was not there; and what did I want to see besides? I had now to sit and listen to a long speech of gratitude, in which the multitude of eastern figures of speech would certainly have charmed your poetical turn of mind. I let it go on, thinking to myself 'she will come at last!' but she came not. In the mean time the Jew started an idea which, under other circumstances, would have been very good. He imagined that I, as a young man who was living in the world, should want money, but yet, at the same time, have no superabundance of it; that I had need occasionally to fly to compassionate souls, who, at from twenty to thirty per cent., showed their Christian love, but that he (and it is a miracle in the Jewish kingdom) would lend to me without any percentage at all. Do you hear? - with no percentage! —I was a noble young man - he would trust himself to my honesty! I had protected a twig of the stem of Israel, and not a splinter of this should rend my clothing!

"As I was not in need of any money, I did not take any; so he then besought me to condescend to taste his wine - the only bottle which he possessed. I know not what reply I made, but this I know, that the loveliest girl of oriental descent entered. There were form and color-hair shining and jet-black as ebony. She presented to me excellent wine of Cyprus, and that kingly blood of the line of Solomon crimsoned her cheeks as I emptied a glass to her happiness. You should have heard her speak heard her thank me for her father, which, indeed, it was not worth the trouble. It sounded like music in my ears it was no earthly being! She then vanished again, and only the old man remained."

"The whole is just like a poem !" I exclaimed, — “it could be beautifully put into verse."

"You do not know," continued he, "how I have since tormented myself-how I have formed schemes in my head, and then pulled them down again, for meeting again with my daughter of Zion. Only think, I went down there to borrow. money which I did not want; I borrowed twenty silver scudi for eight days, but I did not get to see her. I took them unchanged back again to him on the third day, and the old man smiled and rubbed his hands, for he had not actually so en

tirely relied upon my boasted honesty. I praised his wine of Cyprus, but she brought me none; he himself presented it with his thin, trembling hands. My eyes peered into every corner she was nowhere. I saw her not, only as I went down the steps it seemed to me that a curtain in an open window moved; it might be she.

"Adieu, signora,' I exclaimed, but all was still as a wallnothing showed itself. I have advanced no further in my adventure - give me counsel. To give her up I cannot, and Strike out a brilliant idea, my

will not! What shall I do? heart's youth! Be to me a Juno and Venus, who led Æneas and Libya's daughter together into the lonely grotto."

"What will you have me to do? I do not comprehend how I can do anything here."

"You can do everything, whatever you will. The Hebrew is really a beautiful language, a poetical picture-world; you shall study it, and take a Jew for your teacher; I will pay for the lessons. Do you have the old Hanoch, for I have discovered that he belongs to the learned portion in Ghetto. When your true-hearted manner has won him, then you can make the acquaintance of his daughter, and then you must bring me in also, but at full gallop — at full, flying gallop. I have burning poison in my blood-the burning poison of love. You must go to-day to the Jew.”

"That I cannot," I replied; "you do not take into consideration my circumstances - what a part I should have to play; and how can you, dear Bernardo, demean yourself so as to have a love-affair with a Jew girl?"

"O, that you do not understand!" interrupted he; "Jewgirl or not has nothing to do with it, if she is only good for anything! Now, thou beloved youth, my own excellent Antonio, set about studying Hebrew - we will both of us study it, only in different ways. Be reasonable, and think how very much you hereby promote my happiness."

"You know," I said, "how sincerely with my whole soul I am attached to you, you know how your preponderating force seizes upon my thoughts and my whole will. were angry, you could destroy me! I should be forced into

If you

your magic circle. I judge not your views in life by my own;

Neither do I consider

every one must follow his own nature. the mode by which you would seize on pleasure to be sinful, for that is according to your cast of mind. I am quite different; do not over-persuade me into an undertaking which, even if it turned out favorably, could not tend to your happiness."

"Good - good!" said he, interrupting me; and I saw the distant, proud glance with which he so often had regarded Habbas Dahdah, when he, from his position, was the deciding party; "good, Antonio, it is nothing but a jest, the whole of it. You shall not have to do penance on my account. But where would have been the harm of your learning a little Hebrew, and that from my Jew, I cannot comprehend. But not a word about it! — thanks for your visit! Will you eat? — will you drink? Here they are at your service."

