'Oh, thank you, Calvotti. What a good fellow you are!'
I was unsettled for work. My praise was hysterical and hyperbolical. I could have wept whilst I uttered it. For though I had given up all hope, and though I was glad to find that in art he was worthy as in manhood he was worthy, yet it was still hard to endorse a rival's triumph and to cut out all envy and stifle all pain. And now I had to go home and to live beneath the same roof with Cecilia, and to see her sometimes, and to talk and look like a friend. If you resist the Devil, will he always fly from you? Is it not sometimes safer to fly from him? And is there anywhere a baser fiend than that which prompted me to throw myself upon my knees before her and tell her everything, and so barter honour for an impulse? Brave or not, I know that I was wise when that afternoon I packed up everything and went to say good-bye.
'I am ill,' so I excused myself, 'and I am a child of impulse. Impulse says to me “Go back to Italy—to the air of your childhood—to the scenes you love best.” And I obey.'
'But you do not leave England in this way?' asked Cecilia.
'No, mademoiselle, I shall return. But, for a time, good-bye.'
They both bade me good-bye sorrowfully, and I went away. And whatever disturbance my soul made within its own private residence, it was too well-bred to let the outside people know of it.
And so it came to pass that I continue this narrative at Posilipo, in my native air, within sight of smoking Vesuvius and the glittering city and the gleaming bay—old friends, who bear comfort to the soul.
CHAPTER IV.—NELLE CARCERI MUNICIPALE
How do I come to be writing in a prison? How do I come to be living in a prison? How is it that I, who never lifted a hand in anger against even a dog, lie here under a charge of murder, execrated by the populace of my native town?