THE ESTRANGER


I

In the effort to dull the edge of his mental anguish by physical
exhaustion Catullus had walked far out from the town, through
vineyards and fruit-orchards displaying their autumnal stores and
clamorous with eager companies of pickers and vintagers. On coming
back to the eastern gate he found himself reluctant to pass from the
heedless activities of the fields to the bustle of the town streets
and the formal observances of his father's house. Seeking a quiet
interlude, he turned northward and climbed the hill which rose high
above the tumultuous Adige. The shadows of the September afternoon
had begun to lengthen when he reached the top and threw himself upon
the ground near a green ash tree.

The bodily exercise had at least done him this service, that the
formless misery of the past weeks, the monstrous, wordless sense of
desolation, now resolved itself into a grief for which inner words,
however comfortless, sprang into being. Below him Verona, proud
sentinel between the North and Rome, offered herself to the embrace
of the wild, tawny river, as if seeking to retard its ominous journey
from Rhaetia's barbarous mountains to Italy's sea by Venice. Far to
the northeast ghostly Alpine peaks awaited their coronal of sunset
rose. Southward stretched the plain of Lombardy. Within easy reach