extend their
warm shade over the burning and exhausted earth. Here and there, in the
distance by the sea on capes and promontories, bright stars began to
shine on the dark horizon, which I was, at times, almost inclined to
confound with lighthouses.

The scent of the orange-trees became more penetrating, and we breathed
with delight, distending our lungs to inhale it more deeply. The balmy
air was soft, delicious, almost divine.

Suddenly I noticed something like a shower of stars under the dense
shade of the trees along the line, where it was quite dark. It might
have been taken for drops of light, leaping, flying, playing and running
among the leaves, or for small stars fallen from the skies in order to
have an excursion on the earth; but they were only fireflies dancing a
strange fiery ballet in the perfumed air.

One of them happened to come into our carriage, and shed its
intermittent light, which seemed to be extinguished one moment and to be
burning the next. I covered the carriage-lamp with its blue shade, and
watched the strange fly careering about in its fiery flight. Suddenly it
settled on the dark hair of our neighbor, who was half dozing after
dinner. Paul seemed delighted, with his eyes fixed on the bright,
sparkling spot which looked like a living jewel on the forehead of the
sleeping woman.

The Italian woke up at about eleven o'clock, with the bright insect
still in her hair. When I saw her move, I said: "We are just getting to
Genoa, madam," and she murmured, without answering me, as if possessed
by some obstinate and embarrassing thought:

"What am I going to do, I wonder?"

And then she suddenly asked:

"Would you like me to come with you?"

I was so taken aback that I really did not understand her.

"With us? How do you mean?"

She repeated, looking more and more furious:

"Would you like me to go with you now, as soon as we get out of the
train?"

"I am quite willing; but where do you want to go to? Where shall I take
you to?"

She shrugged her shoulders with an air of supreme indifference.

"Wherever you like; what does it matter to me?" She repeated her _Che mi
fa_? twice.

"But we are going to the hotel."

"Very well, let us all go to the hotel," she said, in a contemptuous
voice.

I turned to Paul, and said:

"She wants to know if we should like her to come with us."

My friend's utter surprise restored my self-possession. He stammered:

"With us? Where to? What for