it some
twenty years after. In that grotto too the second spouse would often
slumber beside the cool fountain; and again the husband would lie
there at her feet. Well, Antonio, child, is not life a right merry,
right silly, right absurd, and right horrible hodgepodge? No man can
say: 'that's a thing I never will do'. The pangs and the feelings, the
stings and the ravings, which the black crew forge in hell's smithy,
all these keep coming on and coming on, slowly, wonderously, nearer
and ever nearer: on a sudden Horrour is in the house, and the frantic
victim sits with it in the corner, and gnaws at it as a dog gnaws a
bone. Drink, drink, my darling; this grape-juice sets all things to
rights when its spirits once get into the soul.... Now, and you? do
tell me a little more."

"I swore to revenge my father," said Antonio.

"That's just right;" returned the old woman: "look you, my child, when
such a firebrand has been once hurled into a house, it must never
never go out again. From generation to generation down to grandchild
and cousin the poison is entailed; the children rave already; the
wound is always bleeding afresh; a new vein must be opened to save the
disaster and set it upon its legs again, when but for that it might be
in danger of breathing its last. O revenge, revenge is a goodly word!"

"But Roberto," said Antonio, "had escaped, and was nowhere to be
found."

"A pity, a pity!" exclaimed the old woman. "Now of course thy revenge
drives thee over the world?"

"Yes in truth; I wandered through Italy, searcht in every town, but
could find no trace of the murderer. At last the fame of Pietro of
Abano fixt me at Padua. I wisht to learn wisdom from him; but when I
came into the house of the Podesta...."

"Well! speak out, child!"

"What shall I say? I know not whether I am raving or dreaming. There I
saw his daughter, the sweet, the lovely Crescentia. And I here see her
again before me ... yes it is herself ... that funeral procession was
a wicked, unseemly jest ... and this disguise, this flight hither into
the desert, is again a most unseemly piece of mummery. Acknowledge
thyself to me at length, at length, beloved, beautiful Crescentia.
Thou knowest it well, my heart only lives within thy bosom. To what
end these agonizing trials? Are thy parents perchance in the next room
there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at
last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which