I came under an even greater debt of gratitude than to Saredo, to the good-natured people in whose house I lay ill. I was as splendidly looked after as if I had made it a specified condition that I should be nursed in case of illness.

My landlady, Maria, especially, was the most careful nurse, and the best creature in the world, although she had the physiognomy of a regular Italian criminal, when her face was in repose. The moment she spoke, however, her features beamed with maternal benevolence. After the hospital, it was a decided change for the better. I was under no one's tyranny and did not feel as though I were in prison; I could complain if my food was bad, and change trattoria, when I myself chose. Everything was good.

As long as I was well, I had taken hardly any notice of the people in the house, hardly exchanged a word with them; I was out all day, and either hastily asked them to do my room, or to put a little on the fire. It was only when I fell ill that I made their acquaintance.

Let me quote from my notes at the time:

Maria is forty, but looks nearly sixty. Her husband is a joiner, a stout, good-looking man, who works all day for his living, and has a shop. Then there is Maria's niece, the nineteen-year-old Filomena, a tall, handsome girl. Every evening they have fine times, laugh, sing, and play cards. On Sunday evening they go out to the fair (alla fiera) and look at the things without buying. Others have to pay a lire to go in, but they go in free, as they know some of the people. On festival occasions Maria wears a silk dress.

There is a crucifix over my bed, an oleograph of the Madonna and child and a heart, embroidered with gold on white, horribly pierced by the seven swords of pain, which were supposed to be nails; on the centre of the heart, you read, partly in Latin, partly in Greek letters:

JESU XPI PASSIO.

All the same, Maria is very sceptical. Yesterday, on the evening of my birthday, we had the following conversation:

Myself: "Here you celebrate your saints' day; not your birthday; but, you know, up in the North we have not any saints"--and, thinking it necessary to add a deep-drawn religious sigh, I continued: "We think it enough to believe in God." "Oh! yes," she said slowly, and then, a little while after: "That, too, is His own business." "How?" "Well," she said, "You know that I am dreadfully ignorant; I know nothing at all, but I think a great deal. There are these people now who are always talking about the Lord. I think it is all stuff. When I married, they said to me: 'May it please the Lord that your husband be good to you.' I thought: If I had not been sensible enough to choose a good husband, it would not help me much what should please the Lord. Later on they said: 'May it please the Lord to give you sons.' I had some, but they died when they were little ones. Then I thought to myself: 'If my husband and I do not do something in the matter, it won't be much use for the Lord to be pleased to give them to us. Nature, too, has something to say to it. (Anche la natura è una piccola cosa.) You have no idea, sir, how we have suffered from priests here in the Papal State. Everyone had to go to Confession, and as of course they did not wish to confess their own sins, they confessed other people's,--and told lies, too,--and in that way the priests knew everything. If the priest had heard anything about a person, he or she would get a little ticket from him: 'Come to me at such and such a time! 'Then, when the person went, he would say: 'Are you mad to live with such and such a person without being married!'--and all the while he himself had a woman and a nest full of children. Then he would say: 'I won't have you in my parish,' and he would publish the poor thing's secret to the whole world. Or, if he were more exasperated, he would say: 'Out of the Pope's country!' and send for a few carabineers; they would take one to a cart and drive one to the frontier; there, there were fresh carabineers, who took one farther --and all without trial, or any enquiry. Often the accusation was false. But we were ruled by spies, and all their power was based on the confessional, which is nothing but spying. Shortly before Easter, a priest came and counted how many there were in the house. If afterwards there were one who did not go to mass, then his name was stuck up on the church door as an infidel, in disgrace. It is many years now since I have been to any confessor. When I die, I shall say: 'God, forgive me my sins and my mistakes,' and shall die in peace without any priest."

Whatever we talk about, Maria always comes back to her hatred of the priests. The other day, we were speaking of the annoyance I had been subjected to by a compatriot of mine, K.B., who came to see me, but looked more particularly at a large fiasco I had standing there, containing four bottles of Chianti. He tasted the wine, which was very inferior, declared it 'nice,' and began to drink, ten glasses straight off. At first he was very polite to me, and explained that it was impossible to spend a morning in a more delightful manner than by visiting the Sistine Chapel first, and me in my sick-room afterwards, but by degrees he became ruder and ruder, and as his drunkenness increased I sank in his estimation. At last he told me that I was intolerably conceited, and started abusing me thoroughly. Lying defenceless in bed, and unable to move, I was obliged to ring for Maria, and whisper to her to fetch a few gentlemen from the Scandinavian Club, who could take the drunken man home, after he had wasted fully six hours of my day. I managed in this way to get him out of the door. He was hardly gone than Maria burst out: "Che porcheria!" and then added, laughing, to show me her knowledge of languages: "Cochonnerie, Schweinerei!" She has a remarkable memory for the words she has heard foreigners use. She knows a number of French words, which she pronounces half like Italian, and she also knows a little Russian and a little German, having, when a young girl, kept house for a Russian prince and his family.