ce of running away. So many men in a similar difficulty have
done the same thing, that his professor, and even the stern Cherubini
himself, would have condemned the progression less on account of its
harshness and irregularity than because of its lack of originality. He
scraped together about fifty francs and disappeared to Livorno where he
soon found work in a barber's shop, cutting hair, trimming and shaving
beards and whiskers, and making wigs for the theatre. He wrote the widow
two letters containing nothing but conventional compliments, and
displayed his resource and originality by posting one in the country and
sending the other to a friend in Genoa who posted it there.

After about three months of freedom, counterpoint and hair-dressing, he
was sent for to return to his village for a few days and vote; Peppino
anticipated my inquiry about the money for the journey by protesting that
he knew nothing about the details of politics. However it may have been
managed, Alfio got leave from his employer, went home and voted. He said
nothing about the widow, but he promised Maria to return and marry her in
a year, when he should have saved enough money. He did not know how he
was going to do it, but he had to say something. Then the silly fellow
must needs go for a day to Castellinaria to salute his friends in the
barber's shop there--just as murderers seem never to learn that it is
injudicious to re-visit the scenes of their crimes. Naturally the widow
heard of his being in the town, they met in the street and had a terrible
row. What frightened poor Alfio most was a sort of half persuasion that
perhaps he had behaved badly to her. But he did not relent; he returned
to his village, bade farewell to his family, embraced his adorata mamma,
renewed his promise to Maria, went down to Catania, entered the station
and turned pale as he saw the widow sitting in a corner with a parcel and
a bundle.

"Where are you going?"

"I am coming with you."

He had let out that he would return to Livorno in a few days, and she had
resolved to accompany him, wherever he might be going. She had sold all
her furniture in a hurry and come to Catania, knowing that he must start
from there. She waited for him inside the station when it was open,
outside when it was shut; she had to wait four days and four nights. She
refused to leave him. She bought her own ticket and travelled with him.
They settled down in Livorno--if that can