the moon became hypnotic in its influence, for I lay down and stared up
at it like one bewitched.

"I don't know how long a time passed in this manner before I was
aroused by the appearance of an old peasant around the corner of my
rock, bending under a huge bundle of faggots. I addressed myself to
him in the best Italian I could then command, and asked whether it were
possible to enter the city--_entrare la città_. He rung a bell by
pulling a rope that hung down over the wall, and we went in together.
Now, you know, I would have remained there all night without even
looking for such an obvious way of arousing the gatekeeper."

"Yes," he continued, in answer to an appreciative comment from his
listener, "you would have enjoyed it,--any one with a soul would have
enjoyed it. And further adventures were in store for me in that
ancient town. I remember particularly a girl who waited on the table
at my _albergo_ and accompanied me at times on my tours of inspection.
From her I learned more of the history of the place, and upon her I
practised most diligently my Italian. There was one mystery to which
she would come back again and again. If I was an American, and poor,
how did it happen that I was not an artist? She would turn her lovely
eyes upon me twenty times a day and ask me this question. A charming
experience, was it not? Long afterward I met an American professor on
one of the boats in Holland, and when we compared notes on our travels,
I discovered that he remembered that girl, too, and her eyes. Just
think of the number of romantic young travellers upon whom she had
turned them in that appealing way of hers!"

As his companion listened to this recital, he was impressed not so much
by the story itself as by the essential happiness of the narrator.