it seemed to him as though the bounds of life and death were merged, and the sumptuous group of which he formed a part already dusted over with oblivion.

2.13.

Spite of the Mountain Madonna’s much-vaunted powers, the first effect of the pilgrimage was to provoke a serious indisposition in the Duke.  Exhausted by fasting and emotion, he withdrew to his apartments and for several days denied himself to all but Heiligenstern, who was suspected by some of suffering his patient’s disorder to run its course with a view to proving the futility of such remedies.  This break in his intercourse with his kinsman left Odo free to take the measure of his new surroundings.  The company most naturally engaging him was that which surrounded the Duchess; but he soon wearied of the trivial diversions it offered.  It had ever been necessary to him that his pleasures should touch the imagination as well as the senses; and with such refinement of enjoyment the gallants of Pianura were unacquainted.  Odo indeed perceived with a touch of amusement that, in a society where Don Serafino set the pace, he must needs lag behind his own lacquey.  Cantapresto had, in fact, been hailed by the Bishop’s nephew with a cordiality that proclaimed them old associates in folly; and the soprano’s manner seemed to declare that, if ever he had held the candle for Don Serafino, he did not grudge the grease that might have dropped on his cassock.  He was soon prime favourite and court buffoon in the Duchess’s circle, organising pleasure-parties, composing scenarios for her Highness’s private theatre, and producing at court any comedian or juggler the report of whose ability reached him from the market-place.  Indefatigable in the contriving of such diversions, he soon virtually passed out of Odo’s service into that of her Highness:  a circumstance which the young man the less regretted as it left him freer to cultivate the acquaintance of Gamba and his friends without exposing them to Cantapresto’s espionage.

Odo had felt himself specially drawn toward the abate Crescenti; and the afternoon after their first meeting he had repaired to the librarian’s dwelling.  Crescenti was the priest of an ancient parish lying near the fortress; and his tiny house was wedged in an angle of the city walls, like a bird’s nest in the mouth of a disused canon.  A long flight of steps led up to his study, which on the farther side opened level with a vine-shaded patch of herbs and damask roses in the projection of a ruined bastion.  This interior, the home of studious peace, was as cheerful and well-ordered as its inmate’s mind; and Odo, seated under the vine pergola in the late summer light, and tasting the abate’s Val Pulicella while he turned over the warped pages of old codes and chronicles, felt the stealing charm of a sequestered life.