505th STATION.
The Ephemera.—Relative Conclusions.—Doubts of the Length of the Chain of Living Beings.—The Wart-Eaters.—The Cure.
HE sun and the valley surrounded us with their burning-glasses, and it was pleasant to sit down in a shady spot, and eat; and as just opposite to us was a marble-quarry, and close to the iron rock-wall a sap-green meadow, and beside us a group of elms and a little shining solitary white house, we asked at it for as much food as a roaming, contented quintet requires. The mistress of the house was alone, the husband was at work (as most Campanians are, in Spain), four children waited on us; our ice-cellar was opened, and with its contents the soul was warmed and the body cooled. The white glowing keystone of the heaven arch awoke with its flames the noonday wind, which slept on the cold summit of the Pyrenees.
Little or nothing would taste well to poor Phylax, to whom it was more important to prove that he would be eternal. Fortunately, the French wine armed him more with French customs, and he asked the Baron politely: "I believe I owe M. Karlson some proofs of our immortality. Might I be allowed to give them?" Wilhelmi sent him to Gione, saying, "Ask there." Gione will-
