of Dukes Guidalfonso and Robert, about 1530. Some of the rooms have at
one time been frescoed and paneled with oak carvings, but all this has
disappeared. Only, in one of the big rooms, there remains a large
marble fireplace, similar to those in the palace at Urbania,
beautifully carved with Cupids on a blue ground; a charming naked boy
sustains a jar on either side, one containing clove pinks, the other
roses. The room was filled with stacks of faggots.

We returned home late, my companion in excessively bad humor at the
fruitlessness of the expedition. We were caught in the skirt of a
snowstorm as we got into the chestnut woods. The sight of the snow
falling gently, of the earth and bushes whitened all round, made me
feel back at Posen, once more a child. I sang and shouted, to my
companion's horror. This will be a bad point against me if reported at
Berlin. A historian of twenty-four who shouts and sings, and that when
another historian is cursing at the snow and the bad roads! All night I
lay awake watching the embers of my wood fire, and thinking of Medea da
Carpi mewed up, in winter, in that solitude of Sant' Elmo, the firs
groaning, the torrent roaring, the snow falling all round; miles and
miles away from human creatures. I fancied I saw it all, and that I,
somehow, was Marcantonio Frangipani come to liberate her--or was it
Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi? I suppose it was because of the long ride,
the unaccustomed pricking feeling of the snow in the air; or perhaps
the punch which my professor insisted on drinking after dinner.

Nov. 23rd.--

Thank goodness, that Bavarian professor has finally departed! Those
days he spent here drove me nearly crazy. Talking over my work, I told
him one day my views on Medea da Carpi; whereupon he condescended to