The view from this promontory, as one may
call it, comprises the heights of Bugey with the Rhone flowing at
their foot, and the end of the lake; but Raphael liked to look at the
opposite shore from thence, at the melancholy looking Abbey of
Haute-Combe, the burying-place of the Sardinian kings, who lie
prostrate there before the hills, like pilgrims come at last to their
journey's end. The silence of the landscape was broken by the even
rhythm of the strokes of the oar; it seemed to find a voice for the
place, in monotonous cadences like the chanting of monks. The Marquis
was surprised to find visitors to this usually lonely part of the
lake; and as he mused, he watched the people seated in the boat, and
recognized in the stern the elderly lady who had spoken so harshly to
him the evening before.
No one took any notice of Raphael as the boat passed, except the
elderly lady's companion, a poor old maid of noble family, who bowed
to him, and whom it seemed to him that he saw for the first time. A
few seconds later he had already forgotten the visitors, who had
rapidly disappeared behind the promontory, when he heard the
fluttering of a dress and the sound of light footsteps not far from
him. He turned about and saw the companion; and, guessing from her
embarrassed manner that she wished to speak with him, he walked
towards her.
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