the affectionate wife, the careful minister; not the adored mistress of
a feverish boy, the heroine of a Vita Nuova, the Beatrice of a, I fear
me, profane comedy, the beloved of Aminta and the Pastor Fido. I own
that I was dismayed, wounded in my tenderest part, at the discovery.
Aurelia had suddenly become a stranger to my heart. I was nothing, less
than nothing, to her now that she was alone with her husband. Beside the
care of his appetite for food, my labours upon Guicciardini--the toil of
a month of nights--was as the work of an ant in the dust. Beside her
interest in his gossip of the schools, the coffee-house, the street
corner, my exposition of the Sonnets of Petrarca was as the babble of
school children at play in the Pra; beside her attentions to his clumsy
caresses, her tenderness to me hour after hour was but the benevolence
of a kindly woman to a lad left on her hands. Oh, bitter tonic
discovery! How bitter it was I leave my reader to determine. I do not
feel equal to the task of relating all that I overheard; if I could have
stopped my ears, I would have done it. She tempted him, beguiled him to
eat, to praise her, to be at ease, to love her. With that liquid tongue
of hers, which would have melted a flinty core, she talked of his and
her affairs; she was interested in his commentary upon the Pandects, she
was indignant at the jealousy of Dr. This, she made light of the malice
of Professor That. With flying feet from table to kitchen and back, with
dexterous hands at bottle, platter or napkin, she ministered to his
slightest whims. She refused to allow Nonna to wait upon him; she must
do everything for him for this once.

And when, amid his flung ejaculations and bolted mouthfuls, between his
"Non c'e male," his "Buono, buono!" his "Ancora un po'," or "Dammi da
here," he could find time to ask her what this new alacrity of hers
meant on such a hot night of summer, with a touching falter of the voice
I heard her reply, "It is because--it is because--I have not always been