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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
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