Ulysses was about to express his doubts rudely as to the mental equilibrium of the exasperated widow when the doctor interrupted them.  She was contemplating the swampy plains of acanthus and ferns trembling under the shrill chirping of the cicadas, and this spectacle of green desolation made her recall the roses of Paestum of which the poets of ancient Rome had sung.  She even recited some Latin verses, translating them to her hearers so as to make them understand that the rose bushes of this land used to bloom twice a year.  Freya smoothed out her brow and began to smile again.  She forgot her recent ill humor and expressed a great longing for one of the marvelous rose bushes:  and at this caprice of childish vehemence, Ferragut spoke to the custodian with authority.  He had to have at once a rose bush from Paestum, cost what it might.

The old fellow made a bored gesture.  Everybody asked the same thing, and he who belonged to that country had never seen a rose of Paestum....  Sometimes, just in order to satisfy the whim of tourists, he would bring rose bushes from Capaccio Vecchio and other mountain villages,—­rose bushes just like others with no difference except in price....  But he didn’t wish to take advantage of anybody.  He was sad and greatly troubled over the possibility of war.

“I have eight sons,” he said to the doctor, because she seemed to be the most suitable one to receive his confidences.  “If they mobilize the army, six of them will leave me.”

And he added with resignation: 

“That’s the way it ought to be if we would end forever, in one blow, our eternal enmity with the Goth.  My sons will battle against them, just as my father fought.”

The doctor stalked haughtily away, and then said in a low voice to her companions that the old guard was an imbecile.

They wandered for two hours through the ancient district of the city,—­exploring the network of its streets, the ruins of the amphitheater and the Porta Aurea which opened upon a road flanked with tombs.  By the Porta di Mare they climbed to the walls, ramparts of great limestone blocks, extending a distance of five kilometers.  The sea, which from the lowlands had looked like a narrow blue band, now appeared immense and luminous,—­a solitary sea with a feather-like crest of smoke, without a sail, given completely over to the sea-gulls.

The doctor walked stiffly ahead of them, still ill-humored about the guide’s remark and consulting the pages of her guide book.  Behind her Ulysses came close up to Freya, recalling their former contact.