Austrian at the moment when all hearts had been
beating high with the hope of her
deliverance?

"Bertani," said I to him one evening, after
we had been sitting silent for a time, "don't
you think it would be good for you to make a
move southward? Surely, a winter in Naples
would do you good."

He smiled very slightly, and answered, "No."

"No? A taste of the sea breeze, well warmed
by that southern sun, would set you up again."

He paused a moment, looking full in my face
with his liquid bright eyes, and answered,
slowly, "Caro mio, the sea breeze and the
southern sun would not set me up again—
because nothing will ever set me up again."

There was something in the notion of his
being a prey to a morbid delusion, which
shocked me inexpressibly—shocked me the
more, in that his manner and conversation had
always impressed me with a high opinion of the
limpid clearness, if not the force, of his intellect.
I began to try to prove to him the folly and
weakness of giving way to a fancy that nothing
would restore him. I talked myself into quite
an excited state, and only paused at last, not
from lack of arguments, but because my
eloquence was chilled by his absolute silence and
serenity. Bertani sat motionless, with his handsome
head leaning back against the old tapestry-
covered chair, and a look of patient sweetness
on his face, which somehow seemed so
incompatible with the weak despondency of which
I was accusing him, that I felt ashamed to
proceed. "Forgive me," I said, suddenly, "if I
presume too far on our brief acquaintance."

"Forgive you?" he cried, and grasped my
hand warmly. "My friend, I have nothing to
forgive. I thank you, on the contrary, with all
my heart. But do not mistake me when I say
that nothing will over set me up again. I do not
believe that I shall die immediately. I hope to
live yet a few years whilst there is work for my
arm to do. When I say that nothing will ever
set me up again, I say the simple truth, for all
that. I shall never be the man I was—never,
never."

He spoke quite placidly, and was even smiling,
but there was something in the fixed look of his
eye which filled me with an undefined and
unaccountable terror.

I suppose he saw my face change, for he rose
and stood opposite to me (we had been sitting side
by side), saying, "No, no, no, my good friend.
It is not that at case. I am as sane as you
are. Listen. That you are good and true I do
not doubt, and never have doubted since I first
saw your face among the crowd at the Bottegone.
You have told me since, that you were singularly
attracted by me. Well, it was a mutual attraction.
If you have the patience to hear me out,
I will tell you what I have never yet told
any human being. Stay yet a moment. "What
I have to say is strange beyond all strangeness,
perhaps, that you can imagine, but to me it is a
deep and solemn reality; and to have it met with
a scoff, or even a cold expression of incredulity,
would pain me to the heart without shaking my
own conviction by one hair's breadth."

I assured Bertani that I was prepared to
listen to what he would tell me with all
respect; and after a minute he began:

"I am quite alone in the world. As far as
I know, there remains no creature bound to me
by ties of relationship. I was an only child.
My father was a lawyer, but his practice was
very small, and before I was ten years old it
had dwindled away altogether, owing to the
strong political opinions he held and professed.
In the '48' no entreaties could prevent him
from shouldering a musket and joining the
volunteers, who responded with generous
enthusiasm to the call of patriotism from all
parts of Italy. He died in the early part of the
following year, from the effects of fatigues to
which he was unaccustomed, and which his age
—for he had married late, and was advanced in
years—rendered doubly trying. My mother
and I were left literally destitute. In her distress
she turned to a distant relative of my poor
father's, with whom we had none of us been on
speaking terms for many years. This man was
a wealthy bachelor. He had been as prosperous
in life as my father had been the reverse, and
held a high position under the Austrian government
in Venice. This alone would have been
an unforgivable crime in my father's eyes.
Then, besides, Pasquale Rosai—that was our
cousin's name—was a bigoted and uncompromising
Catholic, and an upholder of the
Papacy in its worst and most despotic phases.
To this man my mother appealed for help
in her forlorn widowhood. I was then a boy
between thirteen and fourteen years old, and
Rosai offered to undertake the expense of my
education, and to provide for my establishment
in life, on the condition that he should be
permitted to exercise supreme and unlimited
authority over me; and that I should be separated
from my mother, who was only to visit me at
stated periods. Our circumstances were too
desperate to permit my mother to hesitate. I
was transferred from the gloomy silent dwelling
in which my poor father had died, to the wealthy
and luxurious home of Pasquale Rosai. I believe
this man intended and tried to do his duty
by me. But his character was naturally stern
and cold, and his narrow intellect warped by the
harshest bigotry. I was expected unhesitatingly
to accept his dictum upon every subject, and
was compelled to listen to the severest
condemnation of principles which I had been
hitherto taught to hold sacred. You see I had
been cradled and brought up in the midst of a
circle of people, the chief article of whose creed
was hatred of the Austrian. Incredible as it
may seem to you, after what I have said, the
man I have loved best on this earth belonged
to the nation of our detested rulers."

"He was an Austrian?"

"Yes; and I loved him. Ah, mio Dio, loved
him! In my guardian's house, though my body
was pampered, my heart was starved. My poor
mother died within a twelvemonth of my father