od
old cliches that came back to me during my walk. All women are
alike--there's no choice amongst animated fashion-plates: that is
another. A woman is the creature of her temper; her husband, her
children, and her servants are its victims: that is a third. Woman is a
bundle of pins; man is her pin-cushion. When woman loves, 't is not the
man she loves, but the man's flattery; woman's love is reflex self-love.
The man who marries puts himself in irons. Marriage is a bird-cage in
a garden. The birds without hanker to get in; but the birds within know
that there is no condition so enviable as that of the birds without.
Well, speak up. What do you think? Do you advise me to become a
misogynist?"

"I do not understand, Signorino," said Marietta.

"Of course, you don't," said Peter. "Who ever could understand
such stuff and nonsense? That's the worst of it. If only one could
understand, if only one could believe it, one might find peace, one
might resign oneself. But alas and alas! I have never had any real faith
in human wickedness; and now, try as I will, I cannot imbue my mind with
any real faith in the undesirability of woman. That is why you see
me dissolved in tears, and unable to eat my dinner. Oh, to think, to
think," he cried with passion, suddenly breaking into English, "to think
that less than a fortnight ago, less than one little brief fortnight
ago, she was seated in your kitchen, seated there familiarly, in her wet
clothes, pouring tea, for all the world as if she was the mistress of
the house!"

Days passed. He could not go to Ventirose--or, anyhow, he thought
he could not. He reverted to his old habit of living in his garden,
haunting the riverside, keeping watchful, covetous eyes turned towards
the castle. The river bubbled and babbled; the sun shone strong and
clear; his fountain tinkled; his birds flew about their affairs; his
flowers breathed forth their perfumes; the Gnisi frowned, the uplands
westward laughed, the snows of Monte Sfiorito sailed under every colour
of the calendar except their native white. All was as it had ever
been--but oh, the difference to him. A week passed. He caught no glimpse
of the Duchessa. Yet he took no steps to get his boxes packed.

XXVI

And then Marietta fell ill.

One morning, when she came into his room, to bring his tea, and to open
the Venetian blinds that shaded his windows, she failed to salute him
with her customary brisk "Buon giorno, Signorino."