CHAPTER VI.
Thus began for them a bliss that was full, frenzied, for ever changing and for ever new; a passion that wrapped them round and rendered them oblivious of all that did not minister immediately to their mutual delight.
'What a strange love!' Elena said once, recalling those first days--her illness, her rapid surrender--'My heart was yours from the first moment I saw you.' She felt a certain pride in the fact.
'And when, on that evening, I heard my name announced immediately after yours,' her lover replied, 'I don't know why, but I suddenly had the firm conviction that my life was bound to yours--for ever!' And they really believed what they said.

Together they re-read Goethe's Roman elegy--_Lass dich, Geliebte, nicht reu'n, dass du mir so schnell dich ergeben!_--Have no regrets, my Beloved, that thou didst yield thee so soon--'Believe me, dearest, I do not attribute one base or impure thought to you.

Cupid's darts have varying effects--some inflict but a slight scratch, and the poison they insinuate lingers for years before it really touches the heart, while others, well feathered and armed with a sharp and penetrating point, pierce to the heart's core at once and send the fever racing through the blood.

In the old heroic days of the loves of the gods and goddesses desire followed upon sight.

Think you that the goddess of Love considered long in the grove of Ida that day Anchises found favour in her eyes?
And Luna ?--had she hesitated, envious Aurora would soon have wakened her handsome shepherd.' For them, as for Faustina's divine singer, Rome was illumined by a new light.