Returning to Benedetto, who was gesticulating furiously, I told him to leave the studio, that his conduct was infamous, and if I heard of his ill-treating his wife I would have him punished.
“Debole!” (idiot!) he replied, shrugging his shoulders, and departing amid derisive cheers.
Several days passed, and no signs of Benedetto. By the end of a week he was forgotten. Three days before my departure from Rome his wife entered my studio.
“You are leaving Rome,” she said, “and I want you to take me with you.”
“Take you with me!—but your husband?”
“Dead,” she answered tranquilly.
A thought crossed my mind.
“Did you kill him?” I said.
She made an affirmative sign, adding, “But I meant to die too.”
“How was it?” I asked.