smoking _olio_, and up the stairway of the hotel would come the beating
of the Chinese gong, announcing that luncheon was served.

Ulysses went down to take his place at table, looking in vain at the
other guests who had preceded him. Freya perhaps was going to come in
with the delay of a traveler who has just arrived and has been occupied
in freshening her toilet.

He lunched badly, looking continually at a great glass doorway
decorated with pictures of boats, fishes, and sea gulls, and every time
its polychromatic leaves parted, his food seemed to stick in his
throat. Finally came the end of the lunch, and he slowly sipped his
coffee. She did not appear.

On returning to his room, he sent the whiskered steward in search of
news.... The _signora_ had not lunched in the hotel; the _signora_ had
gone out while he was in the dining-room. Surely she would show herself
in the evening.

At dinner time he had the same unpleasant experience, believing that
Freya was going to appear every time that an unknown hand or a vague
silhouette of a woman pushed the door open from the other side of the
opaque glass.

He strolled up and down the vestibule a long time, chewing rabidly on a
cigar, and finally decided to accost the porter, an astute brunette
whose blue lapels embroidered with keys of gold were peeping over the
edge of his writing desk, taking in everything, informing himself of
everything, while he appeared to be asleep.

The approach of Ulysses made him spring up as though he heard the
rustling of paper money. His information was very precise. The
_signora_ Talberg very seldom ate at the hotel. She had some friends
who were occupying a furnished flat in the district of Chiaja, with
whom she usually passed almost the entire day. Sometimes she did not
even return to sleep.... And he again sat down, his hand closing
tightly upon the bill which his imagination had foreseen.

After a bad night Ulysses arose, resolved to await the widow at the
entrance to the hotel. He took his breakfast at a little table in the
vestibule, read the newspaper, had to go to the door in order to avoid
the morning cleaning, pursued by the dust of brooms and shaken rugs.
And once there, he pretended to take great interest in the wandering
musicians, who dedicated their love songs and serenades to him, rolling
up the whites of their eyes upon presenting their hats for coins.

Some one came to keep him company. It was the porter who now appe