along two sides of a beautiful cloister, with sculptured marble
columns, and upstairs into the barber's shop, where we found the corporal
with a towel round his neck being shaved. He was so surprised to see me
that I was afraid there would be an accident, but the barber was clever
and nothing serious happened. After the shaving he took me into the
dormitory, which extends all along one side of the cloister on the first
floor with windows looking on the grass and flowers of the cortile on one
side and over the sea on the other--very fresh and healthy. Some of his
comrades, who had been on duty all night, were sleeping in their beds,
other beds were empty, and their owners were blacking their boots and
polishing their buttons. He told them to entertain me, which they did
while he finished his dressing. He then returned and proposed taking me
out.

As we went along he asked whether he might take me to see his young lady.
I was surprised to hear she was in the town, knowing it was not her
native place, and asked whether the remaining 4000 francs had dropped
from heaven. He replied that he was still waiting. He was to have a
month's leave soon, and intended to take the girl to his home and
introduce her to his family; in the meantime he had hired a room, and it
was very expensive--twenty francs a month, in the house of most
respectable people. I foresaw complications when they should arrive at
home, at least I thought the journey might provoke remark among the
friends of the family, but I said nothing, and we went to the house of
the respectable people. Here I was introduced to the fidanzata, whose
name was Filomena, and who appeared to be, as he had said, rather above
him in station and of refined and lady-like manners. She was
embroidering the top part of a sheet--the part that is turned down and
lies over the pillow when the bed is made--no doubt for her trousseau.
The design had been traced and traced again from the tracing so often
that it was difficult to say what it represented. There was a balustrade
of columns like those that were taken from old Kew Bridge and sold to
support sun-dials; there were cauliflowery arabesques, and among the
spiky foliage there were meaningless ponds of open-work made by gathering
the threads of the linen together into wonderful patterns. In the middle
of all this stood one who after a few more tracings will have quite lost
the semblance of a woman; the five fingers of her han