in the fable unable to reach the luscious grapes
above him. For as well might a starving man seek to compel by an effort
of his will the hunger to cease from gnawing at his vitals.

Thus were desire and conscience locked in conflict, and each held the
ascendancy alternately what time I pushed onward aimlessly until I came
to the broad bed of a river.

A grey waste of sun-parched boulders spread away to the stream, which
was diminished by the long drought. Beyond the narrow sheen of water,
stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a
brown city upon the rising ground.

The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the
ancient boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk. I stood upon the
historic spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to
win back to France after the occupation of Naples. But the grotesque
little king who had been dust for a quarter of a century troubled my
thoughts not at all just then. The Taro brought me memories not of
battle, but of home. To reach Mondolfo I had but to follow the river up
the valley towards that long ridge of the Apennines arrayed before me,
with the tall bulks of Mount Giso and Mount Orsaro, their snow-caps
sparkling in the flood of sunshine that poured down upon them.
Two hours, or perhaps three at most, along the track of that cool,
glittering water, and the grey citadel of Mondolfo would come into view.

It was this very reflection that brought me now to consider my
condition; to ask myself whither I should turn. Money I had none--not so
much as a single copper grosso. To sell I had nothing but the clothes I
stood in--black, clerkly garments that I had got yesterday at Mondolfo.
Not so much as a weapon had I that I might have bartered for a few
coins. There was the mule; that should yield a ducat or two. But when
this was spent, what then? To go a suppliant to that pious icicle my
mother were worse than useless.

Whither was I to turn--I, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina, one of the
wealthiest and most puissant tyrants of this Val di Taro? It provoked me
almost to laughter, of a fierce and bitter sort. Perhaps some peasant
of the contado would take pity on his lord and give him shelter and
nourishment in exchange for such labour as his lord might turn his stout
limbs to upon that peasant's land, which was my own.

I might perhaps essay it. Certainly it was the only thing that was left
me. For against my mother and