling those first days--her
illness, her rapid surrender--'My heart was yours from the first moment
I saw you.'
She felt a certain pride in the fact.
'And when, on that evening, I heard my name announced immediately after
yours,' her lover replied, 'I don't know why, but I suddenly had the
firm conviction that my life was bound to yours--for ever!'
And they really believed what they said. Together they re-read Goethe's
Roman elegy--_Lass dich, Geliebte, nicht reu'n, dass du mir so schnell
dich ergeben!_--Have no regrets, my Beloved, that thou didst yield thee
so soon--'Believe me, dearest, I do not attribute one base or impure
thought to you. Cupid's darts have varying effects--some inflict but a
slight scratch, and the poison they insinuate lingers for years before
it really touches the heart, while others, well feathered and armed with
a sharp and penetrating point, pierce to the heart's core at once and
send the fever racing through the blood. In the old heroic days of the
loves of the gods and goddesses desire followed upon sight. Think you
that the goddess of Love considered long in the grove of Ida that day
Anchises found favour in her eyes? And Luna?--had she hesitated, envious
Aurora would soon have wakened her handsome shepherd.'
For them, as for Faustina's divine singer, Rome was illumined by a new
light.
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