you 't is not a laughing matter. Have you ever had a fixed
idea? Have you ever spent days and nights racking your brain,
importuning the unanswering Powers, to learn whether there was
--well, whether there was Another Man, for instance? Oh, bring
me drink. Bring me Seltzer water and Vermouth. I will seek
nepenthe at the bottom of the wine-cup."

Was there another man? Why should there not be? And yet was
there? In her continued absence, the question came back
persistently, and scarcely contributed to his peace of mind.


A few days later, nothing discouraged, "Would you like to have
a good laugh, Signorino?" Marietta enquired.

"Yes," he answered, apathetic.

"Then do me the favour to come," she said.

She led him out of his garden, to the gate of a neighbouring
meadow. A beautiful black-horned white cow stood there, her
head over the bars, looking up and down the road, and now and
then uttering a low distressful "moo."

"See her," said Marietta.

"I see her. Well--?" said Peter.

This morning they took her calf from her--to wean it," said
Marietta.