"I won't believe it! I won't believe it! I won't believe it!"
She laughed at me. "Now wriggle away!" she seemed to say.
From the crown of my head to the heel of my foot I was full of bitterness. If such a thing as this could happen, why shouldn't that other thing happen, too? Why shouldn't another fallen writer forget the promise he had made to his wife, seize the hand of his former ideal, and fly away with her out into the world? That would be tit for tat.
Her two eyes flamed as she looked at me and laughed. It was just as if she knew she had wounded me and would fain stir me up to vengeance.
She had destroyed my idol: belief in a woman's heart.
Women were all alike!
"No, no, no! My wife is not like other women."
I sat down on the edge of the precipitous rock, made a speaking-trumpet of the palms of both hands, and called loudly down into the valley "Wasa hóa!"
The echo repeated my words. And not long afterwards could be heard from below the proud refrain:—
"Whom he meets upon his way
Him he cruelly doth slay;
But if a pretty girl draw near,
Ah, then what gayer cavalier!
Tremble and quake ye tongues that lie,
And speak his name all whisp'ringly:
Diavolo, diavolo, diavolo!"