Horace Vernet or Delaroche affected him far more. More poetical than passionate, he would prefer a quiet spot on the shore of a lake by the soft light of the moon to meet his lady-love. He wished to raise his love above earthly things, even to the stars. He felt the greatest admiration for the grand types of womanhood of antiquity, preserved by art and history. Like Faust, he loved Helen; and he longed for those sublime personifications of human desires and dreams, whose forms, invisible to vulgar eyes, exist forever in space and time. Sometimes he loved statues; and once, in passing by the Venus de Milo at a museum, he had cried, "Oh, who will give you arms to press me to your marble breast!"
Fabio loved youth and beauty. Voluptuous and passionate, his illusions cost him no twinges of conscience, and he was without prejudice. A peasant pleased him as well as a duchess, provided she were beautiful; the form pleased him more than the dress; he laughed at his friends who were in love with a robe of silk, and thought it would be wiser to fall in love with a modiste's form.
Max, less artistic than Fabio, cared for nothing except difficult enterprises, complicated intrigues: he wished to overcome resistance and obstacles, and conduct a love-affair as one would a battle, by stratagem. Among a party of women he would choose the one who seemed to dislike him the most, and attempt to overcome her dislike, and turn it to love. To cause the fair one to pass by gradual steps from hatred to love, was to him a delicious pleasure; like a thorough hunter, who pursues his game in rain and sun and snow, and when it is at last killed cares nothing about it.
As Fabio had expected, the sight of the place where the form of the woman seen at the museum was found deeply agitated Octavio: he tried to forget his identity, and transport himself to the times of Titus.
Max and Fabio went to their chambers, and the wine they had drunk soon put them to sleep. Octavio, who had hardly touched his wine, not wishing to mingle it with his poetic dreams, felt that he could not sleep, and went outside to cool his heated brow in the fresh air. Unconsciously his feet carried him to the entrance of the excavated city: he took down the wooden bar which closed the gate, and entered among the shades.
The moon cast a white light on the houses, making the shadows all the deeper. This soft light covered up many of the defects of day, and made the city appear more complete. The broken columns, the façades covered with lizards, the crushed roofs, were not so noticeable as in the sunlight. The genius of the night seemed to have repaired the fossilized city for some representation of fantastic life.
Sometimes Octavio thought he saw shadowy human forms glide among the shadows, but they quickly disappeared on nearing them. Heavy falls, a vague rumbling, broke the silence. Octavio attributed them at first to his imagination. It might be caused by the wind or by a lizard. Meanwhile, he felt an involuntary fear, a slight trembling, which perhaps was caused by the cool air. He turned his head two or three times: he did not feel alone as when they were here in the day. Had his friends followed his example, and were they now wandering among the ruins? These vanishing forms, these distant noises, were they caused by Max and
