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How often have I rambled over the picturesque shores of Sestri, or climbed its wild mountains, with the coast gemmed with villas, and the blue sea far below me, and the slender Pharo of Genoa on its romantic promontory in the distance; and as I sustained the faltering steps of Bianca, have thought there could no unhappiness enter into so beautiful a world.
He led her, to all appearances, but still she had the feeling as if he were the one who needed a support he tottered. The cemetery at Sestri lies behind the marchese's garden. The white marble monuments gleamed through the grey of evening; the white wings of an enormous angel rose just above the wall that encircles the park.
And at the same time a faint desire began to stir in her, too, unknown to herself. She was so well acquainted with the south should they go to Sestri, for example? She looked inquiringly at her husband. Had they not once spent some perfectly delightful days on the coast near Spezia?
Then it was I felt how much more insupportable is the anguish of remorse than every other mental pang. Oh! could I but have cast off this crime that festered in my heart; could I but have regained the innocence that reigned in my breast as I entered the garden at Sestri; could I but have restored my victim to life, I felt as if I could look on with transport even though Bianca were in his arms.
Wolfgang lay right out on the mole for the most part, against the rocky point of which the blue sea flings itself restlessly until it is a mass of white foam, and looked across at the coast near San Remo swimming in a ruddy violet vapour or back at the naked heights of the Apennines, in whose semi-circle the white and red houses of Sestri nestle.
As I galloped round the rocky promontory on which stands the Faro, and saw the coast of Sestri opening upon me, a thousand anxieties and doubts suddenly sprang up in my bosom. There is something fearful in returning to those we love, while yet uncertain what ills or changes absence may have effected. The turbulence of my agitation shook my very frame.
It is a far journey from Sestri to Spezia, but with a good horse, in spite of the hill, you may cover it in a single long day from sunrise to sunset. The climb begins almost at once, and continues really for some eighteen miles, till Baracchino and the Osteria Baracca are reached, in a desolate region of mountains that stretch away for ever, billow on billow.
Whether an icthyologist would have pronounced the little Sestri fishes to be the same creatures as those which British statesmen consume at Greenwich I cannot say; but we ate them frequently at the hotel under the name of gianchetti, and could find no difference between them and the Greenwich delicacy. The season for them did not seem to last above two or three weeks.
The midday sun at Sestri was hot, but in spite of its gleaming power the air became agreeable and refreshing just a little before sunset. A sweet odour poured forth from every plant then, and this streaming wealth of perfume was so soothing, so delicious. Käte felt her heart overflow.
The fishermen continued to drag their net, but caught other fishes instead of giancketti. But while it lasted the plenty of them was prodigious. All Sestri was eating them, as all Douarnenez ate sardines in the old days.
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