same time liberty.... Do you like Wagner?"

And before he could reply she added in Spanish, with a Creole accent
and flashing eyes:

"Call me, if you wish, 'the merry widow.' The poor doctor died as soon
as we returned to Europe."

The three had to run to catch the train ready to start for Paestum. The
landscape was changing on both sides of the way, as now they were
crossing over marshy portions of land. On the soft meadows flocks of
buffaloes, rude animals that appeared carved out in hatchet strokes,
were wading and grazing.

The doctor spoke of Paestum, the ancient Poseidonia, the city of
Neptune, founded by the Greeks of Sybaris six centuries before Christ.

Commercial prosperity once dominated the entire coast. The gulf of
Salerno was called by the Romans the Gulf of Paestum. And this city
with mountains like those of Athens had suddenly become extinguished
without being swallowed up by the sea, and with no volcano to cover it
with ashes.

Fever, the miasma of the fens, had been the deadly lava for this
Pompeii. The poisonous air had caused the inhabitants to flee, and the
few who insisted upon living within the shadow of the ancient temples
had had to escape from the Saracen invasions, founding in the
neighboring mountains a new country--the humble town of Capaccio
Vecchio. Then the Norman kings, forerunners of Frederick II (the father
of Dona Constanza, the empress beloved by Ferragut), had plundered the
entire deserted city, carrying off with them its columns and sculpture.

All the medieval constructions of the kingdom of Naples were the spoils
of Paestum. The doctor recalled the cathedral of Salerno, seen the
afternoon before, where Hildebrand, the most tenacious and ambitious of
the popes, was buried. Its columns, its sarcophagi, its bas-reliefs had
come from this Grecian city, forgotten for centuries and centuries
and only in modern times--thanks to the antiquarians and
artists--recovering its fame.

In the station of Paestum, the wife of the only employee looked
curiously at this group arriving after the war had blocked off the
trail of tourists.

Freya spoke to her, interested in her malarial and resigned aspect.
They were yet in good time. The spring sun was warming up these
lowlands just as in midsummer, but she was still able to resist it.
Later, during the summer, the guards of the ruins and the workmen in
the excavations would have to flee to their homes in the mountains,
handing the count