I was dumb; the tone in which he spoke, his whole manner, showed that he was offended. Icy coldness and formal politeness met the warm pressure of my hand. Troubled and out of spirits, I hastened home.

I felt that he was unjust that I had acted as was my duty to do; and yet there were moments in which it seemed as if I had acted unkindly to him. In one of these combats with myself I went through the Jews' quarter, hoping that my fortunate star would conduct me to some adventure which should turn out to the benefit of my dear Bernardo. But I did not once see the old Jew; unknown faces looked out from doors and windows, dirty children lay upon the steps among all sort of old trash of iron and clothes, and the eternal shouting of whether I would not buy or sell almost deafened me. Some young girls were playing at shuttlecock, from window to window, across the street. One of these was very handsome; could it be Bernardo's beloved? I involuntarily took my hat, but the next moment, ashamed of doing so, I stroked my head with my hand, as it if had been on account of the warmth, and not of the girls, that I uncovered my head.

CHAPTER X.

A YEAR LATER. THE ROMAN CARNIVAL.

It

F I must uninterruptedly follow the thread which connects together Bernardo's love and my ramble through Ghetto, I must pass over two whole years of my life; but these years had in their daily progress onward much more for me than the making me twice twelve months older. It was a sort of interlude in the drama of my life.

I seldom saw Bernardo, and when we did meet he was just the same merry-hearted, bold young acquaintance as ever, but confidential as before he never seemed to be; the cold, well-bred air betrayed itself from under the mask of friendship; it troubled and depressed me, and I had not the courage to ask how it had gone with his love affair.

I very often went to the Borghese Palace, and found with Excellenza, Fabiani, and Francesca, a true home, yet often, also, found occasion for deep pain. My soul was filled with gratitude to every one of them for all which I had received

from them, and, therefore, any grave look from them cast a shade upon my life's happiness. Francesca commended my good qualities, but wished now to perfect me. My carriage, my mode of expressing myself, she criticised, and that with severity

certainly with great severity—so much so as to bring tears to my eyes, although I was a tall youth of eighteen. The old Excellenza, who had taken me from Domenica's hut to his magnificent home, was also just as cordially kind to me as at the first time when we met; but he, too, pursued the signora's mode of education with me. I did not take the same interest as himself in plants and strange flowers, and this he considered as a want of taste for that which was solid; he thought that I was too much occupied by my own peculiar individuality-I did not come sufficiently out of myself-did

not let the radius of the mind intersect the great circle of the

world.

"Reflect, my son,' up in itself withers.”

" said he, 66 that the leaf which is rolled

But after every warm conversation that he had with me he patted me again upon the cheek, and consoled me by ironically saying that we lived in a bad world, and we must every one of us be pressed like dried flowers, if the Madonna were to have handsome specimens of us. Fabiani looked at everything on the cheerful side, laughed at both of their well-meant lectures, whilst he assured them that I never should become learned like Excellenza, nor piquant like Francesca, but that I should be of a third character, which also belonged to life, and which was not to be despised either. And then he called for his little abbess, and with her I soon forgot all my small troubles.

The family intended to pass the following year in the north of Italy; the warm summer months they would spend at Genoa, and the winter in Milan. By me, also, at the same time a great step was to be taken; I was to enter by a sort of examination into the rank of abbé, and thus gain a higher position in life than I had hitherto possessed.

Before the departure of the family a great ball was given in the Borghese Palace, to which I also was invited. Pitch garlands burned before the house, and all the torches which were borne before the carriages of the guests were stuck into iron arms upon the wall, so that this seemed like a complete cascade of fire. Papal soldiers were stationed at the gates. The little garden was decorated with bright-colored paper lamps; the marble steps were magnificently lighted, and upon every step, beside the wall, stood vases filled with flowers or small orange-trees, which diffused their fragrance around. Soldiers leaned their shoulders against the doors. There was a throng of richly dressed servants.

Francesca was splendidly beautiful; the costly bird-of-paradise head-dress which she wore, and her white satin dress with its rich lace, became her most exquisitely, but that she extended to me her hand yes, that I thought the most beautiful of all! In two halls, in each of which was a full orchestra, floated the dancers.