ad quite forgotten--that yesterday
I signed an agreement for a villa here: I took it for six months,
expecting to live one! It struck me, when driving out on the Bologna
road, both for architecture and situation; I saw nothing equal to
it--an old summer-palace of the Medici, and afterwards inhabited by the
Salviati, whose name it bears.

A princely house in every way is this; but how unsuited to ruined
fortunes! I walked about the rooms, now stopping to examine a picture or
a carved oak cabinet; now to peep at the wild glens, which here are seen
dividing the hills in every direction; and felt how easy it would be
to linger on here, where objects of taste and high art blend their
influence with dreams of the long past. Now, I must address my mind to
the different question--How to be released from my contract?

H. has just been here. How difficult it was to force him into candour!
A doctor becomes, by the practice of his art, as much addicted to
suspicion as a police agent. Every question, every reply of the patient,
must be a "symptom." This wearies and worries the nervous man, and
renders him shy and uncommunicative.

For myself, well opining how my sudden demand, "How long can I live?"
might sound, if uttered with abrupt sincerity, I submitted patiently
to all the little gossip of the little world of this place,--its envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness--which certainly are prime
features in an English colony on the Continent--all, that I might
at last establish a character for soundness of mind and calmness of
purpose, ere I put my _quore_.

The favourable moment came at last, and I asked in full earnest, but
with a manner that shewed no sign of dread,--"Tell me, _Dottore mio_,
how long may such a chest as mine endure? I mean, taking every possible
care, as I do; neither incurring any hazard nor neglect; and, in fact,
fighting the battle bravely to the last?"

He tried at first, by a smile and a jocular manner, to evade the
question; but seeing my determination fixed, he looked grave, felt my
pulse, percussed my chest, and was silent.

"Well," said I, after a very long pause, "I await my sentence, but in
no mood of hope or fear. Is it a month?--a week?--a day?--nay, surely
it can hardly be so near as that? Still silent! Come, this is scarcely
fair; I ask simply--"

"That which is perfectly impossible to answer, did I concede that I
ought to reply, as categorically as you ask."

"Were I to tell my r