y, lived on
farinaceous food and distilled water, bathed regularly, rose and
retired early, and enjoyed the most perfect health.

Among her many other attractions my wife was gifted with a beautiful
and well-trained voice. She sung with exquisite expression, and many an
evening when Guido and myself sat smoking in the garden, after little
Stella had gone to bed, Nina would ravish our ears with the music of
her nightingale notes, singing song after song, quaint stornelli and
ritornelli--songs of the people, full of wild and passionate beauty. In
these Guido would often join her, his full barytone chiming in with her
delicate and clear soprano as deliciously as the fall of a fountain
with the trill of a bird. I can hear those two voices now; their united
melody still rings mockingly in my ears; the heavy perfume of
orange-blossom, mingled with myrtle, floats toward me on the air; the
yellow moon burns round and full in the dense blue sky, like the King
of Thule's goblet of gold flung into a deep sea, and again I behold
those two heads leaning together, the one fair, the other dark; my
wife, my friend--those two whose lives were a million times dearer to
me than my own. Ah! they were happy days--days of self-delusion always
are. We are never grateful enough to the candid persons who wake us
from our dream--yet such are in truth our best friends, could we but
realize it.

August was the most terrible of all the summer months in Naples. The
cholera increased with frightful steadiness, and the people seemed to
be literally mad with terror. Some of them, seized with a wild spirit
of defiance, plunged into orgies of vice and intemperance with a
reckless disregard of consequences. One of these frantic revels took
place at a well-known cafe. Eight young men, accompanied by eight girls
of remarkable beauty, arrived, and ordered a private room, where they
were served with a sumptuous repast. At its close one of the party
raised his glass and proposed, "Success to the cholera!" The toast was
received with riotous shouts of applause, and all drank it with
delirious laughter. That very night every one of the revelers died in
horrible agony; their bodies, as usual, were thrust into flimsy coffins
and buried one on top of another in a hole hastily dug for the purpose.
Dismal stories like these reached us every day, but we were not
morbidly impressed by them. Stella was a living charm against
pestilence; her innocent playfulness and pr