cknowledged. "But even so?"
the ingrate added, as he turned away, and let himself drop back into
his lounging-chair. "My dear good woman, no amount of prettiness
can disguise the fundamental banality of things. Your fireflies--St.
Dominic's beads, if you like--and, apropos of that, do you know what
they call them in America?--they call them lightning-bugs, if you can
believe me--remark the difference between southern euphuism and western
bluntness--your fireflies are pretty enough, I grant. But they are
tinsel pasted on the Desert of Sahara. They are condiments added to a
dinner of dust and ashes. Life, trick it out as you will, is just an
incubus--is just the Old Man of the Sea. Language fails me to convey to
you any notion how heavily he sits on my poor shoulders. I thought I had
suffered from ennui in my youth. But the malady merely plays with the
green fruit; it reserves its serious ravages for the ripe. I can promise
you 't is not a laughing matter. Have you ever had a fixed idea? Have
you ever spent days and nights racking your brain, importuning the
unanswering Powers, to learn whether there was--well, whether there was
Another Man, for instance? Oh, bring me drink. Bring me Seltzer water
and Vermouth. I will seek nepenthe at the bottom of the wine-cup."

Was there another man? Why should there not be? And yet was there? In
her continued absence, the question came back persistently, and scarcely
contributed to his peace of mind.

A few days later, nothing discouraged, "Would you like to have a good
laugh, Signorino?" Marietta enquired.

"Yes," he answered, apathetic.

"Then do me the favour to come," she said.

She led him out of his garden, to the gate of a neighbouring meadow. A
beautiful black-horned white cow stood there, her head over the
bars, looking up and down the road, and now and then uttering a low
distressful "moo."

"See her," said Marietta.

"I see her. Well--?" said Peter.

"This morning they took her calf from her--to wean it," said Marietta.

"Did they, the cruel things? Well--?" said he.

"And ever since, she has stood there by the gate, looking down the road,
waiting, calling."

"The poor dear. Well--?" said he.

"But do you not see, Signorino? Look at her eyes. She is
weeping--weeping like a Christian."

Peter looked-and, sure enough, from the poor cow's eyes tears were
falling, steadily, rapidly: big limpid tears that trickled down her
cheek, her great homely hairy cheek,