rom the inn
if he ever was to leave it alive, and in the afternoon, when Nanna was
dozing in her chair in the kitchen and Paoluccio was snoring upstairs,
and when she had smoothed Marcello's pillow, she went out and sat down
in front of the house, where there was shade at that hour, though the
glare from the dusty road would have blinded weaker eyes than hers. She
sat on the stone seat that ran along the house, and leaned against the
rough wall, thinking and scheming, and quite sure that she should find a
way.

At first she looked about, while she thought, from the well-known
mountains that bounded her world to the familiar arches of the distant
aqueduct, from the dry ditch opposite to the burning sky above and the
greyish green hillocks below Tivoli. But by and by she looked straight
before her, with a steady, concentrated stare, as if she saw something
happening and was watching to see how it would end.

She had found what she wanted, and was quite sure of it; only a few
details remained to be settled, such as what was to become of her after
she left the inn where she had grown up. But that did not trouble her
much.

She was not delicately nurtured that she should dread the great world of
which she knew nothing, nor had Nanna's conversation during ten years
done much to strengthen her in the paths of virtue. Her pride had done
much more and might save her wherever she went, but she was very well
aware of life's evil truths. And what would her pride be compared with
Marcello, the first and only being she had ever loved? To begin with,
she knew that the handsome people from the country earned money by
serving as models for painters and sculptors, and she had not the
slightest illusion about her own looks. Since she had been a child
people who came to the inn had told her that she was beautiful; and not
the rough wine-carters only, for the fox-hunters sometimes came that
way, riding slowly homeward after a long run, and many a fine gentleman
in pink had said things to her which she had answered sharply, but which
she remembered well. She had not the slightest doubt but that she was
one of the handsomest girls in Italy, and the absolute certainty of the
conviction saved her from having any small vanity about her looks. She
knew that she had only to show herself and that every one would stand
and look at her, only to beckon and she would be followed. She did not
crave admiration; a great beauty rarely does. She simply d