“Oh! you thorough Roman!” laughed Claudia. “No one is good for anything in your eyes, that was not born within sight of the Seven Hills.”[70]
She put her arm round her gay companion, and carried her off half-resisting to their quiet sleeping-room.
Neither Quintus nor Aurelius cared to follow the example of the ladies--not the Roman, for he had slept on late into the day--nor the stranger, for the excitement of this eventful morning had fevered his blood. Besides, there was the temptation of an atmosphere as of Paradise, uniting the glory and plenitude of summer with the fresh transparency of autumn. During dinner Aurelius had turned again and again to look through the wide door-way at the beautiful scene without, and now he crossed the threshold and filled his spirit with the loveliness before him. Here was not--as in the formal gardens of Rome[71]--a parterre where everything was planned by line and square; here were no trained trees and hedges, circular beds or clipped shrubs. All was free and wholesome Nature, lavish and thriving vitality. The paths alone, leading from the villa in three directions into the wood, betrayed the care of man. The whole vegetation of the happy land of Campania seemed to have been brought together on the slope below. Huge plane-trees, on which vines hung their garlands, lifted their heads above the holm-oaks and gnarled quinces. The broad-leaved fig glistened by the side of the grey-green olive; here stood a clump of stalwart pines, there wide-spreading walnuts and slender poplars. Below them was a wild confusion of brush-wood and creepers; ivy, periwinkle and acanthus entangled the giants of the wood with an inextricable network. Maiden-hair hung in luxuriant tufts above the myrtles and bays, and sombre evergreens contrasted with the brilliant centifolia. In short the whole plant-world of southern Italy here held an intoxicating orgy. Quintus seemed to divine the thoughts of the young Northman, and put his hand confidingly through his guest’s arm, and so they walked on, taking the middle path of the three before them, and gently mounting the hill.
“I can see,” said Quintus, “that you are a lover of Nature; I quite understand that a garden at Baiae must seem enchanting to you, who came hither from the region of Boreas himself, where the birch and the beech can scarcely thrive. But you can only form a complete idea of it from the top of the hill; we have built a sort of temple there and the view is unequalled....”